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- All Subjects: Sustainability
- Creators: Chemical Engineering Program
- Resource Type: Text
Lithium ion batteries are quintessential components of modern life. They are used to power smart devices — phones, tablets, laptops, and are rapidly becoming major elements in the automotive industry. Demand projections for lithium are skyrocketing with production struggling to keep up pace. This drive is due mostly to the rapid adoption of electric vehicles; sales of electric vehicles in 2020 are more than double what they were only a year prior. With such staggering growth it is important to understand how lithium is sourced and what that means for the environment. Will production even be capable of meeting the demand as more industries make use of this valuable element? How will the environmental impact of lithium affect growth? This thesis attempts to answer these questions as the world looks to a decade of rapid growth for lithium ion batteries.
Plastic consumption has reached astronomical amounts. The issue is the single-use plastics that continue to harm the environment, degrading into microplastics that find their way into our environment. Finding sustainable, reliable, and safe methods to break down plastics is a complex but valuable endeavor. This research aims to assess the viability of using biochar as a catalyst to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics under hydrothermal liquefaction conditions. PET is most commonly found in single-use plastic water bottles. Using glycolysis as the reaction, biochar is added and assessed based on yield and time duration of the reaction. This research suggests that temperatures of 300℃ and relatively short experimental times were enough to see the complete conversion of PET through glycolysis. Further research is necessary to determine the effectiveness of biochar as a catalyst and the potential of process industrialization to begin reducing plastic overflow.
Ammonia is one of the most critical chemical commodities produced and is integral to a number of current industries such as agriculture as well as a key part to future sustainability areas such as clean H2 production. However, the current production methods for ammonia are largely unsustainable and produce large amounts of CO2 emissions. This combined with the current dependence on fossil energy for production has led to researchers attempting to develop a clean and sustainable method for ammonia production. This method involves the thermochemical looping of a nitride compound with H2, and the renitridation of the compound with N2. This thermochemical loop would significantly reduce pressure requirements for ammonia production in addition to only being reliant on renewable inputs. This paper expands and complements this research by detailing the methods for the synthesis of nitride compounds as well as confirming their structure through material characterization. The nitride compounds as well as their oxide precursors were synthesized through Pechini synthesis and co-precipitation, and their structure was confirmed through the use of X-ray diffraction analysis. The XRD patterns of the synthesized nitrides matched those previously synthesized as well as those found in literature. In addition, observation of the spectra for the oxide CoMoO4 showed a marked similarity to that of the oxide precursor for (NixCox)2Mo3N. However, further testing is necessary regarding the phase-purity of synthesized nitrides, as well as the reduction and renitridation capability of nitrides in the line of (NixCox)2Mo3N.