Tahar Laoui

Nanostructured materials for water desalination.

Desalination of seawater and brackish water is becoming an increasingly important means to address the scarcity of fresh water resources in the world. Decreasing the energy requirements and infrastructure costs of existing desalination technologies remains a challenge. By enabling the manipulation of matter and control of transport at nanometer length scales, the emergence of nanotechnology offers new opportunities to advance water desalination technologies. This review focuses on nanostructured materials that are directly involved in the separation of water from salt as opposed to mitigating issues such as fouling. We discuss separation mechanisms and novel transport phenomena in materials including zeolites, carbon nanotubes, and graphene with potential applications to reverse osmosis, capacitive deionization, and multi-stage flash, among others. Such nanostructured materials can potentially enable the development of next-generation desalination systems with increased efficiency and capacity.

Selective molecular transport through intrinsic defects in a single layer of CVD graphene.

We report graphene composite membranes with nominal areas more than 25 mm(2) fabricated by transfer of a single layer of CVD graphene onto a porous polycarbonate substrate. A combination of pressure-driven and diffusive transport measurements provides evidence of size-selective transport of molecules through the membrane, which is attributed to the low-frequency occurrence of intrinsic 1-15 nm diameter pores in the CVD graphene. Our results present the first step toward the realization of practical membranes that use graphene as the selective material.

Spark plasma sintering of metals and metal matrix nanocomposites: a review

Metal matrix nanocomposites (MMNCs) are thosemetal matrix composites where the reinforcement is of nanometer dimensions, typically less than 100nm in size. Also, it is possible to have both the matrix and reinforcement phases of nanometer dimensions. The improvement in mechanical properties of MMNCs is attributed to the size and strength of the reinforcement as well as to the fine grain size of the matrix. Spark plasma sintering has been used extensively over the past years to consolidate wide range of materials including nanocomposites and was shown to be effective noneconventional sintering method for obtaining fully dense materials with preserved nanostructure features. The objective of this work is to briefly present the spark plasma sintering process and review published work on spark-plasma-sintered metals and metal matrix nanocomposites.

Development of an AI-based Rapid Manufacturing Advice System

The purpose of this paper is to assess the possibility of using Rapid Manufacturing (RM) as a final manufacturing route through a comparison of RM capabilities vs. conventional manufacturing routes. This is done by means of a computer-aided system intended to guide the designer in the selection of optimum production parameters according to general product requirements proper of the first design stages. The proposed system makes use of a number of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, namely: fuzzy inference, relational databases and rule-based decision making to reach an optimum solution. A pilot application developed in Matlab® is presented to illustrate the system application on a real mechanical part used as a case study. In the article it is shown how the proposed model may be useful for presenting feasible RM alternatives for parts and products not originally intended for additive manufacture. It also indicates when no RM alternatives are suitable for the given tasks, thus indicating those areas of knowledge which are necessary to expand in order to have at disposal comprehensive and reliable info on RM to compete with conventional processes.

Porosimetry and packing morphology of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays via impedance spectroscopy

Vertically aligned one-dimensional nanostructure arrays are promising in many applications such as electrochemical systems, solar cells, and electronics, taking advantage of high surface area per unit volume, nanometer length scale packing, and alignment leading to high conductivity. However, many devices need to optimize arrays for device performance by selecting an appropriate morphology. Developing a simple, non-invasive tool for understanding the role of pore volume distribution and interspacing would aid in the optimization of nanostructure morphologies in electrodes. In this work, we combined electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) with capacitance measurements and porous electrode theory to conduct in situ porosimetry of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (VA-CNTs) non-destructively. We utilized the EIS measurements with a pore size distribution model to quantify the average and dispersion of inter-CNT spacing (Γ), stochastically, in carpets that were mechanically densified from 1.7 × 1010 tubes/cm2 to 4.5 × 1011 tubes/cm2. Our analysis predicts that the inter-CNT spacing ranges from over 100 ± 50 nm in sparse carpets to sub 10 ± 5 nm in packed carpets. Our results suggest that waviness of CNTs leads to variations in the inter-CNT spacing, which can be significant in sparse carpets. This methodology can be used to predict the performance of many nanostructured devices, including supercapacitors, batteries, solar cells, and semiconductor electronics.

Water and Solute Transport Governed by Tunable Pore Size Distributions in Nanoporous Graphene Membranes

Nanoporous graphene has the potential to advance membrane separations by offering high selectivity with minimal resistance to flow, but how mass transport depends on the structure of pores in this atomically thin membrane is poorly understood. Here, we investigate the relationship between tunable pore creation using ion bombardment and oxygen plasma etching, the resulting pore size distributions, and the consequent water and solute transport. Through tuning of the pore creation process, we demonstrate nanofiltration membranes that reject small molecules but offer high permeance to water or monovalent ions. Theoretical multiscale modeling of transport across the membranes reveals a disproportionate contribution of large pores to osmotic water flux and diffusive solute transport and captures the observed trends in transport measurements except for the smallest pores. This work provides insights into the effects of graphene pore size distribution and support layer on transport and presents a framework for designing atomically thin membranes.

A Comparative Study of Raw and Metal Oxide Impregnated Carbon Nanotubes for the Adsorption of Hexavalent Chromium from Aqueous Solution

The present study reports the use of raw, iron oxide, and aluminum oxide impregnated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for the adsorption of hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) ions from aqueous solution. The raw CNTs were impregnated with 1% and 10% loadings (weight %) of iron oxide and aluminum oxide nanoparticles using wet impregnation technique. The synthesized materials were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Batch adsorption experiments were performed to assess the removal efficiency of Cr(VI) ions from water and the effects of pH, contact time, adsorbent dosage, and initial concentration of the Cr(VI) ions were investigated. Results of the study revealed that impregnated CNTs achieved significant increase in the removal efficiency of Cr(VI) ions compared to raw CNTs. In fact, both CNTs impregnated with 10% loading of iron and aluminum oxides were able to remove up to 100% of Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solution. Isotherm studies were carried out using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. Adsorption kinetics of Cr(VI) ions from water was found to be well described by the pseudo-second-order model. The results suggest that metallic oxide impregnated CNTs have very good potential application in the removal of Cr(VI) ions from water resulting in better environmental protection.

Enhanced water transport and salt rejection through hydrophobic zeolite pores

The potential of improvements to reverse osmosis (RO) desalination by incorporating porous nanostructured materials such as zeolites into the selective layer in the membrane has spurred substantial research efforts over the past decade. However, because of the lack of methods to probe transport across these materials, it is still unclear which pore size or internal surface chemistry is optimal for maximizing permeability and salt rejection. We developed a platform to measure the transport of water and salt across a single layer of zeolite crystals, elucidating the effects of internal wettability on water and salt transport through the ≈5.5 Å pores of MFI zeolites. MFI zeolites with a more hydrophobic (i.e., less attractive) internal surface chemistry facilitated an approximately order of magnitude increase in water permeability compared to more hydrophilic MFI zeolites, while simultaneously fully rejecting both potassium and chlorine ions. However, our results also demonstrated approximately two orders of magnitude lower permeability compared to molecular simulations. This decreased performance suggests that additional transport resistances (such as surface barriers, pore collapse or blockages due to contamination) may be limiting the performance of experimental nanostructured membranes. Nevertheless, the inclusion of hydrophobic sub-nanometer pores into the active layer of RO membranes should improve both the water permeability and salt rejection of future RO membranes (Fasano et al 2016 Nat. Commun. 7 12762).

Dispersion of Carbon Nanotubes in Alumina using a Novel Mixing Technique and Spark Plasma Sintering of the Nanocomposites with Improved Fracture Toughness

The present study emphasizes on the fabrication of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) reinforced alumina nanocomposites for structural applications. A new technique for the mixing and dispersion of CNTs in alumina powder was employed. Spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique was used for the fabrication of nanocomposites with varying amounts of as-received CNTs (1, 2 and 3 weight %) in alumina matrix. Densification behavior, hardness and fracture toughness of the nanocomposites were studied. A comparison of mechanical properties of the desired nanocomposites was presented. An improvement in fracture toughness of approximately 14% at 1 wt% CNT-alumina nanocomposite over monolithic alumina compacts was observed due to better dispersion of CNTs in alumina matrix that ultimately helped in grain growth suppression to provide finer grain in the nanocomposites. The fractured surfaces also revealed the presence of CNTs bridging and pull out that aided in the improvement of mechanical properties. The synthesized samples were characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, densification, Vickers hardness testing and fracture toughness measurements.

Evolution of Cu Surface Morphology and its Effect on Graphene Synthesized by Chemical Vapor Deposition

Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is generally utilized for producing large area, good quality graphene films on suitable substrates. Copper (Cu) substrate is used mainly as a substrate and catalyst during graphene synthesis process by CVD method. The purpose of the present work is to investigate the evolution of Cu surface morphology after graphene growth and its influence on grown graphene quality. In this study, graphene was grown using methane as the carbon source at temperature 1040 °C for 5 minutes. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Optical Microscopy (OM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were utilized to analyze the change of Cu surface morphology after graphene synthesis. Raman spectroscopy was used to characterize the characteristics of grown graphene. SEM and AFM results showed that copper substrate surface morphology was modified after graphene growth associated by formation of large size Cu particles located basically on the surface terraces, resulting in deposition of multilayer, very small graphene domains aligned linearly along rolling marks direction.