I-Corps: One-dimensional Titania-based Electrodes

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发廉价和绿色氧气生产。纳米结构（NS）二氧化钛TiO 2由于其在包括油漆、催化剂、催化剂等的广泛领域中的用途而一直并且仍然具有重要的商业和研究兴趣。其中，NS TiO 2，商业上以P25销售，占有很小但重要的市场份额。P25是通过气体火焰合成法生产的，这是一种相对缓慢且昂贵的方法。然而，这种方法长期以来被认为是许多催化和光催化反应的金标准，但其使用受到其高成本的限制。如果社会选择以电化学产生的或绿色的氢（H2）运行，则速率限制步骤不在H2电极处，而是在析氧反应（OER）电极处。商业上，二氧化铱（IrO 2）用于OER。铱是地壳中最稀有的元素之一。除了成本之外，如果大规模生产绿色氢气，世界将迅速陷入严重的供应问题。因此，所提出的使用NS TiO 2生产H2的技术可能是这种OER催化剂的更便宜和更环保的替代品。该方法是一种一锅法、接近环境、可大规模扩展、自下而上的方法，其将廉价、绿色、丰富的水、不溶性无毒前体如TiC和TiB 2转化为一维、含碳、二氧化钛基纳米丝（1DT NF）。在市售的光催化二氧化钛中，通过TiCl 4的火焰热解合成的Evonik Aeroxide TiO 2 P25由于其在许多反应体系中的高光催化活性而被广泛使用。在许多方面，P25被认为是催化和光催化应用的黄金标准。然而，它的主要缺点是它的成本。火焰热解是昂贵的，并且不产生大量的材料。该项目是一种合成材料的方法，不仅制造成本低得多，而且在包括染料降解和H2生产在内的几种应用中表现优于P25。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of cheap and green oxygen production. Nanostructured (NS) titanium dioxides, TiO2, have been, and remain, of significant commercial and research interest due to their use in a wide range of fields including paints, catalysis, photocatalysis, and others. Amongst these, NS TiO2, commercially sold as P25, commands a small, but important market share. P25 is manufactured by gas-flame synthesis, a relatively slow and expensive method. This method has, however, long been considered the gold standard in many catalytic and photocatalytic reactions but its use has been limited by its high cost. Should society elect to run on electrochemically generated, or green, hydrogen (H2), the rate limiting step is not at the H2 electrode, but rather the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrode. Commercially, iridium dioxide (IrO2) is used for OER. Iridium is one of the rarest elements on the Earth's crust. Apart from its cost, the world would rapidly run into serious supply issues if green H2 is mass produced. As a result, the proposed technology for producing H2 using NS TiO2 may be a cheaper and greener alternative to such OER catalysts.This I-Corps project is based on the development of affordable, stable, and high efficiency electrodes for electrolysis. The method is a one pot, near ambient, hugely scalable, bottom-up approach that converts cheap, green, abundant water, insoluble non-toxic precursors such as TiC and TiB2 into one-dimensional, Carbon-containing, titania-based nanofilaments (1DT NFs). Amongst the commercially available photocatalytic titanias, Evonik Aeroxide TiO2 P25, synthesized via flame pyrolysis of TiCl4, is widely used because of its high photocatalytic activity in many reaction systems. In many ways P25 has been considered the gold standard for catalysis and photocatalytic applications. Its major drawback, however, is its cost. Flame pyrolysis is expensive and does not yield large quantities of material. This project is a method of synthesis of materials that are not only significantly cheaper to fabricate but perform better than P25 in several applications including dye degradation and H2 production.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.