Synthesis of crystal facet tuned copperii oxide based catalysts for nitric oxide remediation and fuel cell application

Abstract

Pollution control in automobile industry and the phenomena of energy generation from renewable resources has been of great interest to researchers over recent years. The use of platinum group materials (PGM) in automobiles towards exhaust purification has made them very expensive. In the field of energy generation, the use of PGM and noble metal catalyst as electrode material in fuel cell technology for sustained high performance retards its rate of commercialization. Hence the raise in nanotechnology has brought immense change in this prospective by their structure induced physical and chemical properties. Hence optimizing the nanostructures of non-PGM or non-noble metals can enhance their catalytic activity. The present work is aimed at the synthesis of nanostructured transition metal oxide and metal catalyst. The structure of the transition metal oxide was tailored such that its efficiency over nitric oxide reduction with carbon monoxide as reducing gas was comparable to that of PGM s. The mesoporous metal catalyst obtained by controlled room temperature reduction was used as an anode catalyst in DABFC and its efficiency was analyzed. Agglomeration-free interleaved CuO, with single crystalline nanoplates was synthesized through hydrothermal techniqueVarying the surfactant to solvent ratio, reaction temperature, holding time and precursor iv concentrations, the growth conditions of CuO nanoplates were optimized to obtain single crystalline nanoplates with thickness of 20-30 nm. newline