Carbon Nanosheets Synthesis in a Gliding Arc Reactor: On the Reaction Routes and Process Parameters

  • PDF / 4,473,685 Bytes
  • 19 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
  • 7 Downloads / 228 Views

DOWNLOAD

REPORT


Carbon Nanosheets Synthesis in a Gliding Arc Reactor: On the Reaction Routes and Process Parameters Xintong Ma1 · Sirui Li1 · Rohit Chaudhary1 · Volker Hessel2 · Fausto Gallucci1 Received: 16 April 2020 / Accepted: 10 August 2020 © The Author(s) 2020

Abstract Non-thermal plasma is a promising technology for high purity nanomaterial synthesis in a fast, flexible and controllable process. Gliding arc discharge, as one of the most efficient non-thermal plasmas, has been widely used in gas treatment but rarely studied for the nanomaterial synthesis. In this study, a comparison study for carbon nanosheets synthesis including toluene dissociation and graphite exfoliation was investigated in a 2D gliding arc reactor at atmospheric pressure. The effects of gas flow rate, precursor concentration and power input on the structures of carbon nanosheets produced through the two synthesis routes were explored and compared. Amorphous carbon nanosheets were produced in both approaches with a few crystalline structures formation in the case of toluene dissociation. The thickness of carbon nanosheets synthesized from graphite exfoliation was less than 3 nm, which was thinner and more uniform than that from toluene dissociation. The flow rate of carrier gas has direct influence on the morphology of carbon nanomaterials in the case of toluene dissociation. Carbon spheres were also produced along with nanosheets when the flow rate decreased from 2 to 0.5 L/min. However, in the case of graphite exfoliation, only carbon nanosheets were observed regardless of the change in flow rate of the carrier gas. The generated chemical species and plasma gas temperatures were measured and estimated for the mechanism study, respectively. Keywords  Gliding arc discharge · Carbon nanosheets synthesis · Toluene dissociation · Graphite exfoliation · Non-thermal plasma

Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1109​ 0-020-10120​-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sirui Li [email protected] 1

Inorganic Membranes and Membrane Reactors, Sustainable Process Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, De Rondom 70, 5612 AP Eindhoven, The Netherlands

2

School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia





13

Vol.:(0123456789)



Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing

Introduction Carbon nanosheets (CNSs) with thickness in the nanoscale have ultrahigh surface-to-volume ratio [1], which can provide a stable and active surface for energy storage and conversion in many applications such as the lithium-ion batteries [2], hydrogen storage materials [3] and catalyst supports [4]. The synthesis of CNSs is mainly carried out through conventional methods including chemical vapor deposition [5], hydrothermal synthesis [6] and chemical/mechanical exfoliation [7, 8]. Somani et  al. [5] synthesized CNSs with 20–35 layers by evaporating and pyrolyzing camphor in the furnace (700–850  °C) w