| Posted: Mar 25, 2015 | |
Rare-earth innovation to improve nylon manufacturing with nanoparticles |
|
| (Nanowerk News) The Critical Materials Institute, a U.S. Department of Energy Innovation Hub led by the Ames Laboratory, has created a new chemical process that makes use of the widely available rare-earth metal cerium to improve the manufacture of nylon ("Selective Hydrogenation of Phenol Catalyzed by Palladium on High-Surface-Area Ceria at Room Temperature and Ambient Pressure"). | |
| The process uses a cerium-based material made into nanometer-sized particles with a palladium catalyst to produce cyclohexanone, a key ingredient in the production of nylon. | |
| Traditional methods of producing cyclohexanone involve high temperatures and high pressure, and necessitate the use of hydrogen. | |
| “After a lot of trials, we managed to find a reaction that works very well at room temperature and ambient pressure,” said CMI and Ames Laboratory scientist Igor Slowing. “That’s a huge advantage cost-wise. It’s more energy efficient, and requires much less hydrogen.” | |
| The discovery is a rather unique way that CMI is addressing global concerns about the supply and demand of rare-earth metals. | |
| “The research group focused on three or four different catalytic reactions used in high production volume chemicals, including this one for producing a precursor to nylon, which as an industry has enormous applications,” said Slowing, who is also an adjunct assistant professor of chemistry at Iowa State University. | |
| “We are the only CMI scientists looking at catalysis, and so we are looking at this problem from a different angle. While other scientists are trying to find ways to use less of the least abundant rare-earths, we are trying to find ways to use more of the most abundant ones.” | |
| At first that seems counter-intuitive to the research mission of CMI, which includes reducing reliance on rare-earth materials. | |
| But rare-earth metals like cerium, which is as abundant as copper, are primary products of mining for other, more valuable rare-earth elements. With minimal demand for these abundant rare earths, they are stockpiled. Finding widely marketable uses for these stock-piled materials makes the best use of all mining resources, and improves the economic feasibility of mining overall. | |
| Slowing said the technology also has other possible applications, like the treatment of biomass. |
| Source: Ames Laboratory | |
|
Subscribe to a free copy of one of our daily Nanowerk Newsletter Email Digests with a compilation of all of the day's news. |
These articles might interest you as well: