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Hydrogen and Solid Carbon Products from Natural Gas
Published in Jianli Hu, Dushyant Shekhawat, Direct Natural Gas Conversion to Value-Added Chemicals, 2020
Robert Dagle, Vannesa Dagle, Mark Bearden, J. Holladay, Theodore Krause, Shabbir Ahmed
ETCH, LLC is developing a low-temperature, quasi-catalytic process for producing carbon and H2 from natural gas based on a process invented by Professor Jonah Erlebacher at Johns Hopkins University under a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) grant (Erlebacher and Gaskey 2017). The process is based on the reaction of hydrocarbons, such as CH4, with anhydrous nickel chloride to form nickel metal, carbon, and HCl at ~800°C. Lowering the temperature results in a back reaction between the nickel metal and HCl to regenerate nickel chloride and release H2 gas. Carbon is separated from the nickel chloride by sublimation. The reaction is tolerant to impurities found in natural gas. The process requires no water and uses substantially less energy than SMR making it attractive for deployment in regions where process water is not readily available. Initial estimates indicate that the process could produce 4.7 kg of carbon for every kilogram of H2, with a projected H2 production cost competitive with SMR (Erlebacher and Krause 2017).
Solid-State Materials for Batteries
Published in Elaine A. Moore, Lesley E. Smart, Solid State Chemistry, 2020
Elaine A. Moore, Lesley E. Smart
Interest has also been directed towards a similar high-temperature system, the ZEBRA battery or the Na–NiCl2 battery, which also uses β-alumina as an Na+ ion conductor. The sulfur electrode is replaced by nickel chloride. The contact between the NiCl2 electrode and the solid electrolyte is poor as they are both solids, and current flow is improved by adding a second liquid electrolyte (molten NaAlCl4) between this electrode and the β-alumina. The overall cell reaction is now: 2Na+NiCl2=Ni+2NaCl
Modular Systems for Energy and Fuel Storage
Published in Yatish T. Shah, Modular Systems for Energy Usage Management, 2020
Sodium sulfur (NaS) battery technology was invented by Ford Motors in the 1960s, but research, development, and deployment by Japanese companies like NGK Insulators and Tokyo Electric Power Company over the past 25 years have established NaS as a commercially viable technology for fixed, grid-connected applications. Sodium sulfur batteries use a positive electrode of molten sulfur, a negative electrode of molten sodium, and a solid beta alumina ceramic electrolyte that separates the electrodes. Batteries require charge/discharge operating temperatures between 300°C and 350°C, so each unit has a built-in heating element. High operating temperatures and hazardous materials require the systems to include safety features like fused electrical isolation, hermetically sealed cells, sand surrounding cells to mitigate fire, and a battery management system (BMS) that monitors cell block voltages and temperatures. Typical units are composed of 50 kW modules. The advantages of sodium sulfur are its high power and long duration, extensive deployment history, and commercial maturity. Downsides include risk of fire, round-trip efficiencies of 70%–90%, and potentially high self-discharge/parasitic load values of 0.05% cycling applications because the internal heating element continually consumes energy. In sodium–nickel chloride batteries, the cathode is composed of nickel chloride instead of sulfur. These require operating temperatures between 260°C and 350°C and therefore must have internal thermal management capability. Able to withstand limited overcharging, they are potentially safer than sodium sulfur, and they have a higher cell voltage [1–12].
Modelling and optimisation of hardness in citrate stabilised electroless nickel boron (ENi-B) coatings using back propagation neural network – Box Behnken design and simulated annealing – genetic algorithm
Published in Transactions of the IMF, 2021
M. Vijayanand, R. Varahamoorthi, P. Kumaradhas, S. Sivamani
An electroless nickel bath is composed of the nickel ion source, complexing agent, reducing agent and stabiliser. Nickel chloride or sulphate is used as the source for metal deposition. Complexing agents stabilise the solution by preventing the excess free metal ion concentration and also act as a pH buffer. The function of the reducing agent is to reduce the metal ions by providing electrons. Nickel ion reduction using hypophosphite gives nickel-phosphorus alloys, and that reduced using dimethylamine borane (DMAB) or sodium borohydride provides nickel-boron alloys. Sodium borohydride has higher reduction efficiency among the discussed reducing agents.7 Stabilisers prevent the breakdown (decomposition) of a solution by masking the active nuclei.8,9