Carbon Microspheres synthesised from Crystalline Nano-Cellulose as pore former for NiO/YSZ composite using NiO sub-micro rods via co-precipitation route

Abstract

This study focused more on material synthesis which is obtaining functioning materials of high homogeneity, high uniformity, high purity, high yield, and low agglomeration. In this study, two different materials namely carbon micro-spheres (CMS) and nickel (II) oxide (NiO). Crystalline nano-cellulose (CNC) was successfully used to synthesise CMS particles via hydrothermal treatment method. In this synthesis approach, CNC are dissolved in distilled water and placed in an autoclave reactor (tight sealed reactor) to be heated to a mild temperature and held at that temperature for a specific time. Meanwhile, the co-precipitation method, was used to effectively form single crystalline NiO sub-micro rods by precipitating nickel (II) oxalate by mixing nickel (II) nitrate with ammonium oxalate. Both the CMS and NiO sub-micro rods were used to fabricate NiO/YSZ composite, which is a common cermet system in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC).