Ball-Milled Carbon Nanomaterials for Energy and Environmental Applications

Abstract

With exceptional physicochemical properties, carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have been widely applied in various energy and environmental applications including energy conversion, energy storage, and environmental remediation. Recent efforts have been made to prepare modified CNMs with improved electrical and chemical properties, hence broadening their potential applications. It is highly desirable to produce high-quality CNMs at a low cost and large scale, which remains a challenging task. Ball-milled CNMs (BM-CNMs) are a novel class of engineered materials that may provide new opportunities to satisfy the need. To promote the research on BM-CNMs, this work provides a comprehensive review on recent research development in (1) synthesis of various types of BM-CNMs, (2) effects of ball milling on physicochemical properties of BM-CNMs, and (3) energy and environmental applications of BM-CNMs. Different ball-milling processes for preparing BM-CNMs and modified BM-CNMs with desired particle size, structure, and surface properties are summarized and discussed. The physicochemical properties of pristine CNMs and BM-CNMs are compared. Because of BM-CNM’s unique properties, such as excellent catalytic, electrochemical, and sorptive properties, their potential applications in energy conversion, energy storage, and environmental remediation are also discussed. Key challenges and further research needs are proposed at the end.

Application of mechanically alloyed MnAl particles to de-colorization of azo dyes

“…Different production routes used in materials science and physical metallurgy to produce metastable compounds, such as mechanical alloying or rapid solidification techniques like melt spinning and gas atomization, have been used to produce advanced decolorizing materials, the production method leading to important changes in the degradation efficiency shown by the materials [8]. Ball milling is a well-known method to synthesize new materials and compounds for a wide range of applications [16] [17]. In metallic systems, the high energy introduced during the process is able to produce solid solutions of the metallic elements as well as new metastable phases [18].…”

Development of Novel Cathode with Large Lithium Storage Mechanism Based on Pyrophosphate‐Based Conversion Reaction for Rechargeable Lithium Batteries

“…[29] The rate of ion diffusion is mainly determined by the length of the ion diffusion path of the material; therefore, a smaller particle size results in improved electrical performance. [30,31] Moreover, coating with conductive carbon results in not only greatly improved electrical conductivity but also suppressed volume expansion of electrode A conversion-reaction-based nanosized Cu 2 P 2 O 7 -carbon composite is investigated as a novel cathode material with superior capacity for lithium-ion batteries. To overcome the sluggish kinetics of the conversion reaction, the nanosized Cu 2 P 2 O 7 -carbon composite is prepared by high-energy ball-milling of Cu 2 P 2 O 7 and conductive carbon to achieve simultaneous nanosizing and carbon mixing.…”

A Review: Carbon Additives in LiMnPO4- and LiCoO2-Based Cathode Composites for Lithium Ion Batteries

“…Hence, the duration, force, type and amount of material/balls should be considered in ball milling in order to obtain a desired composite structure and morphology. The key advantages of ball-milled nanocomposites are their specific surface area, pore size and volume, appropriate agglomerated size, appropriate defects and surface modification in order to facilitate Li + and electron transport [122][123][124][125][126]. Table 1 shows the summary of LiMnPO 4 electrodes prepared by different types of carbon, the total amount of carbon including the mass % of carbon within the composite, and different preparation methods to generate the carbon coating with their respective capacities.…”