Ball milling: a green mechanochemical approach for synthesis of nitrogen doped carbon nanoparticles

Abstract

Technological and scientific challenges coupled with environmental considerations have attracted a search for robust, green and energy-efficient synthesis and processing routes for advanced functional nanomaterials. In this article, we demonstrate a high-energy ball milling technique for large-scale synthesis of nitrogen doped carbon nanoparticles, which can be used as an electro-catalyst for oxygen reduction reactions after a structural refinement with controlled thermal annealing. The resulting carbon nanoparticles exhibited competitive catalytic activity (5.2 mA cm(-2) kinetic-limiting current density compared with 7.6 mA cm(-2) on Pt/C reference) and excellent methanol tolerance compared to a commercial Pt/C catalyst. The proposed synthesis route by ball milling and annealing is an effective process for carbon nanoparticle production and efficient nitrogen doping, providing a large-scale production method for the development of highly efficient and practical electrocatalysts.

Preparation and characterization of poly(ethylene glycol) stabilized nano silver particles by a mechanochemical assisted ball mill process

“…5,22,23 procedure. 20,[24][25][26] However, according to literature, there has been limited reports for the synthesis of nano sized silver particles by this process. 27 Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) is a synthetic polyether polymer frequently used medical applications, owing to its wide range of molecular weight, excellent solubility in aqueous medium, low toxicity, chain flexibility and its biocompatibility properties and in addition, it is biodegradable via its excretion from the body to form non-toxic metabolites.…”

“…20,21 Moreover, by using this process, plenty of nanomaterials can be synthesized at ambient temperature, resulting in the absence of residues and with good control of particle size. 5,22,23 procedure.…”

Nanomedicine Scale-up Technologies: Feasibilities and Challenges

“…One can develop ultra-fine suspensions of drugs using a ball mill (7). The principle of size reduction is generation of shear forces of impact by the milling media, which leads to nanoparticles (16). The factors affecting size and physical stability of nanoparticles include milling media, dispersion medium, and the stabilizer.…”

Highly efficient cathode catalyst layer based on nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes for the alkaline direct methanol fuel cell

“…Generally, they have been synthesized with the help of metal catalysts (e.g Co or Fe), which had raised the concern that the ORR activity was attributable to the metal-nitrogen complexes as in the well-known case of metal-porphyrins [9]. However, synthesis methods that do not use any metal precursors or catalysts have been recently developed and ORR activity of the catalyst has been preserved [15,[18][19][20][21][22].…”