Session Information
14th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference
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Mechanism for the formation of crosslinked keratin fibers for hydrogen storage applications
Track : June 21, 2010
Program Code: 028
Date: Monday, June 21, 2010
Time: 2:50 PM to 3:10 PM  EST
Location: Capital Hilton - Federal A
CONTRIBUTOR :
Richard P. Wool
SPEAKER :
Erman Senoz, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States
Description
As an agricultural waste and bio-renewable material, chicken feather fibers, have become increasingly valuable to researchers due to their unique protein conformation, hollowness and low cost. The goal of this research is to develop an inexpensive adsorbent material that is stable at high temperatures and seek opportunities to use it as a hydrogen storage substrate. The unstable nature of keratin based, chicken feather fibers at high temperatures due to their crystalline melting point render them worthless at above 250 0C. However, when keratin fibers were heated below the crystalline melting point at 215 0C for a long time, the weak sulfur crosslinks were reinforced by the reactions of amide and carboxyl functionalities on the side chains. Consequently, the fibrous structure of keratin fibers even above 250 0C could be retained. TGA coupled with mass spectrometer, FTIR and solubility experiments revealed this mechanism. The addition of a second pyrolysis step by raising the temperature to 400-450 0C converted the crosslinked material into fibers that are stable at these temperatures. The two-step pyrolyzed chicken feather fibers (PCFF) had pores with diameters in the range of 5-8 angstroms. The microporosity with a very narrow pore size distribution suggests that the PCFF may have a selective adsorption or a capability to store small molecules. PCFF demonstrated a hydrogen storage advantage over a pressurized tank which is maximized at 15 bars. Their absolute hydrogen adsorption reaches 1.5 wt% of the adsorbent at 77K.


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