Natural gas is widely used in industry for hydrogen and synthesis gas production. The most common processes employed for this production are steam methane reforming, hydrocarbon reforming, coal gasification and water electrolysis. These processes however have countless limitations, for instance, they require specific catalysts which are susceptible to poisoning, are expensive for common applications and usually evolve CO2 as by-product requiring expensive sequestration procedures. Using an atmospheric pressure microwave plasma apparatus in oxygen-free conditions, it is possible to obtain a 90% conversion degree of not-purified natural gas to hydrogen. During this reaction, highly ordered carbonaceous byproducts are formed. The carbonaceous powders obtained contain elevated amount of carbon nanoforms and show high conductivity. The structural and chemical peculiarities of the formed nanocarbon can provide high value to manufacturing processes of environmental-friendly devices that generate, harvest or store energy using novel printing technologies, catalyst supports for water splitting, fuel cells and solar cells. Moreover, it can be an advantageous alternative to the more expensive carbon nanotubes and graphene to develop better performing electrodes in supercapacitors. Finally, they can bring about an opportunity to formulate inks for printing, an intermediate layer connecting the carbon electrode with the current collector of a printed supercapacitor. The goal of this study is to prepare and characterise liquid suspensions which can be used as inks for drop-on-demand ink-jet printing to create flexible electrodes for energy applications. In the contribution, carbon nanoforms generation is described and the deriving inks properties are discussed also in terms of stability and printability on different substrates.
Conductive inks from carbonaceous by-products for energy applications
FRANZOSO, FLAVIA;MAGNACCA, Giuliana;
2015-01-01
Abstract
Natural gas is widely used in industry for hydrogen and synthesis gas production. The most common processes employed for this production are steam methane reforming, hydrocarbon reforming, coal gasification and water electrolysis. These processes however have countless limitations, for instance, they require specific catalysts which are susceptible to poisoning, are expensive for common applications and usually evolve CO2 as by-product requiring expensive sequestration procedures. Using an atmospheric pressure microwave plasma apparatus in oxygen-free conditions, it is possible to obtain a 90% conversion degree of not-purified natural gas to hydrogen. During this reaction, highly ordered carbonaceous byproducts are formed. The carbonaceous powders obtained contain elevated amount of carbon nanoforms and show high conductivity. The structural and chemical peculiarities of the formed nanocarbon can provide high value to manufacturing processes of environmental-friendly devices that generate, harvest or store energy using novel printing technologies, catalyst supports for water splitting, fuel cells and solar cells. Moreover, it can be an advantageous alternative to the more expensive carbon nanotubes and graphene to develop better performing electrodes in supercapacitors. Finally, they can bring about an opportunity to formulate inks for printing, an intermediate layer connecting the carbon electrode with the current collector of a printed supercapacitor. The goal of this study is to prepare and characterise liquid suspensions which can be used as inks for drop-on-demand ink-jet printing to create flexible electrodes for energy applications. In the contribution, carbon nanoforms generation is described and the deriving inks properties are discussed also in terms of stability and printability on different substrates.
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