Faculty of Science (ETDs)

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Browsing Faculty of Science (ETDs) by Author "Abdullah, Aboubakr M."

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    Carbon nitride-based catalysts for thermal carbon monoxide oxidation: Does phase matter?
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Mohamed, Ahmed Gamal Abdelmoneim; Ozoemena, Kenneth Ikechukwu; Abdullah, Aboubakr M.; Eid, Kamel
    Carbon monoxide (CO) has a poisonous effect on all living organisms as it binds to the hemoglobin of blood cells, preventing oxygen uptake. Thus, the conversion of CO to less dangerous gas such as CO2 is an essential process. This work presented the utilization of carbon nitrides (C3Nx) in different phases (βgC3N4, βC3N5, βC3N6) for thermal carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation. Herein, gC3N4, C3N5, and C3N6 were prepared by pyrolysis of their amine precursors, which were doped with Fe by two distinct methods; mechanical mixing (Fe/C3Nx-M) and polymerization (Fe/C3Nx-P). The controlled preparation of Fe/gC3N4-P allowed the formation of hierarchical porous structures with high surface area (219 m2/g) compared to the Fe/gC3N4-M (77 m2/g). This enabled the ease of reactants diffusion, enhanced the electron transfer, and maximized the atomic utilization. Accordingly, Fe/gC3N4-P (T100= 245 °C) presented higher catalytic activity than Fe/gC3N4-M (T100= 291 °C). In addition, bimetallic FeTi/gC3N4-P and trimetallic FeTiCu/gC3N4-P catalysts achieved the complete conversion of carbon monoxide (CO) at lower temperatures; 175 and 147 °C, respectively, which was attributed to the enhanced reducibility, and synergistic effect of Ti and Cu. Besides, FeTi/gC3N4-P and FeTiCu/gC3N4-P showed higher catalytic activity than Pd/C commercial catalyst (T100= 198 °C). In addition, the trimetallic FeTiCu/gC3N4-P showed a stable catalytic behavior without any deactivation for more than ten hours. This study showed that the C3Nx phases worked successfully in the thermal catalytic CO oxidation. However, the gC3N4 phase is the most active one when doped with metal(s), as it offered higher crystallinity, graphitization, and thermal stability than C3N5 and C3N6. This study also paves the way for the utilization of gC3N4 as a support for different metals to be used efficiently in various thermal catalytic applications, not only CO Oxidation.