Browsing by Author "Petrik, Leslie F"

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    Electrospinning of porous composite materials for hydrogen storage application
    (University of the Western Cape, 2016) Annamalai, Perushini; Petrik, Leslie F; Musyoka, Nicholas M; Langmi, Henrietta W
    Due to the rapid depletion of fossil fuel reserves and the production of environmentally harmful by-products such as carbon dioxide, there is an urgent need for alternate sustainable clean energy. One of the leading candidates in this endeavour is hydrogen, which can be used as an energy carrier since it has a high energy density, zero emissions and is produced from non-depletable resources such as water. The major challenge hindering a hydrogen economy is the lack of safe and effective storage technologies for mobile applications. A prospective solution to this problem lies in the use of porous powdered materials, which adsorb the hydrogen gas. However, the integration of these powdered materials into a storage tank system, results in the pipelines being contaminated during filling cycles. This necessitates the shaping of the porous powdered materials. Among the many shaping techniques available, the electrospinning technique has been proposed as a promising technology since it is a versatile process that is easily scaled-up making it attractive for the applications of the study. Furthermore, the electrospinning process enables the synthesis of nano-sized fibres with attractive hydrogen sorption characteristics. In this regard, the current study employs the electrospinning technique to synthesise electrospun composite fibres for mobile hydrogen storage applications. After electrospinning three polymers, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was selected as the most suitable polymer because it yielded bead-free electrospun fibres. However, the diameter of the PAN fibres was large/thick which prompted further optimisation of the electrospinning parameters. The optimised electrospinning conditions that yield unbeaded fibres within the desired diameter range (of 300-500 nm) were a PAN concentration of 10 wt%, a flow rate of 0.4 mL/h, a distance of 10 cm between the needle tip and collector plate, and an applied voltage of 8 kV. The study then progressed to the synthesis and characterisation of the pristine porous powdered materials which adsorb hydrogen gas. The porous powdered materials investigated were commercial zeolite 13X, its synthesised templated carbon derivative (ZTC) and Zr (UiO-66) and Cr (MIL-101) based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). ZTC was synthesised via liquid impregnation coupled with chemical vapour deposition (CVD), and the MOFs were synthesised by the modulated solvothermal method. Analysis of the ZTCs morphology and phase crystallinity show that the carbon templated process using zeolites was successful, however, ZTC was amorphous compared to crystalline zeolite template. The BET surface area was assessed with the aid of nitrogen sorption isotherms for both zeolite 13X and ZTC, and values of 730 and 2717 m²/g, respectively were obtained. The hydrogen adsorption capacity for zeolite 13X was 1.6 wt% and increased to 2.4 wt% in the ZTC material at 77 K and 1 bar. The successful synthesis of well defined, crystalline MOFs was evident from X-ray diffraction and morphological analysis. The BET surface area and hydrogen adsorption for Zr MOF were 1186 m²/g and 1.5 wt%, respectively at 77 K and 1 bar. Cr MOF had a BET surface area of 2618 m²/g and hydrogen adsorption capacity of 1.9 wt% at 77 K and 1 bar. The main focus of the study was to synthesise electrospun composite fibres that can adsorb hydrogen gas and thus provide significant insight in this field of research. As such it examined composite fibres that incorporates porous powdered materials such as zeolite 13X, ZTCs, UiO-66 (Zr) MOF and MIL-101 (Cr) MOF and investigated their ability to adsorb hydrogen gas, which have not been reported previously. The synthesis of composite fibres was achieved by incorporating the porous powdered materials into the PAN resulting in a polymeric blend that was then electrospun. Morphological analysis illustrated that the porous powdered materials were successfully supported by or incorporated within the PAN fibres, forming composite fibres. The BET surface area of the 40 wt% zeolite-PAN and 12.5 wt% ZTC-PAN composite fibres were 440 and 1787 m²/g respectively. Zr MOF and Cr MOF composite fibres had a BET surface area of 815 and 1134 m²/g, respectively. The BET surface area had reduced by 40, 34, 31 and 57% for zeolite 13X, ZTC, Zr MOF and Cr MOF, respectively after these porous powdered materials were incorporated into PAN. The hydrogen adoption capacity for 40 wt% zeolite-PAN, 12.5 wt% ZTC-PAN, 20 wt% Zr MOFPAN and 20 wt% Cr MOF-PAN composite fibres was 0.8, 1.8, 0.9 and 1.1 wt%, respectively. This decrease was attributed to the limited amount of porous powdered materials that could be incorporated into the fibres since only 40 wt% of zeolite 13X, 12.5 wt% of ZTC and 20 wt% of the MOFs were loaded into their respective composite fibres. This was due to the fact that incorporation of greater amounts of porous powdered materials resulted in a viscous polymeric blend that was unable to be electrospun. It is evident from the study that electrospinning is a versatile process that is able to produce composite fibres with promising properties that can potentially advance the research in this field thus providing a practical solution to the problem of integrating loose powdered materials into an on-board hydrogen storage system.
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    Hydrothermal synthesis and optimisation of zeolite Na-Pl from South African coal fly ash
    (University of Western Cape, 2009) Musyoka, Nicholas Mulei; Petrik, Leslie F
    Millions of tonnes of fly ash are generated worldwide every year to satisfy the large demand for energy. Management of this fly ash has been a concern and various approaches for its beneficial use have been investigated. Over the last two decades, there has been intensive research internationally that has focused on the use of different sources of fly ash for zeolite synthesis. However, most of the studies have concentrated on class C fly ash and very few have reported the use of South African class F fly ash as feedstock for zeolite synthesis. Class F fly ash from South Africa has been confirmed to be a good substrate for zeolite synthesis due to its compositional dominance of aluminosilicate and silicate phases. However, because differences in quartz-mullite/glass proportions of fly ash from different sources produces impure phases or different zeolite mineral phases under the same activation conditions, the present study focused on optimization of synthesis conditions to obtain pure phase zeolite Na-P I from class F South African coal fly ash. Synthesis variables evaluated in this study were; hydrothermal treatment time (12 - 48 hours), temperature (100 - 160 oC) and addition of varying molar quantities of water during the hydrothermal treatment step (HzO:SiOz molar ratio ranged between 0 - 0.49).Once the most suitable conditions for the synthesis of pure phase zeolite Na-Pl from fly ash were identified, a statistical approach was adopted to refine the experiments, that was designed to evaluate the interactive effects of some of the most important synthesis variables. In this case, the four synthesis variables; NaOH concentration (NaOH: SiOz molar ratio ranged between 0.35 - 0.71), ageing temperature (35 'C - 55 'C), hydrothermal treatment time (36 - 60 hours) and temperature (130 "C - 150 oC) were studied. The response was determined by evaluating the improvement in the cation exchange capacity of the product zeolite. The starting materials (fly ashes from Arnot, Hendrina and Duvha power stations) and the synthesized zeolite product were characteized chemically, mineralogically and morphologically by X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry, X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Other ch.aracterization technique used in the study wereFourier transform infrared spectroscopy to provide structural information and also monitor evolution of crystallinity during slmthesis, as well as cation exchange capacity to determine the amount of exchangeable positively charged ions. Nitrogen adsorption was used to determine the surface area and porosity, and inductively coupled mass spectrometry for multi-elemental analysis of the post-synthesis supernatants
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    The use of synthesised USY as a dietary supplement for the removal of toxic metals (lead and cadmium) from simulated gastric juice
    (University of the Western Cape, 2018) Jaceni, Lydia Lucia; Petrik, Leslie F
    The South African economy relies heavily on mining. The residues of these activities contain harmful metals that are discharged into the environment as industrial wastes, contaminating the air, soil, surface and ground water. A lot of people who live in remote areas in South Africa rely on ground water to drink and cook. They also cultivate their own vegetables increasing the risk of metal toxicity. Some of these metals are very toxic and can cause adverse effects upon being ingested. Toxic metals are well known to be harmful to humans. Some of these metals are carcinogenic or nephrotoxic when a large amount is accumulated in the human body causing cancer and destroying tissues such as the kidneys. The detrimental health effects of these metals may take months to years before manifestation causing people to sideline them as hazards. One of the major toxic elements that are discharged into the environment is lead. A natural zeolite called clinoptilolite has been widely used as an adsorbent for toxic metals from contaminated water and from the human body because of its properties such as ion-exchange capacity and pore size. However, this natural zeolite clinoptilolite is not pure and may contain traces of toxic elements of which the nature and concentration depend on the origin of clinoptilolite. The structural stability of clinoptilolite in acidic or alkaline media is not well documented. The lack of documented information about the leachates of clinoptilolite and their long term effects on the human body may cause harm to people who ingest this zeolite. This has led to investigation of synthetic zeolites such as faujasite which has already been used for decontamination of sludge, industrial effluents and other waste water by removing toxic metals such as Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn and As. This study focuses on comparing the toxic metal removal efficiency of natural zeolite clinoptilolite (C), clinoptilolite-based faujasite (FAU3) and clinoptilolite-based ultrastable Y zeolite (USY3), from contaminated water and simulated gastric juice containing lead and cadmium and to evaluate the extent of leaching of other elements from these zeolites. Clinoptilolite was used as a starting material for the synthesis of faujasite (FAU3) which was further treated with oxalic acid to get an ultrastable Y zeolite (USY3). Various techniques were used to characterise the as-received clinoptilolite, faujasite zeolite and USY, namely XRD, SEMEDS, FTIR, solid state NMR (27Al and 29Si) and BET-N2. These characterisation techniques confirmed that clinoptilolite was successfully transformed into faujasite and that the treatment of faujasite with oxalic acid yielded USY3. A comparative adsorption study was conducted using three zeolite samples: namely Clinoptilolite (C), clinoptilolite-based faujasite (FAU3) and ultrastable Y zeolite (USY3). ICP was used to characterise the liquid samples and it was concluded that zeolites were efficient in removing lead and cadmium from contaminated water samples as well as from simulated gastric juice. Some leachates from these zeolites were also observed. A contaminated water sample containing lead and cadmium was used as a medium where the removal capacity and percentage removal with C, FAU3 and USY3 was investigated. It was observed that the optimum dosage varied from one zeolite to the other and also from one metal to the other. The optimum dosage for C, FAU3 and USY3 for the uptake of lead was found to be 0.2 g, 0.2 g and 0.05 g respectively while for cadmium it was 0.4 g, 005 g and 0.1 g, respectively. It was also shown in this study that the removal capacity for lead and cadmium could be hindered by the Na content in FAU3 and USY3 due to the fact that these metals could be in an uptake competition with Na and other cations that leached out or exchanged from the zeolites. It was observed that the optimum metal concentration for lead uptake as well as for cadmium with few metals being released back into the solution was 0.1 mg/L. The optimum contact time for both lead and cadmium was 15 minutes. The factor that varied depending on the type of metal was pH, which was at its optimum at 3.5 for lead and at 5.5 for cadmium. A simulated gastric juice was contaminated with toxic metals (lead and cadmium) and the zeolites were used to treat the contaminated samples. It was shown that the removal capacity of these zeolites increased with the increase in initial concentration of the metal. Time proved to be one factor that affected the behaviour of zeolites. The modification of the synthesised faujasite into an ultrastable Y zeolite proved to have played a role in increasing the removal of toxic metals and in preventing the high leaching of some elements out of the zeolite.