[nanoPost] Nanoparticulate additives for improvement of combustion

Company Sweden

The researchers are working on nanotechnology approaches in two interpenetrating domains: development and production of additives for purification and removal of impurities from oils  and development and production of nanoparticulate additives for improvement of combustion and preventing of fouling and corrosion (SystemSeparation AB, recently also in collaboration project with SLU).

The industrial partner, has developed, patented and commercialized a number of nanoparticulate additives ( increasing the efficiency of combustion and demonstrating a documented capacity to bind the highly acidic components of ashes, such as vanadium oxide, in a non-corrosive and easily removable form. The company is seeking opportunities for further development of these additives with the prospect to include in their composition the transition metal oxides able to act as combustion catalysts in the course of the burning process itself. This modification would be able to provide the additives with an additional capacity to decrease the level of environmentally hazardous emissions.

It appears attractive to investigate the possibility to develop the discovered effect into a new cost-efficient technology for making chemically and temperature resistant coatings on metal surfaces through spray-pyrolysis of hydrocarbon emulsions of modified additives. The group at the Swedish Life Science University has broad experience in the synthesis of nanoparticulate oxide materials through Soft Chemistry techniques from metal-organic precursor compounds.

It has developed a variety of approaches to nanoparticles and thin hard wearing-resistant coatings based on nickel oxide and cobalt oxide, nickel and cobalt niobates and tantalates, and cobalt, nickel and manganese spinels, titanium and zirconium oxides. These materials have demonstrated high activity in catalytic improvement of complete combustion of hydrocarbons. It has also been shown that the developed techniques are offering possibility to prepare highly thermally stable and corrosion resistant coatings through sol-gel and metal-organic decomposition processes. Proposed work includes:

·     planning to investigate the nature of the effect caused by the introduction of the combustion additive;

·     suppose that it led to formation of a thin coating providing resistance against high temperature corrosion;

·     will use the electron microscopic equipment at SLU to study the composition (by EDS-analysis), thickness and morphology of the coating formed through combustion in the presence of the additive;

·     will run the tests on making coatings on the steel surface using spray-burning of the emulsions of the additive;

·     will investigate the effect of modification of the nanoparticles in the additive by metal-organic derivatives of nickel and of manganese in order to introduce the additional catalytic properties in the spectrum of its action;

·     will follow the results of the tests of these modified additives in making coatings and study their resistance to high-temperature corrosion;

·     It is also planned to investigate the alternative techniques for preparation of resistant coatings via sol-gel application of specially modified titanium alkoxides;

·     will also be investigated in relation to corrosion by highly acidic agents at ambient and at elevated temperatures.