Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Commons^™

Energy From Chemical Reactions: Understanding The Combustion Engine, Tammy Guthrie, Kathy Prophet, Greg Herzig, Cassie Kautzer

Middle School Lesson Plans

Automobiles produce a large amount of heat generated by the burning of gasoline. Burning gasoline is a chemical reaction that causes a phase change. This is called combustible energy. During combustion fuel combines with oxygen to release energy (such as heat, light, sound) along with another product that is often considered waste. Most of the energy produced is not used to power the automobile, but is released as heat. 19.3 pounds of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is produced from the combustion of 1 gallon of U.S. gasoline according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Characteristics And Mechanism For The Simons Electrochemical Fluorination Of Methanesulfonyl Fluoride, Wen-Lin Xu, Bao-Tong Li, Da-Wei Wang, Ya-Qiong Wang

Journal of Electrochemistry

The characteristics and mechanism for the Simons electrochemical fluorination processes were investigated during the electrochemical fluorination of CH₃SO₂F to CF₃SO₂F. The results showed that the reaction mechanism for the electrochemical fluorination of organic compounds to organic fluorides was the same as that of chemical fluorination processes using fluorinating agents such as CoF₃. The electrochemical fluorination in anhydrous HF was a heterogeneous process, and nickel fluorides on the surface of the nickel anode played the role of a mediator in the Simons process to transfer oxidation potential from the anode to …

Ionic Liquid-Supported Tempo/Polymeric Ionic-Liquid/Carbon Black Ternary Composites: Preparations And Applications In Electrochemical Oxidation Of Alcohols, Xin Lin, Cao-Cao Sun, Zhi-Rong Liu, Cheng-Chu Zeng

Journal of Electrochemistry

To effectively recover redox catalyst and supporting electrolyte, a novel ternary composite consisting of ionic liquid-supported TEMPO, polymeric ionic-liquid and carbon black was prepared. The ionic-liquid supported redox catalyst TEMPO-IL-BF₄ was firstly synthesized from 4-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-N-oxyl, and followed by the reaction of polydimethyldiallylammonium chloride (PDDA) and bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide lithium salt (LiTFSI) to form poly[diallyldimethylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide] (PDDA(Tf₂N)). A combination of the above mentioned two synthesized materials and carbon black afforded to obtain the ternary composite, which was used as the recoverable supporting electrolyte and mediator for the electrochemical oxidation of alcohol. The results indicate that various alcohols could be oxidized …

Electrochemical Synthesis Of Homoallylic Alcohols And Homoallylic Amines, Wei-Qiang Zhong, Xiang-Hui Liang, Jing-Mei Huang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Electrochemical technique has been widely applied in the organic synthesis. This review focuses on the electrochemical synthesis of homoallylic alcohols and homoallylic amines from the allylation of carbonyl compounds and imines. This method has been developed impressively, especially in the field of electrochemical allylation in a green solvent of aqueous media. Improvement of the efficiency of the electricity, regio-selectivity and chiral synthesis are expected.

Preparations And Applications Of Irsnox Electrode In Electrochemical Synthesis Of 2,5-Dichlorophenol, Xiang-Yu Ma, Xu-Guo Tu, Rui-Nan He, Ya Chen, Gui-Sheng Zhu, Shou-Yan Shao, Song Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

The electrodes of titanium based iridium tin oxides (IrSnOx) have been prepared by traditional thermal decomposition method and further applied to the electrosynthsis of 2,5-dichlorophenol in order to explore a green and high efficient synthesis route. The results showed that the electrode surface existed apparent cracks, while the intermediate layer prepared with Sn:Sb=94:6 existed less cracks and longer life time. The main products of the electrolytic reaction were 2,5-dichlorophenol, p-chlorophenol, and 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene. The electrosynthsis yield of 2,5-dichlorophenol reached 57% and the selectivity of 2,5-dichlorophenol was as high as 93% by using the IrSnOx as an anode, which is obviously better …

Electrocatalysis Of Nanotin Dioxide In The Battery Reaction Of Zinc-Nitrobenzene, Xu-Guo Tu, Xiang-Yu Ma, Rui-Nan He, Xiao-Juan Wang, Chen Ling, Yun-Xia Sun, Song Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

The tin dioxide (SnO₂) nanoparticles were synthesized by using a simple hydrothermal route in the presence of tetrapropyl ammonium bromide (TPAB) as a surfactant. Accordingly, the titanium mesh based SnO₂ catalyst electrode was prepared. The morphologies and structures of SnO₂ nanostructures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction spectrometry. The influences of reactant concentration, reaction temperature and time on the morphology of the products were investigated in detail. The electrocatalytic performance of SnO₂ for the reduction of nitrobenzene with zinc was studied. Possible formation process and growth mechanism for such hierarchical SnO_{2 …}

Selective Direct Electro-Oxidation Of C-H Bond, Yan-Mei Liao, Qian-Qian Wu, An-Lun Zhang, Ying-Hong Zhu, Chun-An Ma

Journal of Electrochemistry

Carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bond is the most basic chemical bond in organic compounds. The activation and direct conversion of C-H bond are the effective methodology for synthesis of different kinds of organic compounds from alkane compounds. The oxidative activation and functionalization of C-H bonds constitute an important and challenging area of investigation. The electro-oxidative activation of C-H bonds to form new C-O, C-C and C-N bonds has proven to be interesting and important in organic chemistry using the clean electron as the oxidant. The target C-O, C-C and C-N compounds could be selectively achieved by choosing the appropriate electrode, supporting electrolyte …

Acetone Production, Ali Ibrahim Neamah

The Hilltop Review

Iraq struggles with a lack of acetone production. This overall deficiency impacts the economy of countries like Iraq. Inasmuch, acetone is a vital chemical component for many items imported into this country such as nail polish remover. Therefore, a process of acetone production is proposed in this study.

The ideal process of producing acetone with 90.0% isopropyl alcohol (IPA) decomposition method is proposed within this study. The feed of the process is 100000 ton/ day. This amount of feed is suggested due to the demographic need of acetone for the Iraqi population as well as the surrounding Middle Eastern region. …

Methanol Steam Reforming: Na Doping Of Pt/Ysz Provides Fine Tuning Of Selectivity, Michela Martinelli, Gary Jacobs, Uschi M. Graham, Burtron H. Davis

Center for Applied Energy Research Faculty and Staff Publications

In this work, we found that sodium doping can be used to improve CO₂ selectivity for supported Pt catalyst during methanol steam reforming. These materials are usually very active in the low temperature range; however, they are characterized by high selectivity of CO, which is a poison in downstream polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEM-FC) application. With Na doping, we found that CO₂ selectivity was higher than 90% when 2.5 wt.% of sodium was added to Pt/YSZ. We have speculated that the different product distribution is due to a different reaction pathway being opened for CH₃OH …

Sec-Butanol From Crude Butene Feedstock Plant Design, Samantha How, Jacob Przywara, Bryce Robbins, Gavino Valdez

Senior Theses

Sec-butanol, C4H10O, is a flammable alcohol that is widely used as a fuel additive or as a reactant to make butanone, an industrial solvent. A hydration reaction between n-butenes and water, catalyzed by sulfuric acid, is a commonly used process in producing sec-butanol. However, a more challenging reaction and separation scheme is presented with a crude feedstock of butenes because of the abundance of azeotropes produced by side reactions. The development of a new plant design is relevant to industrial chemical plants that produce large amounts of crude butene side products, and can be useful by increasing plant efficiency and …

Designing Pt-Skin Of Pt-Based Bimetallic Electrocatalysts For Oxygen Reduction Reaction, Binwei Zhang, Yunxiao Wang, Yanfei Xu, Huakun Liu, Shixue Dou

Journal of Electrochemistry

In the past decade, great advancement has been made in the development of nanocatalysts for energy conversion and storage. Pt-skin of Pt-based bimetallic has shown a great potential in the tuning the electronic structures of electrocatalytically active materials toward oxygen reduction reaction. Here, we offer a brief overview of the recent research on the design and preparation of catalysts. Our focus is paid on the systematic studies of preparation and performance of Pt-skin catalysts towards oxygen reduction reaction.

Recent Progress In Template-Assisted Synthesis Of Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbons For Oxygen Electroreduction, Wenhan Niu, Ligui Li, Shaowei Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

Nitrogen (N)-doped porous carbons are potential alternatives to precious metal catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathodes of proton exchange membrane fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Template-assisted synthesis has been used extensively as a robust and versatile method in the preparation of such carbon catalysts, where the ORR activity has been found to be dependent on various structural parameters, such as the concentrations and molecular configurations of the dopants, and the porosity, surface accessibility and electrical conductivity of the carbon materials. In this review, we summarize recent progress in this area of research focusing on the design, preparation …

Comparative Studies Of Fe, Ni, Co And Their Bimetallic Nanoparticles For Electrochemical Water Oxidation, Maduraiveeran Govindhan, Brennan Mao, Aicheng Chen

Journal of Electrochemistry

The design of efficient, durable, and earth-abundant electrocatalysts via environmentally compatible strategies for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a vital for energy conversion processes. Herein we report a facile approach for the fabrication of low-cost and earth abundant metal catalysts, including iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), CoNi, and CoFe nanoparticles (NPs) on titanium (Ti) substrates through a one-step electrochemical deposition. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectrocopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and electrochemical techniques were employed to characterize these nanoparticles. Our electrochemical results revealed that among the five synthesized nanomaterials, the …

Impact Of Nafion Loading And Anion Adsorption On The Synthesis Of Pt Monolayer Core-Shell Catalysts, Lijun Yang, Dustin Banham, Elod Gyenge, Siyu Ye

Journal of Electrochemistry

Carbon supported palladium (Pd) nanoparticles were used as a model core material for the synthesis of platinum (Pt) monolayer core-shell catalysts using rotating disk electrode method and a copper (Cu) under potential deposition technique. The impact of Nafion on the synthesis process was revealed by electrochemical testing with various Nafion contents. The existence of Nafion influenced the Cu under potential deposition, galvanic replacement and eventually the oxygen reduction reaction activity of the core-shell catalyst. However, as long as the Nafion content was less than 5 wt% in the test film, adding Nafion could help to bind catalyst onto the surface …

Comparison Of Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity Of Pt-Alloy Nanocubes, Yongan Tang, Lin Dai, Shouzhong Zou

Journal of Electrochemistry

Alloying Pt with the first row non-noble transition metals has been demonstrated to increase the catalytic activity toward oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which is the cathode reaction of the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and metal-air batteries. However, how much the ORR activity improvement comes from the alloying elements remains controversial. In this paper, the nanocubes of PtMn, PtFe, PtCo, and PtNi with the similar size and composition were prepared and their ORR activities were explored, in order to investigate the effects of alloying elements on the catalytic activity. The use of cubic shape particles minimizes the contribution to …

Electrodeposition Of Ruo2 Layers On Tio2 Nanotube Array Toward Co2 Electroreduction, Bei Jiang, Lina Zhang, Xianxian Qin, Wenbin Cai

Journal of Electrochemistry

RuO₂/TiO₂ composite materials have multitude of electrocatalytic applications including but not limited to CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR). RuO₂/TiO₂ electrodes were previously prepared by repetitive coating and thermal decomposition (TD) of a Ru(III) precursor solution on Ti substrate. In this work, electrochemical potential cycling is applied to deposit amorphous RuO₂ (α-RuO₂) layers onto TiO₂ nanotube array (TNA) (RuO₂^CV/TNA) preformed on Ti foil. SEM, GIXRD, and voltammetry are applied to characterize the structures of the resulting RuO₂^CV/TNA. Ru loading on the RuO_{2 …}

Design Of 3d Macroporous Inverse Opal Tio2 Binary And Ternary Composites Sensitized With Gold Nanoparticles And Cds Quantum Dots For Photocatalysis, Daniel A. Corella

Master of Science in Chemical Sciences Theses

Materials composed of titanium (IV) oxide (TiO₂) have received enormous scientific interest due to titania’s abundance, non-toxicity, and photocatalytic proficiency, however its large band gap limits its applicability under ambient conditions. Various attempts have been made to incorporate titania into composite systems to sensitize it for activity under a broader range of wavelengths. One such method includes utilizing narrow band gap semiconductors to form an electron transfer process analogous to photosynthesis referred to as a Z-scheme. Z-scheme systems can catalyze the decomposition of aqueous pollutants via generation of reactive oxygen species after input of sunlight. This work reports …

Investigation Of Copper Catalysts For Propylene Epoxidation, Hayden Fowler, Zheng Lu

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

Activity Of Pgm-Free Electrocatalysts For Oxygen Reduction Reaction: Ph And Co-Catalysis Effects, Mario Santiago Rojas Carbonell 8148369

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

Fuel cells offer a source to the current and always increasing demand for electric power. But as any new technology, there are challenges that need to be addressed to render it feasible for the market place. One of this challenges is finding the appropriate materials to catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) that occurs in the cathode. Oxygen is used as an oxidant in a significant portion of the fuel cells due to its readily availability and high reduction potential. Now, one the bottlenecks that stops the large-scale adoption is the expensive and rare metals that have been used as …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Properties Of Graphene-Based Hybrids With Cobalt Oxides For Electrochemical Energy Storage And Electrocatalytic Glucose Sensing, Sara C. Botero Carrizosa

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A library of graphene-based hybrid materials was synthesized as novel hybrid electrochemical electrodes for electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices and electrocatalytical sensing namely enzymeless glucose sensing. The materials used were supercapacitive graphene-family nanomaterials (multilayer graphene-MLG; graphene oxide-GO, chemically reduced GO-rGO and electrochemical reduced GOErGO) and pseudocapacitive nanostructured transition metal oxides including cobalt oxide polymorphs (CoO and Co3O4) and cobalt nanoparticles (CoNP). These were combined through physisorption, electrodeposition, and hydrothermal syntheses approaches. This project was carried out to enhance electrochemical performance and to develop electrocatalytic platforms by tailoring structural properties and desired interfaces. Particularly, electrodeposition and hydrothermal synthesis facilitate chemically-bridged …

A Study Of Iron-Nitrogen-Carbon Fuel Cell Catalysts: Chemistry – Nanostructure – Performance, Michael J. Workman

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Fuel cells have the potential to be a pollution-free, low-cost, and energy efficient alternative to the internal combustion engine for transportation and small-scale stationary power applications. The current state of fuel cell technology has already achieved two of these three lofty goals. The remaining barrier to wide-scale deployment is the high cost, which is primarily caused by dependence on large amounts of platinum to catalyze the energy conversion reactions. To overcome this barrier and facilitate the integration of fuel cells into mainstream applications, research into a new class of catalyst materials that do not require platinum is needed.

There has …

The Problem Of The Anode Electrolyte In H-Type Electrolytic Cell For Electrochemical Reduction Of Carbon Dioxide, Rui Zhang, Wei-Xin Lv, Li-Xu Lei

Journal of Electrochemistry

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) was studied in the H-type electrolytic cell. It was found that the voltage between the cathode and the anode would increase during the long time electrolysis process, for this reason the electrolytic process would be unsustainable. After the experimental investigations carried out by constant potential electrolysis, constant current electrolysis, pH test and KHCO₃ concentration analysis of anode electrolyte before and after the electrolysis, the increase in cell voltage might be caused by the following process: H⁺, that was generated from the anodic oxygen evolution reaction, reacted with HCO_{3 …}

Application Of Composite Ionic Liquid In Electro-Oxidation Activation Of A C-H Bond, Zi-Ying Chen, Qian-Qian Wu, Jian-Qing Zhang, Ying-Hong Zhu, Chun-An Ma

Journal of Electrochemistry

In this paper, the ionic liquid/carbon nanotube composite material was prepared through modifying the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate to multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The electro-oxidation properties of p-methoxy toluene (p-MT) were studied using the composite as an electrolyte. The effects of scanning speed, temperature and substrate concentration were studied by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. The electrochemical kinetics of p-MT in this system was also studied. The results showed that the electrochemical oxidation of p-MT in the composite electrolyte solution was irreversible. The process was mainly controlled by diffusion, and the diffusion coefficient (D) was 7.69×10-10 cm²·s^-1. Increasing …

Electrochemical Synthesis Of Porous Polyaniline Electrodes Using Hkust-1 As A Template And Their Electrochemical Supercapacitor Property, Qiong Luan, Chun-Feng Xue, Hong-Ye Zhu, Fu-Juan Yang, Xu-Li Ma, Xiao-Gang Hao

Journal of Electrochemistry

Excellent electrode plays vital important role in the performance of supercapacitors. Polyaniline (PANI) with good conductivity is often used to prepare electrode. However, its available surface is limited and results in a poor supercapacitance in many cases. It is desirable to fabricate an electrode containing electroactive PANI with high surface area deriving from its porous structure. Here, the metal-organic framework (MOF) material with high surface area was selected as a hard template for synthesizing porous PANI. Microporous PANI composite electrodes (Micro-PANI/CC) were fabricated by depositing aniline on to carbon cloth (CC) pre-coated with MOF material of HKUST-1 using a unipolar …

Sn-Doped Α-Fe2O3 Photocatalyst Containing Oxygen Vacancy For Water-Splitting, Zu-Hua Wang, Dong-Fang Niu, Hui-Cheng Li, Rong-Bin Du, Heng Xu, Xin-Sheng Zhang

Journal of Electrochemistry

The α-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles containing oxygen vacancies were synthesized in atmospheric N₂ by dip-dropping method without a high vacuum employed before annealing. The influences of annealing atmosphere and Sn-doping on the photocatalytic performance of α-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles were studied by annealing the photocatalyst in N₂ or air and adding SnCl₄ to the precursor directly. The results showed that the current density of Sn-doping α-Fe₂O₃ annealed in N₂ at 550 °C and 1.23 V (vs. RHE) was 35 times greater than that of pristine α-Fe₂O₃ annealed in …

Direct Electrochemistry Of Glucose Oxidase Based On Ws2 Quantum Dots And Its Biosensing Application, Chen-Lu Li, Hua-Ping Peng, Zhong-Nan Huang, Yi-Lun Sheng, Pei-Wen Wu, Xin-Hua Lin

Journal of Electrochemistry

In this study, a novel electrochemical glucose biosensor has been developed by immobilizing glucose oxidase (GOx) on tungsten disulfide quantum dots (WS₂ QDs) on the surface of glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Transmission electron microscopy, UV-vis spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry were employed to characterize the morphology, structure, and electrochemical behaviors of the as-prepared WS₂ QDs and the biofilm modified electrode. The results suggested that the WS₂ QDs could accelerate the electron transfer between the electrode and the immobilized enzyme, which enabled the direct electrochemistry of GOx without any electron mediator. Besides, the immobilized GOx in WS₂ QDsfilm …

Application Of Adamantane Schiff Base Nickel Complexes/Graphene Oxide/Glassy Carbon Modified Electrode In Detection Of Carmine, Peng Guo, Zheng Liu, Hai-Ying Li, Li-Ming Ma

Journal of Electrochemistry

The Schiff base nickel complexes/graphene oxide/glassy carbon electrodes were prepared by embedded method and electrodeposition on which were used to quantitatively detect the contents of carmine. Cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and other methods were employed to characterize properties and morphologies of the modified electrodes. The results show that the adamantane double Schiff base nickel complexes/graphene oxide/glassy carbon electrode had high electric catalytic activity toward carmine oxidation reaction, and might provide an easy and quick way to detect carmine content with good reproducibility.

Enzyme-Catalyzed Reactions Using Enzymes Immobilized On Non-Spherical Particles, Alexander D. Redfearn

Honors Theses and Capstones

Modern and industrial chemical reactions often utilize enzyme-catalyzed reactions to increase product yields. Given the high cost of enzymes it is desirable to preserve the activity of the enzymes and reuse them several times. In this study, I explored the possibility of immobilizing enzymes on custom-made non-spherical SU-8 microparticles to conduct enzyme-catalyzed reactions in flow reactors. The decomposition of hydrogen peroxide using bovine liver catalase was studied due to its well-understood enzyme kinetics. Soft lithography techniques were used to synthesize prismatic SU-8 microparticles. I will discuss the progress that has been made in immobilizing the enzyme on the particle surface …

Synthesis Of Copper Oxide Nanoparticles In Droplet Flow Reactors, Christopher Reilly

Honors Theses and Capstones

Synthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles within droplet flow reactors is advantageous over batch synthesis due to the elimination of concentration and temperature gradients inside the reactor and prevention of reactor fouling. We present results on the synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles using aqueous droplets of copper acetate and acetic acid inside a bulk stream of sodium hydroxide in 1-octanol. Varying the copper acetate, acetic acid, and sodium hydroxide concentration resulted in needle-like and plate-like nanoparticles of varying sizes. The rate of mass transfer from the bulk to the droplet phase was found to increase with flow rate and addition of …

Photocatalytic Decomposition Of Phenol Under Visible And Uv Light Utilizing Titanium Dioxide Based Catalysts, Marjorie G. Steiner

Honors Theses and Capstones

Pollution in wastewater effluvia from phenol and phenolic compounds is a common occurrence in many industrial manufacturing plants. Phenol is toxic to human beings as well as a contaminant to the environment, meanwhile, it is difficult to remove from wastewater due to its non-biodegradable nature. To boost the rate of decomposition, various catalytic approaches have been developed. With the interest of decreasing operation cost, titanium dioxide (TiO₂) based catalysts have emerged as good candidates for the photocatalytic process.

In this honors project, a series of TiO₂ based catalysts, including TiO₂, N-TiO₂, Cu-TiO_{2 …}