Identification and Mitigation of Generated Solid By-Products during Advanced Electrode Materials Processing.

ABSTRACT

A scalable, solid-state elevated-temperature process was developed to produce high-capacity carbonaceous electrode materials for energy storage devices via decomposition of a starch-based precursor in an inert atmosphere. In a separate study, it is shown that the fabricated carbonaceous architectures are useful as an excellent electrode material for lithium-ion, sodium-ion, and lithium-sulfur batteries. This article focuses on the study and analysis of the formed nanometer-sized by-products during the lab-scale synthesis of the carbon material. The material production process was studied in operando (that is, during the entire duration of heat treatment). The unknown downstream particles in the process exhaust were collected and characterized via aerosol and liquid suspensions, and they were quantified using direct-reading instruments for number and mass concentrations. The airborne emissions were collected using the Tsai diffusion sampler (TDS) for characterization and further analysis. Released by-product aerosols collected in a deionized (DI) water trap were analyzed, and the aerosols emitted from the post-water-suspension were collected and characterized. After long-term sampling, individual particles in the nanometer size range were observed in the exhaust aerosol with layer-structured aggregates formed on the sampling substrate. Upon the characterization of the released aerosol by-products, methods were identified to mitigate possible human and environmental exposures upon industrial implementation.