1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota, USA
American Journal of Energy Research.
2015,
Vol. 3 No. 2, 25-31
DOI: 10.12691/ajer-3-2-2
Copyright © 2015 Science and Education PublishingCite this paper: Vinod S. Amar, Xavier M. Pasala, Jan A. Puszynski, Rajesh V. Shende. Sonication Derived Powdered Mixtures of Ferrite and Ceramic Nanoparticles for H
2 Generation.
American Journal of Energy Research. 2015; 3(2):25-31. doi: 10.12691/ajer-3-2-2.
Correspondence to: Rajesh V. Shende, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. Email:
Rajesh.Shende@sdsmt.eduAbstract
This paper reports sonication derived powdered mixtures of NiFe2O4 and ceramic nanoparticles such as ZrO2/Y2O3/YSZ for H2 generation from thermochemical water-splitting process. To prepare powdered mixtures, NiFe2O4 (75 wt%) and ceramic nanoparticles (25 wt%) were placed in ethanol, sonicated for 120 min, and the slurry obtained was dried at 50°-100°C. Using these powdered mixtures, ten consecutive thermochemical cycles were performed at 900°-1100°C for H2 generation. Among different powdered mixtures, NiFe2O4/ZrO2 produced a maximum H2 of 30.6 mL/g/cycle at NTP conditions. Powdered mixtures prepared with different sonication times (30-120 min) and ZrO2 nanoparticles loadings (10-35 wt%) were also investigated for H2 generation via thermochemical water-splitting process. Sonication derived NiFe2O4/ZrO2 powdered mixture prepared at optimized conditions has produced average H2 volume of 38.8 mL/g/cycle during five consecutive thermochemical cycles, which was found to be higher than the H2 volume generated by NiFe2O4/Y2O3 and NiFe2O4/YSZ powdered mixtures. In addition, these powdered mixtures were characterized for powdered x-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface area, and scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM).
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