Synthesis and Characteristics of CNT Grown Activated Carbon Using Ni Catalyst and Melamine to Prepare High Performance Flow-Electrode

Flow-electrode capacitive mixing (F-CapMix) is novel renewable energy technology generating electricity by using salinity difference between salt water and fresh water and ion adsorption/desorption on active materials in flow-electrode. To enhance performance of F-CapMix, charge percolation and electron transfer between active materials in the flow-electrode should be improved. In present work, we synthesized carbon nanotube (CNT) grown activated carbon (AC) for achieving efficient charge percolation and electron transport between AC particles in the flow-electrode. For this work, AC particles were impregnated with the solution including Ni catalyst. After filtering of AC suspension, wet AC particles was heat-treated under an inert condition at 300 celsius to form Ni seed on the surface of AC particles. After that, melamine was mixed with the AC particles, and heat treatment of the mixture was carried out under reduction condition at 700 celsius. Through SEM analysis, it was confirmed that CNTs on the surface of AC particles were successfully grown. The synthesized CNT grown AC was additionally analyzed with various tools, such as XPS, Raman, etc. We will evaluate F-CapMix performance with the flow-electrode made by using the CNT grown AC.