Core–Shell Carbon Nanofibers-NiFe Structure on 3D Porous Carbon Foam: Facilitating a Promising Trajectory toward Decarbonizing Energy Production

In this work, a low-cost, light-weight, highly efficient, and durable electrode in which NiFe-layered double hydroxide is electrodeposited on a carbon nanofiber (CNF) core supported on a carbon foam (CF) is introduced. The resulting 3D NiFe-CNFs-CF electrode shows excellent oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction performance in alkaline media. When used as an anode and a cathode in the same cell, a current density of 10 mA cm−2 is achieved, at a cell voltage of 1.65 V. Moreover, good stability over a long testing time (50 h) is demonstrated. The ternary hybrid electrode gives rise to an excellent performance-to-weight ratio owing to its very low bulk density (≈34 mg cm−3) inherited from super lightweight components composed of CF and CNFs. The developed electrode can potentially be used in large-scale alkaline water electrolysis, in facilities such as offshore hydrogen production platforms, which can complement the variable renewable energy production of wind farms through hydrogen storage and fuel cells.</p

NiCo Nanoneedles on 3D Carbon Nanotubes/Carbon Foam Electrode as an Efficient Bi-Functional Catalyst for Electro-Oxidation of Water and Methanol

In this study, we report a 3D structured carbon foam electrode assembled from a bi-functional NiCo catalyst, carbon nanotubes (CNT), and a monolith 3D structured carbon foam (CF) as a highly active and stable electrode for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). When the NiCo@CNTs/CF electrode was used as an anode in OER, after the anodization step, the electrode required a small overpotential of 320 mV to reach the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and demonstrated excellent stability over a long testing time (total 30 h) in 1 M KOH. The as-prepared NiCo@CNTs/CF electrode also exhibited a good performance towards methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) with high current density, 100 mA cm−2 at 0.6 V vs. Ag/AgCl, and good stability in 1 M KOH plus 0.5 M CH3OH electrolyte. The NiCo@CNTs/CF catalyst/electrode provides a potential for application as an anode in water electrolysis and direct methanol fuel cells

Synthesis and characterization of CdS nanoparticle anchored Silica-Titania mixed Oxide mesoporous particles : Efficient photocatalyst for discoloration of textile effluent

An efficient photocatalyst consisting of CdS nanoparticle dispersed mesoporous silica-titania was prepared using amphiphilic triblock copolymer P123 as template and silica-titania sol-gel precursors. The CdS nanoparticle was incorporated into silica-titania mesoporous nanosturctures by post impregnation method. The synthesized catalyst has been characterized by FTIR, TEM, SEM, and EDAX analysis. The CdS nanoparticles incorporated silica-titania mesoporous particles exhibited an enhanced light harvesting, large surface area and excellent photocatalytic activity. Photocatalytic degradation experiments on methyleneblue solution at different pH of the medium revealed that, the catalyst ST0.5CdS0.2 is more effective in basic medium with a degradation efficiency of 98%. In addition, the catalyst is also tested for dye degradation against a raw textile dye effluent containing multiple dye molecules, and their results indicated that the raw effluent can be decolorized within 90min using ST0.5CdS0.2 catalyst.Bio4Energ

Synthesis and characterization of CdS nanoparticle anchored Silica-Titania mixed Oxide mesoporous particles : Efficient photocatalyst for discoloration of textile effluent

An efficient photocatalyst consisting of CdS nanoparticle dispersed mesoporous silica-titania was prepared using amphiphilic triblock copolymer P123 as template and silica-titania sol-gel precursors. The CdS nanoparticle was incorporated into silica-titania mesoporous nanosturctures by post impregnation method. The synthesized catalyst has been characterized by FTIR, TEM, SEM, and EDAX analysis. The CdS nanoparticles incorporated silica-titania mesoporous particles exhibited an enhanced light harvesting, large surface area and excellent photocatalytic activity. Photocatalytic degradation experiments on methyleneblue solution at different pH of the medium revealed that, the catalyst ST0.5CdS0.2 is more effective in basic medium with a degradation efficiency of 98%. In addition, the catalyst is also tested for dye degradation against a raw textile dye effluent containing multiple dye molecules, and their results indicated that the raw effluent can be decolorized within 90min using ST0.5CdS0.2 catalyst.Bio4Energ

Synthesis and characterization of CdS nanoparticle anchored Silica-Titania mixed Oxide mesoporous particles : Efficient photocatalyst for discoloration of textile effluent

An efficient photocatalyst consisting of CdS nanoparticle dispersed mesoporous silica-titania was prepared using amphiphilic triblock copolymer P123 as template and silica-titania sol-gel precursors. The CdS nanoparticle was incorporated into silica-titania mesoporous nanosturctures by post impregnation method. The synthesized catalyst has been characterized by FTIR, TEM, SEM, and EDAX analysis. The CdS nanoparticles incorporated silica-titania mesoporous particles exhibited an enhanced light harvesting, large surface area and excellent photocatalytic activity. Photocatalytic degradation experiments on methyleneblue solution at different pH of the medium revealed that, the catalyst ST0.5CdS0.2 is more effective in basic medium with a degradation efficiency of 98%. In addition, the catalyst is also tested for dye degradation against a raw textile dye effluent containing multiple dye molecules, and their results indicated that the raw effluent can be decolorized within 90min using ST0.5CdS0.2 catalyst.Bio4Energ

Efficient hydrothermal deoxygenation of tall oil fatty acids into n-paraffinic hydrocarbons and alcohols in the presence of aqueous formic acid

Hydrothermal deoxygenation of tall oil fatty acids (TOFA) was investigated in the presence of aqueous formic acid (0.5–7.5 wt%) as a H2 donor in the presence of subcritical H2O pressure (569–599 K). Pd and Ru nanoparticles supported on carbon (5% Pd/CSigma, 5% Ru/CSigma, 10% Pd/CO850_DP, and 5% Ru/COPcomm_DP) were found to be efficient catalysts for deoxygenation of TOFA. The reaction pathway was mainly influenced by the concentration of formic acid and the catalyst. In case of Pd catalysts, in the presence of 0–2.5 wt% formic acid, decarboxylation was the dominant pathway producing n-paraffinic hydrocarbons with one less carbon atom (heptadecane yield up to 94 wt%), while with 5–7.5% formic acid, a hydrodeoxygenation/hydrogenation mechanism was favored producing C18 deoxygenation products octadecanol and octadecane as the main products (yields up to 70 wt%). In contrast, Ru catalysts produced a mixture of C5-C20 (n-and iso-paraffinic) hydrocarbons via decarboxylation, cracking and isomerization (up to 58 wt% C17 yield and total hydrocarbon yield up to 95 wt%) irrespective of formic acid concentration. Kinetic studies showed that the rates of deoxygenation displayed Arrhenius type behavior with apparent activation energies of 134.44 ± 31.36 kJ/mol and 148.92 ± 3.66 kJ/mol, for the 5% Pd/CSigma and 5% Ru/CSigma catalyst, respectively. Furthermore, the experiments with glycerol tristearate, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed biodiesel, and hydrolyzed rapeseed oil produced identical products confirming the versatility of the aforementioned catalytic systems for deoxygenation of C18 feedstocks.Bio4Energ

Pore size-excluded low viscous porous liquids for CO2 sorption at room temperature and thermodynamic modeling study

Herein, we report porous ionic liquids (type-III) designed to utilize microporous ZIF-8 moieties with functional ionic liquids such as 8-(2-methoxyethyl)-1,8-Diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-en-8-ium, Bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonamide ([MEDBU][TFSI] and Trioctylammonium 4-para-tert-butylbenzoiate [TOAH][PTBBA]). The prepared materials were thoroughly characterized by means of XRD, FT-IR, SEM, TEM, BET, TGA, DSC and viscometry techniques. The idea of combining the intrinsic properties of ionic liquids with microporous architecture to prepare porous ionic liquids yields promising fluidic materials that have received attention in industrial applications such as gas sorption and separation etc. The prepared porous ionic liquids possess unique physico-chemical properties such as low viscosity, high thermal stability, low vapor pressure, reusability and their fluidic nature renders the materials suitable for CO2 capture. Herein introduced porous ionic liquids (ILs) showed enhanced CO2 uptake (0.92 mmol/g in [TOAH][PTBBA]-Z100 and 1.16 mmol/g in [MEDBU][TFSI]-Z200), or in other words, 15–47% higher sorption capacity compared to neat ionic liquids. This concept overcomes the drawbacks of highly viscous ILs and their limited CO2 sorption capacity. Thermodynamic modeling further demonstrated that the enthalpy of sorption is only −9.99 kJ mol−1, indicating that significantly less energy is required for regeneration. This is promising for the potential use of these fluidic materials in continuous separation processes on an industrial scale, as a better alternative to the existing hazardous amine scrubbing

Core–Shell Carbon Nanofibers‐NiFe Structure on 3D Porous Carbon Foam: Facilitating a Promising Trajectory toward Decarbonizing Energy Production

In this work, a low-cost, light-weight, highly efficient, and durable electrode in which NiFe-layered double hydroxide is electrodeposited on a carbon nanofiber (CNF) core supported on a carbon foam (CF) is introduced. The resulting 3D NiFe-CNFs-CF electrode shows excellent oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction performance in alkaline media. When used as an anode and a cathode in the same cell, a current density of 10 mA cm−2 is achieved, at a cell voltage of 1.65 V. Moreover, good stability over a long testing time (50 h) is demonstrated. The ternary hybrid electrode gives rise to an excellent performance-to-weight ratio owing to its very low bulk density (≈34 mg cm−3) inherited from super lightweight components composed of CF and CNFs. The developed electrode can potentially be used in large-scale alkaline water electrolysis, in facilities such as offshore hydrogen production platforms, which can complement the variable renewable energy production of wind farms through hydrogen storage and fuel cells

The activation of C–O bonds in lignin Miscanthus over acidic heterogeneous catalysts: towards lignin depolymerisation to monomer units

peer reviewedOne-pot depolymerisation of lignin, extracted from Miscanthus plants under acidic (formic acid lignin, FAL) or basic (ammonia lignin, AL) conditions, over Ni- and/or Nb-doped SBA-15, was the subject of this study. The aforementioned acid catalysts prepared by sol–gel method were characterized by SEM–EDX, ATR-FTIR, Raman, XRD, N2 adsorption/desorption isotherms, CO2-TPD and NH3-TPD techniques. The increase in acidity due to the insertion of Nb into the SBA-15 structure promoted the selective cleavage of β–O–4 from ammonia lignin, leading to aromatic monomer yields up to 22 wt% in 6 h at 180 °C under 50 atm H2. The catalytic performances of Ni-Nb-SBA-15 as well as its stability were influenced by the chemical composition of the lignin sample as results of its extraction from the Miscanthus plant