Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to valuable chemicals is a promising way of storing renewable energy through electric-to-chemical energy conversion, while its large-scale application is in urgent need of cheap and high-performance catalysts. Herein, we invent a convenient method to synthesize N-doped porous carbon by ammonia etching the pyrolysis carbon of petroleum pitch. We found the ammonia etching treatment not only increase the pyridinic-N content, but also enlarge the specific surface area of the petroleum pitch-based porous carbon. As a cheap and easily available catalyst for carbon dioxide electroreduction, up to 82% of Faradaic efficiency towards carbon monoxide was obtained at − 0.9 V vs the reversible hydrogen electrode in 0.1 M KHCO3. After a long time electrocatalysis of more than 20 h, the Faradaic efficiency of carbon monoxide remains 80%, indicating the porous carbon as made have an ultra-high stability as catalyst for carbon dioxide reduction. Our work provides a new technology to economically prepare efficient electrocatalysts for carbon dioxide reduction.

An accumulation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) has brought a considerable interest due to its energy and environmental issue. To effectively manage SNF, a pyroprocessing is introduced to separate useful resources from the spent fuels and to manufacture suitable fuels. In head-end process of pyroprocessing, spent fuels are thermally treated to prepare UO2 pellets, where various radioactive gases from SNFs are released during thermal treatment. Within these gases, C-14 as CO2 form is a radioactive fission product which had a long half-life of 5,730 years and emits beta radiation of 0.156 MeV. Generally, current CO2 capturing technologies include adsorption by solid materials, absorption by aqueous solutions, and membrane separation. Among these methods, absorption is an effective approach which traps CO2 effectively and and it is easy to operate at room temperature. In addition, it is highly recommended as immobilizing 14CO2 as CaCO3 formation due to the high thermal and chemical stability, and the relatively low solubility in water. Generally, a double alkali method has been proposed to capture low concentrated 14CO2 from the stream. This method for CO2 capture includes absorption process with NaOH solution and causticization using Ca(OH)2. In this study, CO2 emitted from SNF is captured using double alkali method, and the effects of operating conditions on capturing efficiency were investigated. Furthermore, considering the two-film theory, the effects of trapping conditions on the CO2 absorption performance were examined. The recovered CaCO3 from causticization was collected from the absorbing solution and analyzed.

The electrical resistances of small-sized activated carbon fiber (ACF) fabric (specific surface area: 1244.7 m2/ g, average pore diameter: 1.92 nm) and felt (specific surface area: 1321.2 m2/ g, average pore diameter: 2.21 nm) sensors were measured in a temperature and humidity controlled gas chamber by CO2 adsorption at different surrounding CO2 concentrations (3000–10,000 ppm). The electrical resistances of ACF sensors decreased linearly as the increase of temperature and decreased exponentially as the increase of humidity in the ambient atmospheric chamber. The electrical resistances of ACF rapidly decreased within 4 s and an equilibrium state was achieved within 10 s due to the very rapid CO2 adsorption at room temperature and 40% humidity. Comparing the difference in electrical resistance values measured during injection of similar concentrations of CO2 after reaching the equilibrium value, the fabric exhibited a significant change, whereas the felt did not, even though it had a relatively larger specific surface area. The reason is that micropore volume greatly affected the amount of CO2 adsorbed, whereas the specific surface area did not affect it as much. Therefore, ACF fabric with large micropores (> 2.0 nm) can be developed and used as CO2 sensors in small rooms such as a passenger vehicles.

본 연구에서는 순수 PEBAX® 분리막의 투과특성을 향상시키기 위해 개질된 fumed silica 나노입자를 혼합한 MMMs (mixed matrix membranes) 타입의 PEBAX®/fumed silica 하이브리드 분리막을 제조하고, 이산화탄소와 메탄의 투과 특성을 측정하였다. PEBAX®-1657/TS-530 하이브리드 소재의 경우, FT-IR과 XRD 분석을 통해 PEBAX® 고분자에 무기입자 가 비교적 잘 분산되었음을 확인하였다. 기체투과특성 측정 결과 TS-530을 10 wt% 혼합한 분리막의 경우, 순수 PEBAX® 분 리막과 비교하여 투과도 계수는 약간 감소하나 이상분리인자는 약간 증가하였다. 이는 비투과성 silica 입자의 도입에 따라 기 체 확산 경로가 줄어들고, 경로의 비틀림이 증가하기 때문으로 볼 수 있다. TS-530 함량이 증가함에 따라서는 투과도 계수와 이상분리인자 간에 전형적인 trade-off 경향을 보였다. 이는 TS-530 함량이 증가함에 따라 결정성이 감소하고, 고분자 사슬 간 충전 억제에 따라 자유부피가 증가하기 때문으로 볼 수 있다. 또한 무기입자 함량 증가에 나노간극의 형성 가능성이 높아지 고, 이에 따라 기체 확산도가 커지기 때문으로 판단된다.