Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T02:30:20.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Iron Modified Graphitized Carbon Aerogels for Sustainable Energy Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2013

Praveen Kolla
Affiliation:
Material Engineering Science, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701
Kimberly Kerce
Affiliation:
Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701
Yong Zhao
Affiliation:
Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701
Joseph Houk
Affiliation:
Chemical and Biological Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701
Yahaya Normah
Affiliation:
Chemical and Biological Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701
Wendell Rhine
Affiliation:
Aspen Aerogel Inc., Northborough, MA 01532, USA
Alevtina Smirnova
Affiliation:
Chemistry and Applied Biological Sciences, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701
Get access

Abstract

Mesoporous carbon aerogel has been impregnated with iron (10 and 15 wt. %) as a catalyst for graphitization by wet incipient method. The iron modified and non-modified carbon aerogels were heat treated at 900°C, 1200°C, and 1400°C in argon. The crystal structure, morphology, and electro catalytic activity of the resulting nano-composites have been studied. It was found that, the degree of graphitization was proportional to the concentration of Iron phase and the ratio of iron to iron nitride phase in the heat-treated samples. In carbon aerogel sample sintered at 1200°C with 15 wt. % of iron phase, mesoporosity in the range of 3-4 nm and microporosity (< 2nm) was significantly improved by graphitization without affecting the Carbon Aerogels mesoporosity in 10-30 nm range. In this case of 15 wt. % iron doped samples, HRTEM analysis confirms the presence of uniformly distributed ∼43.5nm iron nanoparticles surrounded by graphene layers. Correspondingly, improved graphitization and presence of iron nitride resulted in 3.65 electron assisted oxygen reduction reaction.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Biener, J., Stadermann, M., Suss, M., Worsley, M. A., Biener, M. M., Rose, K. A. and Baumann, T. F., “Advanced crabon aerogels for energy applications,Energy & Environmental Science, vol. 4, pp. 656667, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Candelaria, S. L., Shao, Y., Zhou, W., Li, X., Xiao, J., Zhang, J.-G., Yong, W., Jun, L., Jinghong, L. and Guozhong, C., “Nanostructured carbon for energy storage and conversion,Nano Energy, vol. 1, pp. 195220, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotet, L. C., Gich, M., Roig, A., Popescu, I. C., Cosoveanu, V., Molins, E. and Danciu, V., “Synthesis and structural characteristics of carbon aerogels with a high content of Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Pd,Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, vol. 352, pp. 27722777, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maldonado-Hódar, F. J., Moreno-Castilla, C., Rivera-Utrilla, J., Hanzawa, Y. and Yamada, Y., “Catalytic Graphitization of Carbon Aerogels by Transition Metals,Langmuir, vol. 16, pp. 43674373, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiner, S. A., Baumann, T. F., Kong, J., Satcher, J. H. and Dresselhaus, M. S., “Iron-Doped Carbon Aerogels: Novel Porous Substrates for Direct Growth of Carbon Nanotubes,Langmuir, vol. 23, pp. 51615166, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, D.-W., Li, F., Liu, M., Lu, G. Q. and Cheng, H.-M., “3D Aperiodic Hierarchical Porous Graphitic Carbon Material for High-Rate Electrochemical Capacitive Energy Storage,Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol.47, pp. 373376, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, G., Nelson, M., Ma, S., Meng, H., Cui, G. and Shen, P. K., “Synthesis of nitrogen-doped onion-like carbon and its use in carbon-based CoFe binary non-precious-metal catalysts for oxygen-reduction,Carbon, vol. 49, pp. 39723982, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, S.-H. and Wu, J.-R., “Nitrogen-doped ordered mesoporous carbons as electrocatalysts for methanol-tolerant oxygen reduction in acid solution,International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 36, pp. 8793, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oh, H.-S., Oh, J.-G., Lee, W. H., Kim, H.-J. and Kim, H., “The influence of the structural properties of carbon on the oxygen reduction reaction of nitrogen modified carbon based catalysts,International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 36, pp. 81818186, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esconjauregui, S., Whelan, C. M. and Maex, K., “The reasons why metals catalyze the nucleation and growth of carbon nanotubes and other carbon nanomorphologies,Carbon, vol. 47, pp. 659669, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunadian, I., Andrews, R., Qian, D., and Pinar Mengüç, M.;, “Growth kinetics of MWCNTs synthesized by a continuous-feed CVD method,Carbon, vol. 47, pp. 384395, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weissker, U., Hampel, S., Leonhardt, A. and Büchner, B., “Carbon Nanotubes Filled with Ferromagnetic Materials,Materials, vol. 3, pp. 43874427, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiciński, W., Norek, M. and Bystrzejewski, M., “Monolithic porous graphitic carbons obtained through catalytic graphitization of carbon xerogels,Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, vol. 74, pp. 101109, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osorio, A. G., Takimi, A. S. and Bergmann, C. P., “Synthesis of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes by CVD Technique: A Review,” NanoCarbon 2011, vol. 3, Avellaneda, C., Ed., ed: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 113124, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worsley, M. A., Stadermann, M., Wang, Y. M., Satcher, J. H. Jr and Baumann, T. F., “High surface area carbon aerogels as porous substrates for direct growth of carbon nanotubes,Chemical Communications, vol. 46, pp. 92539255, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, D., Liu, Y., Wang, Y., Zhang, H., Huang, L. and Yu, G., “Synthesis of N-Doped Graphene by Chemical Vapor Deposition and Its Electrical Properties,Nano Letters, vol. 9, pp. 17521758, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanzawa, Y., Hatori, H., Yoshizawa, N., and Yamada, Y., “Structural changes in carbon aerogels with high temperature treatment,Carbon, vol. 40, pp. 575581, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar