ANSTO's research capabilities, led by the OPAL nuclear research reactor and associated instruments provide access to users investigating areas as diverse as materials, life sciences, climate change and mining/engineering.
Energy Material Latest News
The following content that will be addressed:
- Energy Materials Project Shares
- 3rd Anniversary Celebration
- Project Meeting February 2010
- Project Quarterly Meeting
- Scientific Meeting
- New Equipment
Energy Materials Project shares in $6.0M of SIEF funding
The Bragg Institute’s Energy Materials Project leader Dr Vanessa Peterson is one of a team of Australian researchers which have recently been awarded $6.0M from the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF) to develop advanced metal-organic framework (MOF) materials to capture and convert CO2. MOFs are highly porous, multifunctional materials that can concentrate CO2 with much smaller energy requirements than currently available technologies. The team combines excellence in MOF synthesis, materials characterisation, and engineering, and includes leading researchers from CSIRO, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, Monash University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Adelaide, and the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC).
The tuneable pore size and surface chemistry of MOFs lends them not only the capture of CO2, but also the separation of other gases. Oxygen separated from air, aside from other industrial or medical uses, can be used in oxy-fuel combustion that results in a smaller volume of flue gas with a larger, more easily recovered CO2 fraction. MOFs that can store hydrogen gas may one day enable a carbon-free energy cycle. The unique chemical properties of MOFs also hold potential for the catalytic conversion of CO2 into useful substances like polymers, industrial feedstocks, or hydrocarbon fuels.
Vanessa leads the neutron-scattering arm of this multi-disciplinary effort, using the instruments at the OPAL reactor in order to probe the structure of both the “host” framework and the “guest” gas molecules during the real-time operation of the materials. OPAL is one of the few facilities worldwide with the infrastructure required to perform these measurements. Our gas-delivery system allows accurate dosing of a chosen gas into the MOF sample, as well as temperature control, while in the neutron beam. A more sophisticated system, currently being commissioned, will facilitate flow-through of complex gas mixtures, simulating the flue streams encountered in real coal power plants.
The gas-delivery sample environments are compatible with many of the instruments at OPAL, allowing this research to benefit from the complementarity of various neutron scattering techniques. Experiments on ECHIDNA, the high-resolution neutron powder diffractometer, will give a detailed picture of the crystal structure of the host-guest system, as a function of the level of gas dosing. This identifies the preferential sites for guest adsorption, and thus the desirable chemical functionalities of the MOFs that can be targeted by the other team members for future iterations of materials design.
The exceptionally fast WOMBAT powder diffractometer enables time-resolved studies of the structural evolution of the system during the gas-adsorption process. Spectroscopic measurements on TAIPAN and PELICAN are also of interest for further investigation into the nature of the host-guest interactions. In addition to neutron-scattering expertise, the Energy Project group also specialises in computational modelling. Calculations supplement the experimental results, giving insights into specific mechanisms of guest adsorption, orientations of guest molecules, and the host framework’s response to the guest adsorption.
The high quality of results in this field that OPAL is capable of producing are demonstrated in recent research outputs (V. K. Peterson et al., Angew. Chem., 2010, 49, 585-588, E. D. Bloch et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2011, 133, 14814–14822; W. L. Queen et al., Dalton Trans., 2012, 41, 4180-4187; E. D. Bloch et al., Science, 2012, 335, 1606-1610). The SIEF supports two postdoctoral researchers (co-funded by ANSTO) based at the Bragg Institute. They contribute to the neutron-scattering experiments, development of the sample environments, and perform computational modelling work. Dr Sam Duyker recently joined ANSTO as the first of these postdocs. The group has recently been awarded beamtime on ECHIDNA through OPAL’s proposal system to perform its first round of in situ adsorption experiments on new and promising MOFs for CO2 capture.
3rd Anniversary Celebration & Group Meeting: 26th August 2010
On a windy winters' day, in downtown Allawah, we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of the Neutrons for the Hydrogen Economy (energy) project. Vanessa Peterson initiated proceedings by highlighting the major recent achievements in key areas of the project, including gas-hydrate, proton exchange membrane (PEM), and Li-ion battery research. Gas-hydrate research was presented by Ross Piltz, showcasing work undertaken on Wombat. Vanessa Peterson presented achievements in PEM work, which is collaborative with the Australian National University. Neeraj Sharma outlined the key findings of the first in-situ neutron diffraction results on Li-ion batteries from the Bragg Institute, which appears in the Journal of Power Sources (Sharma et al, 2010).
The highlights were followed by a summary of new sample environments and apparatus available to Energy project researchers, presented by Stewart Pullen from the Bragg Institute’s sample environment team. He presented a timeline of how sample environments have evolved to meet the needs of the group, from jury-rigged solutions to custom-designed apparatus.
Next there were a sequence of talks and discussions, beginning with students working on hydrogen storage, including Sam Duyker (USyd) and followed by Nora Duraman and Kean Long Lim (UNSW). Moving from hydrogen storage to oxide-ion conducting electrolytes in solid oxide fuel cells, Nathan Webster (ANSTO/CSIRO) presented work on Bi-based materials. The next series of talks were based on Li ion battery research using neutron diffraction techniques, starting with William Brant / Siegbert Schmid (USyd) showing the progress in locating Li and quantifying Li content in perovskite-based materials. This was followed by Guodong Du (UoWollongong) explaining how custom-designed cells are made for in-situ neutron diffraction studies.
Project Meeting February 2010
A meeting of the energy project took place on the 23rd of February at the Bragg Institute. We welcomed new members from the University of Sydney, the Institute of Materials Engineering, and from the University of New South Wales. Researchers described their recent results from neutron scattering studies. Highlights included neutron diffraction data collected on metal-organic frameworks used for hydrogen storage, multi-walled carbon nanotubes used in both hydrogen production and storage, in-situ cells to mimic Li ion batteries, and methane clathrate production. Results of small angle X-ray scattering and thermal analysis of plasma synthesised membranes for use as electrolytes in fuel cells were also presented. Some of the future experiments planned for the current neutron beamtime round are keenly anticipated and future proposals were developed.
Project Quarterly Meeting
On the 13th of October, the quarterly meeting of this project took place at the Bragg Institute. Participants presented the current status of their research on Hydrogen Storage Materials (University of Wollongong and University of Sydney), Hydrogen Production (University of New South Wales), Methane Clathrates (ANSTO and CSIRO), Fuel Cells (Australian National University), and Li-ion Batteries (University of Wollongong). The meeting served as a forum for further networking between researchers at these universities and the scientists at the Bragg Institute.
These quarterly meetings provide a springboard to develop the interaction between the neutron scattering community and researchers involved in energy-related materials. Discussions were directed towards, the capabilities of KOALA, WOMBAT, PLATYPUS, and TAIPAN for possible beamtime applications in the November 2009 round. The development of ancillaries and computational infrastructure with specific relevance to the abovementioned research were presented. All in all, the meeting served as a summary of current activities in the project and as a roadmap to the next stages in the project with a focus on neutron scattering experiments.
Scientific Meeting
Attended by 15 collaborators, our scientific meeting was held on the 12th December at the OPAL Auditorium and featured presentations on our recent work into:
- Plasma-produced fuel cell membranes
- Ionic Conductor Rearch
- Solar Cell materials
- Hydrogen and ice clathrates
New equipment:
Gas-dosing rig
Gas-dosing equipment capable of delivering known amounts of gas, including gas mixtures, to samples for neutron-scattering experiments is nearing completion. In its first use, this equipment will be used to investigate hydrogen in new hydrogen-storage materials. This equipment will be initially available for use with the two powder instruments, ECHIDNA (testing shown in photo) and WOMBAT, but already plans are in place to run the equipment across several other instruments, notably TAIPAN and PELICAN.
Automated gas-dosing and higher-pressure hydrogen
A second rig is under construction that will enable automated gas-dosing and another with the capability to supply hydrogen at pressures <1000 bar.
Equipment
Gas-dosing rig
- Specialist rig designed for loading gas into samples has been developed. The rig is designed to load known quantities of gas or gas mixtures at pressures up to 124 bar into samples.
- Three sample containers (rated to 15, 30, and 45 bar) are available for use with the rig.
- Three sample environments have been modified to be used with the rig, including a bottom-loading cryofurnace, CF, (4 – 800 K), a Euler cradle with CF (10 – 800 K) and a top-loading cryostat (1.8 – 300 K).