Liu, X;
Zhang, Y;
Nahil, MA;
Williams, PT;
Wu, C;
(2017)
Development of Ni- and Fe- based catalysts with different metal particle sizes for the production of carbon nanotubes and hydrogen from thermo-chemical conversion of waste plastics.
Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis
, 125
pp. 32-39.
10.1016/j.jaap.2017.05.001.
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Abstract
Co-production of valuable hydrogen and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) has obtained growing interest for the management of waste plastics through thermo-chemical conversion technology. Catalyst development is one of the key factors for this process to improve hydrogen production and the quality of CNTs. In this work, Ni/SiO2 and Fe/SiO2 catalysts with different metal particle sizes were investigated in relation to their performance on the production of hydrogen and CNTs from catalytic gasification of waste polypropylene, using a two-stage fixed-bed reaction system. The influences of the type of metals and the crystal size of metal particles on product yields and the production of CNTs in terms of morphology have been studied using a range of techniques; gas chromatography (GC); X-ray diffraction (XRD); temperature programme oxidation (TPO); scanning electron microscopy (SEM); transmission electron microscopy (TEM) etc. The results show that the Fe-based catalysts, in particular with large particle size (∼80 nm), produced the highest yield of hydrogen (∼25.60 mmol H2 g−1 plastic) and the highest yield of carbons (29 wt.%), as well as the largest fraction of graphite carbons (as obtained from TPO analysis of the reacted catalyst). Both Fe- and Ni-based catalysts with larger metal particles produced higher yield of hydrogen compared with the catalysts with smaller metal particles, respectively. Furthermore, the CNTs formed using the Ni/SiO2-S catalyst (with the smallest metal particles around 8 nm) produced large amount of amorphous carbons, which are undesirable for the process of CNTs production.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Development of Ni- and Fe- based catalysts with different metal particle sizes for the production of carbon nanotubes and hydrogen from thermo-chemical conversion of waste plastics |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jaap.2017.05.001 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaap.2017.05.001 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Hydrogen, Carbon nanotubes, Iron, Nickel, Catalyst |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Chemical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10043530 |
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