Metal Nanoparticles/Mesoporous Materials Based Composites for Applications in Lithium/Sodium Ion Batteries and Hydrogen Generation( I )

Production of green energy and fabrication of efficient energy storage system has received muchattention recently as these futuristic technologies may help to create an environmental friendly lifestyle. Thefirst part of the present proposal is to investigate metal oxides embedded ordered mesoporous carbons(OMCs) as anodes for lithium and sodium-ion batteries. Two different synthesis pathways, namely,nanocasting and direct organic-inorganic self assembly methods will be modify to synthesize the OMCs.Different ordered mesoporous silica materials (OMSs), such as SBA-15, SBA-16, KIT-5, KIT-6 and FDU-12will be synthesized first, and then be used as hard templates for preparation of the OMCs (CMK-3, CMK-5,CMK-8, etc.). Afterward, these OMCs and their N-, S-, or P-doped analogues will be employed as effectivesupports to fabricate metal oxide nanoparticles (such as CuO, SnO2, MoS2, etc.). These preparednanocomposites will be tested for high performance anode materials for lithium and sodium-ion batteries.The second part of this proposal is to synthesize ordered mesoporous metal oxide particles as anodes forlithium and sodium-ion batteries. The above-mentioned OMSs will use as templates to synthesize orderedmesoporous metal oxide nanostructures. Precursor solutions of metal oxides such as SnO2, NiO, CuO, MoS2etc. will be infiltrated into the OMS templates in order to prepare the ordered mesoporous metal oxidenanostructures. In addition, ordered mesoporous metal oxide nanostructures will be mixed with OMCs(CMK-3, CMK-5, CMK-8, etc.) to prepare nanocomposite anode materials for lithium and sodium-ionbatteries. The synthesized materials will be characterized by XRD, nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm,SEM/TEM, solid-state NMR, and XPS measurements. Electrochemical performances such as impedancemeasurement, cyclic voltammetry, and cyclic performance of the materials as anodes of lithium andsodium-ion batteries will also be executed.The third part of this proposal is related to energy generation. Fuel cell is one of the clean energy sourcesand it uses hydrogen as fuel to generate electricity. Therefore, there is a tremendous need for hydrogen tofeed fuel cells. To make the whole system environmental friendly, the hydrogen production processes shouldalso be green. Therefore, in our proposal we are emphasizing on green processes for hydrogen generation sothat emission of harmful gases (CO, CO2, etc.) should be minimal. Thus, major resources for hydrogengeneration will be from biomass. Steam reforming of methane and aqueous phase reforming methods will beused to generate hydrogen from glycerol, fructose, glucose or sugar alcohol derived from biomass resources.Apart from these processes, hydrogen will also produce from ammonia borane and by ammoniadecomposition. For the production of hydrogen, an efficient catalyst is required. The properties of orderedmesoporous materials make them suitable for use as catalysts in hydrogen generation. In the proposed work,a variety of metal nanoparticles embedded –COOH functionalized OMSs and OMCs will be synthesized andused as catalysts for hydrogen generation. Catalytic activity of different materials will be investigated andcatalytic performances (hydrogen yield, rate) of the materials will be determined.