Synthesis of Monodisperse Lithium Carbonate Nanoparticles to Use as Sacrificial Anode Template for Direct Acid Fuel Cells

Abstract

Lithium carbonate nanoparticles were synthesized using a CHEMTOR fiber reactor. The reactor operates as a massively arrayed microfluidic environment and can be industrially scaled for high throughput.  The manufacturing platform is tunable and uses traditional manufacturing equipment. We have successfully fractionally precipitated a mono-disperse lithium carbonate nanoparticle solution in water with particles as small as 5.9 nm in diameter and in continuous flow.  The solvent was a CO2-saturated water solution and the anti-solvent was isopropanol. The effects of process parameters such as temperature and surfactant concentration on the particle size and dispersity are reported. The product was characterized using dynamic light scattering (DLS). These nanoparticles could potentially be used as a sacrificial template in fuel cell manufacture in order to improve the efficiency of catalyst usage.  Future work will include mass transfer models under continuous flow to determine where the nanoparticles may be forming along the length of the plug reactor.