Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters) by SDG "SDG-13: Climate action"

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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.
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    Defect–engineered lithium titanate anode materials for lithium–ion batteries
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-10) Podile, Seromo; Haruna, Aderemi Bashiru; Ozoemena, Kenneth Ikechukwu
    Energy is one of the aspects that plays a central role in moving society forward since it is one of the most important agenda of global economic and energy forums. There is an urgent need to move to clean energy given the environmental and the health benefits resulting from implementing energy systems that utilize green energy. The proposed energy sources in these systems are primarily natural (e.g. wind and solar), which means they are beyond human control and would work better if coupled with energy storage devices (ESDs). From this emerge the importance of energy storage systems (ESSs) which mostly perform based on the materials utilized to assemble the devices. In this study, we seek to enhance the power and energy densities of two of the prominent energy storage systems, namely lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and lithium-ion capacitors (LICs), using modified commercial lithium titanate (LTO) materials as anodes. The materials consist of the pristine LTO (LTO-p), LTO coated with cerium fluoride (LTO-CeF3) and dry and wet irradiated pristine LTO (LTO-p-md and LTO-p-mw) and LTO coated with cerium fluoride (LTO-CeF3-md and LTO-CeF3-mw). Microwave irradiation was used to study the possible defect that the radiation can bring to the materials and possibly use the microwave effect to improve their electrochemistry. The effects of the coated layer of CeF3 and microwave irradiation on the structure of the commercial LTO were extensively studied using powder X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory. Structural investigations of TEM micrographs revealed CeF3 was present on the surface of the coated LTO materials. Further analysis did show that some portion of the CeF3 coating layer was co-doped into the LTO nanostructures. The findings from XRD and XPS analyses showed that co doping promoted a mixed state of Ti3+ and Ti4+ resulting from charge compensation when Ce3+ and F possibly substituted Ti4+ and O2-. This mixed state of titanium ions allowed the materials to have high electric conductivity than the pristine LTO (LTO-p). The spectrographs obtained from XPS analysis also showed that LTO microwave irradiated materials without coating experienced the same mixed states, which may have originated from oxygen vacancies that allowed for charge compensation when some of the LTO-p Ti4+ had to turn to Ti3+. The HRTEM analysis demonstrated changes to the lattice planes spacing of the modified LTO materials and these changes supported the (111) lattice plane shifts observed in the XRD analysis. The electrochemistry of the lithium-ion battery was studied on all the materials using cycling voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. From GCD technique, the results indicated that the modified materials had higher specific capacities than LTO-p at all rates under rate capability studies. All as prepared materials were stable with coulombic efficiency of almost 100% for 100 cycles using 1 C, with modified materials surpassing LTO-p specific capacity. Cycling at a high rate (5 C) for 1000 cycles, saw LTO-md, LTO-mw, LTO-CeF3 and LTO-CeF3-md having high-capacity degradation after 500 cycles. It was also observed that initial capacities were retained up to the 1000th cycle for LTO-CeF3-mw and LTO-p. With an aim of comparing LTO-p and LTO-CeF3 half cells, these two materials were further studied for lithium-ion capacitors (LICs). This choice was based on LTO-CeF3 having a better charge-discharge profile, high specific capacity and coulombic efficiency than LTO-p. The improvements resulted from the coating layer (leveraging the high ionic conductivity and chemically inert properties of CeF3) and the observed defects seen on the XPS studies created by the coating synthesis process. The LTO-CeF3 anode was paired with a carbon black cathode to construct a full LIC cell. The assembled cell produced a maximal energy density of 107.4 Wh kg 1 with an accompanying power density of 2000 W kg-1, and it yielded a power density of 10 000 W kg -1 with an energy density of 61.8 Wh kg -1.
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    Geochemical Investigation Into Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Change Along The Southern Cape Coast, South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Dyubele, Viwe; Quick, Lynne; Humphries, Marc
    Climatic conditions across southern Africa are affected by the complex interaction of different atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems, the understanding of which is important to predicting future climate change. Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction is an essential tool to understand long-term environmental change and the response of ecosystems to such changes. This study examines the geochemical composition of a sediment core (WR1-1) extracted from a freshwater wetland located near Plettenberg Bay on the southern Cape coast. The wetland is located ~4 m above present sea level and positioned ~500 m from the modern coast. Situated within the year-round rainfall zone, the site is influenced by tropical easterly flow and the southern westerlies. Elemental and stable isotope geochemistry are used to reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental change at the site over the last ~8000 cal yr BP. Variations in CaO/Al2O3, Sr/Al2O3 and δ13C indicate that marine conditions dominated from 7300 to 6400 cal yr BP. Marine influence at the site decreased dramatically from ~6300 cal yr BP, as the system transitioned to a freshwater back-barrier wetland. Enrichments in SiO2/Al2O3 and Zr/Al2O3 track changes in depositional energy and suggest that the period 3800 – 3200 cal yr BP was associated with increased aeolian activity. This is interpreted to reflect increased aridity and is consistent with geochemical and pollen records from nearby sites at Eilandvlei and Voëlvlei. This suggests that a shift to more arid conditions during this time was a broad feature of the climate in the year-round rainfall zone of South Africa. The timing of this event corresponds with a marked decrease in Antarctic sea ice and pronounced aridity along the east coast of South Africa, suggesting that mid to late Holocene aridity in the YRZ was likely driven by declines in moisture from both westerly and easterly wind systems.
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    Reconstructing Late Quaternary environmental change on the southern Cape coast of South Africa: A 30,000-year geochemical record from Pearly Beach
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-11) Mey, Rachel Tess; Humphries, Marc; Quick, Lynne
    The southern Cape coast of South Africa has undergone complex and dynamic climate changes due to its position at the boundary of major atmospheric and oceanic systems. However, climate changes that occurred in the region during the Last Glacial Maximum (30,000 – 18,000 cal yr BP) and the deglaciation period that followed (18,000 – 11,000) are still not fully understood. Climatic change along the southern Cape coast is of archaeological, cultural and environmental significance given the ecological diversity and hominin fossil, richness of the region. Moreover, predictions of future climate change and water scarcity management issues in the southern Cape make it vital to understand and response to future climate scenarios. To address this gap, this study investigated the geochemical composition of a 5.42 m sediment record (KSV 1) extracted from a freshwater coastal wetland near Pearly Beach on the southern Cape coast. The wetland, situated in the winter rainfall zone, is influenced by the southern westerly storm track, the South Atlantic anticyclone, and Agulhas-Benguela interactions, making it an ideal location to investigate changes to large-scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems. Using a combination of inorganic elemental (X-ray fluorescence, XRF) and stable carbon isotope (δ13C) analysis, this study presents a 30,000 year record of palaeoenvironemental change from Pearly Beach and considers these in relation to broad-scale climatic perturbations that occurred in southern Africa over this period. A chronology for the core was derived from radiocarbon dating of 8 bulk sediment samples. Sedimentation rates over the record averaged 0.02 cm/yr, giving the XRF analyses which were conducted at 2 cm intervals, an average temporal resolution of ~ 110 years. Sediments deposited 30,000 – 15,000 cal yr BP consist primarily of quartz-rich (60 – 90% SiO2) silt and fine sand with relatively low quantities of clay material. An increase in the relative proportion of Al2O3 from ~15,000 cal yr BP, coupled with a rise in sedimentation rate, marks an increase in the accumulation of fine-grained material within the wetland that is associated with a rise in global sea levels following deglaciation. A distinct shift to higher δ13C values around this time points to a change in vegetation community, with an increase in contribution from C4 drought-tolerant plants. The presence of calcium carbonate in sediments provides a strong indicator for marine intrusions at site and a pronounced increase in marine influence is inferred from ~8,500 cal yr BP, corresponding with the stabilisation of sea levels near to present-day levels. Variations in elements typically associated with heavyminerals (titanium and zirconium) are used to infer changes in depositional energy at the site. Enrichments in Ti and Zr suggest a period of enhanced transport energy between 18,800 and 14,500 cal yr BP. This is coupled with an increase in the Si/Al ratio and linked to enhanced aeolian activity. An increase in wind intensity during this period is attributed to the intensification in the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds at this time. This corresponds with available fossil pollen records, which suggest an increase in moisture at Pearly Beach 18,500 to 15,000 cal yr BP that was possibly linked to a slowdown in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and build-up of heat in the southeast Atlantic. It is possible that a build-up of heat in the southeast Atlantic brought on by a slowdown in the AMOC increased moisture uptake in the frontal storms, resulting in stronger low-pressure systems and intensified storms, as reflected in the KSV-1 record. Comparisons with other records from South Africa, including Mfabeni, Cold Air Cave and Cango Caves, indicate that the central and eastern parts of the country experienced a cooling event ~18,500 and 14,500 cal yr BP. New geochemical data from Pearly Beach suggests that this cooling may have been linked to intensification of westerly winds at this time. An apparent lag effect in the warming of South Africa after deglaciation may be attributed to the enhanced influence of westerly winds during the glacial-interglacial period, which pushed cold air masses across the interior of the country. The complex interplay between local sea level changes, westerly wind dynamics, and regional climatic conditions underscores the significance of the geochemical record from Pearly Beach in understanding past environmental changes and their broader implications for southern Africa.