Gregory Krumdick

Scale-up of Metal Hexacyanoferrate Cathode Material for Sodium Ion Batteries

Sharp Laboratories of America (SLA) approached Argonne National Laboratory with a bench-scale process to produce material for a sodium-ion battery, referred to as Prussian Blue, and a request to produce 1 kg of material for their ARPA-E program. The target performance criteria was an average capacity of >150 mAh/g.

Development of Highly Selective Oxidation Catalysts by Atomic Layer Deposition

Illustration of the ALD process. Reaction A deposits a monolayer of A species with atomic layer precision on the substrate. This becomes the starting surface for Reaction B, which deposits monolayer B in the same fashion. The process repeats itself (ABAB...) until a catalyst layer with the desired thickness is achieved. Alkenes such as ethylene, propylene, and butadiene are feedstocks in the production in many plastics, construction materials, insulators, household items, and textiles. Providing an adequate supply of these shortchain alkenes (C2, C3, C4) is vital to keeping up with ever-increasing manufacturing demands. Currently, a wide variety of hydrocarbons are converted to the alkenes by cracking, a process demanding extremely high energy and capital investments. Oxidative dehydrogenation of short-chain alkanes would represent an energysavings alternative to cracking but is not a viable choice for two reasons. The first reason is that catalysts do not yield enough quality product at high rates. The second reason is that the industry already has costly cracking furnaces in place and would need considerable economic motivation to switch. A catalyst that significantly increases percentage yields and overall throughput of alkenes would make oxidative dehydrogenation a more realistic option to cracking.