TY - JOUR A1 - Hayward, E. C. A1 - Smales, Glen Jacob A1 - Pauw, Brian Richard A1 - Takeguchi, M. A1 - Kulak, A. A1 - Hunter, R. D. A1 - Schnepp, Z. T1 - The effect of catalyst precursors on the mechanism of iron-catalysed graphitization of cellulose N2 - Iron-catalysed graphitization of biomass is a simple and sustainable route to carbons with high graphitic content. It uses abundant precursors and moderate processing temperatures and generates carbons with high porosity. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the choice of biomass precursor can have a significant impact on the textural and compositional properties of the resulting carbon. In this paper, we demonstrate that the choice of catalyst is also critical to the carbon structure. Aqueous iron(III) nitrate and iron(III) chloride convert cellulose to carbons with very different textural properties. This is due to the choice of iron catalyst changing the mechanism of cellulose decomposition and also the nature of the active graphitization catalyst. KW - Catalyst KW - Carbon materials KW - Cellulose KW - Small-angle scattering KW - Green energy KW - Graphitic carbon KW - Green synthesis PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-614800 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SU00365A SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) AN - OPUS4-61480 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hunter, R. D. A1 - Hayward, E. C. A1 - Smales, Glen Jacob A1 - Pauw, Brian Richard A1 - Kulak, A. A1 - Guan, S. A1 - Schnepp, Z. T1 - The effect of nitrogen on the synthesis of porous carbons by iron-catalyzed graphitization N2 - This paper reports a systematic study into the effect of nitrogen on iron-catalyzed graphitization of biomass. Chitin, chitosan, N-acetylglucosamine, gelatin and glycine were selected to represent nitrogen-rich saccharides and amino-acid/polypeptide biomass precursors. The materials were pyrolyzed with an iron catalyst to produce carbons with a wide range of chemical and structural features such as mesoporosity and nitrogen-doping. Many authors have reported the synthesis of nitrogen-doped carbons by pyrolysis and these have diverse applications. However, this is the first systematic study of how nitrogen affects pyrolysis of biomass and importantly the catalytic graphitization step. Our data demonstrates that nitrogen inhibits graphitization but that some nitrogen survives the catalytic graphitization process to become incorporated into various chemical environments in the carbon product. KW - Graphitization KW - Nanoparticles KW - Nanocomposite KW - Porous carbon KW - Nitrogen KW - Scattering PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-575351 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d3ma00039g VL - 4 SP - 2070 EP - 2077 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry AN - OPUS4-57535 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fletcher, D. C. A1 - Hunter, R. A1 - Xia, W. A1 - Smales, Glen Jacob A1 - Pauw, Brian Richard A1 - Blackburn, E. A1 - Kulak, A. A1 - Xin, H. A1 - Schnepp, Z. T1 - Scalable synthesis of dispersible iron carbide (Fe3C) nanoparticles by ‘nanocasting’ N2 - Metal carbides have shown great promise in a wide range of applications due to their unique catalytic, electrocatalytic and magnetic properties. However, the scalable production of dispersible metal carbide nanoparticles remains a challenge. Here, we report a simple and scalable route to dispersible iron carbide (Fe3C) nanoparticles. This uses MgO nanoparticles as a removable ‘cast’ to synthesize Fe3C nanoparticles from Prussian blue (KFeIII[FeII(CN)6]). Electron tomography demonstrates how nanoparticles of the MgO cast encase the Fe3C nanoparticles to prevent sintering and agglomeration during the high-temperature synthesis. The MgO cast is readily removed with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) to generate Fe3C nanoparticles that can be used to produce a colloidal ferrofluid or dispersed on a support material. KW - Small-angle scattering KW - SAXS KW - Metal carbides KW - Nanoparticles KW - Nanocasting PY - 2019 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-486295 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/C9TA06876G SN - 2050-7488 SN - 2050-7496 VL - 7 IS - 33 SP - 19506 EP - 19512 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) AN - OPUS4-48629 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -