Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media

Switching from a linear approach of waste management to a circular approach by transforming plastic waste into a higher value product is a promising direction towards plastic waste treatment. In this study, plastic pyrolysis gas was used to fabricate carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based freestanding, binde...

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Main Author: Wu, Xinyi
Other Authors: Grzegorz Lisak
Format: Thesis-Master by Research
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173227
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1732272024-02-01T09:53:45Z Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media Wu, Xinyi Grzegorz Lisak School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Residues and Resource Reclamation Centre g.lisak@ntu.edu.sg Science::Chemistry::Physical chemistry Switching from a linear approach of waste management to a circular approach by transforming plastic waste into a higher value product is a promising direction towards plastic waste treatment. In this study, plastic pyrolysis gas was used to fabricate carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based freestanding, binder-free electrode for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This study investigated the quality of CNTs synthesized on conductive carbon paper, semiconductive silicon and dielectric glass substrates, and their HER performance in 1 M KOH. CNTs synthesized on silicon were observed to be hollow-core, whereas nanotubes grown on glass and carbon paper displayed bamboo-like morphology, possessing better graphitization than CNTs grown on silicon. This is in agreement with HER performance, with the as-prepared electrodes requiring an overpotential of 267 mV, 241 mV and 216 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm2 for silicon, glass and carbon paper respectively. Despite being poorly conductive, the glass substrate electrode achieved a lower overpotential than the silicon electrode. The as-prepared silicon electrode also faced a delamination issue likely attributed to the lower surface energy of the hydrophobic silicon surface. The proposed approach thus showed that the in-situ fabricated electrodes performed better than separately synthesized CNTs prepared into electrodes by 27.4% and 14.2% for carbon paper and glass substrates respectively. The improved performance of the freestanding, binder-free electrodes can be linked to the lower charge-transfer resistance and reduced contact resistance between the CNTs and substrate. Master's degree 2024-01-22T00:19:34Z 2024-01-22T00:19:34Z 2023 Thesis-Master by Research Wu, X. (2023). Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media. Master's thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173227 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173227 10.32657/10356/173227 en This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Science::Chemistry::Physical chemistry
spellingShingle Science::Chemistry::Physical chemistry
Wu, Xinyi
Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
description Switching from a linear approach of waste management to a circular approach by transforming plastic waste into a higher value product is a promising direction towards plastic waste treatment. In this study, plastic pyrolysis gas was used to fabricate carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based freestanding, binder-free electrode for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This study investigated the quality of CNTs synthesized on conductive carbon paper, semiconductive silicon and dielectric glass substrates, and their HER performance in 1 M KOH. CNTs synthesized on silicon were observed to be hollow-core, whereas nanotubes grown on glass and carbon paper displayed bamboo-like morphology, possessing better graphitization than CNTs grown on silicon. This is in agreement with HER performance, with the as-prepared electrodes requiring an overpotential of 267 mV, 241 mV and 216 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm2 for silicon, glass and carbon paper respectively. Despite being poorly conductive, the glass substrate electrode achieved a lower overpotential than the silicon electrode. The as-prepared silicon electrode also faced a delamination issue likely attributed to the lower surface energy of the hydrophobic silicon surface. The proposed approach thus showed that the in-situ fabricated electrodes performed better than separately synthesized CNTs prepared into electrodes by 27.4% and 14.2% for carbon paper and glass substrates respectively. The improved performance of the freestanding, binder-free electrodes can be linked to the lower charge-transfer resistance and reduced contact resistance between the CNTs and substrate.
author2 Grzegorz Lisak
author_facet Grzegorz Lisak
Wu, Xinyi
format Thesis-Master by Research
author Wu, Xinyi
author_sort Wu, Xinyi
title Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
title_short Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
title_full Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
title_fullStr Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
title_full_unstemmed Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
title_sort plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173227
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