Kamali Ali Reza
Energy and Environmental Materials Research Centre (E2MC), School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University Shenyang 110819 People's Republic of China
RSC Adv. 2020 Oct 1;10(59):36020-36030. doi: 10.1039/d0ra06575g. eCollection 2020 Sep 28.
Green and low cost production of strategic materials such as steel and graphene at large scale is a critical step towards sustainable industrial developments. Hydrogen is a green fuel for the future, and a key element for the clean production of steel. However, the sustainable and economic production of hydrogen is a barrier towards its large scale utilisation in iron and steelmaking, and other possible applications. As a key challenge, the water electrolysis, which is commonly used for the carbon-free production of hydrogen, is uneconomic and involves various problems including the corrosion of equipment, the use of expensive catalysts and high over-potentials, limiting its viability. Moreover, the hydrogen transportation from the electrolyser to the utilisation unit is problematic in terms of cost and safety. From a thermodynamic point of view, the potential and efficiency of the water splitting process can greatly be improved at high temperatures. Therefore, a practical approach to resolve the above-mentioned shortcomings can be based on the electro-generation of hydrogen in high temperature molten salts, and the utilisation of the generated hydrogen to produce metals, alloys or other commercially valuable materials. Clean production of alloy powders is particularly interesting due to the rising of advanced manufacturing methods like additive manufacturing. The hydrogen produced in molten salts can also be used for the large scale preparation of high value advanced carbon nanostructures such as single and multi-layer high quality graphene and nanodiamonds. The combination of these findings can lead to the fabrication of hybrid structures with interesting energy and environmental applications. Surprisingly, the production of a large variety of materials such as Fe, Mo, W, Ni and Co-based alloys should be achievable by the electrolytic hydrogen produced in molten salts at a potential of around 1 V, which can easily be powered by advanced photovoltaic cells. This review discusses the recent advancements on these topics.
大规模绿色低成本生产钢铁和石墨烯等战略材料是实现可持续工业发展的关键一步。氢气是未来的绿色燃料，也是钢铁清洁生产的关键要素。然而，氢气的可持续经济生产是其在钢铁制造及其他可能应用中大规模利用的障碍。作为一个关键挑战，常用于无碳制氢的水电解不经济，且存在各种问题，包括设备腐蚀、使用昂贵催化剂以及高过电位，限制了其可行性。此外，从电解槽到使用单元的氢气运输在成本和安全方面存在问题。从热力学角度看，在高温下可以大大提高水分解过程的电位和效率。因此，解决上述缺点的一个实用方法可以基于在高温熔盐中电解制氢，并利用产生的氢气生产金属、合金或其他具有商业价值的材料。由于增材制造等先进制造方法的兴起，合金粉末的清洁生产尤其引人关注。熔盐中产生的氢气还可用于大规模制备高价值的先进碳纳米结构，如单层和多层高质量石墨烯以及纳米金刚石。这些发现的结合可导致制造出具有有趣能源和环境应用的混合结构。令人惊讶的是，通过在熔盐中电解产生的氢气，在约1 V的电位下应该可以实现多种材料的生产，如铁、钼、钨、镍和钴基合金，这可以很容易地由先进的光伏电池供电。本综述讨论了这些主题的最新进展。
