With the long term uncertainty of fossil fuels, their environmental repercussions, and supposed influence on global climate change, our world is arguably facing an impending energy crisis. Through the use of smart ceramics, materials may be created for the beneficiation and utilization of green house gases and, for the generation of electricity from benign sources. This paradigm was approached from two angles.
In one case, magnetoelectric composites were created from the binary mixtures of a piezoelectric material (ZnO) and a ferromagnetic material (LSM; nominally La0.9Sr0.1MnO3-δ). The composites were fabricated through a bulk milling process as well as a wet chemical coating process, to yield a core-shell powder. Magnetoelectric properties of both composites were characterized.
In the second case, the utilization of carbon dioxide was explored by utilizing a reaction media as a reversible catalyst. Reaction media formed through combustion and electrochemical synthesis were shown to decompose carbon dioxide, reducing some of it fully to its elemental state, as shown by Raman Spectroscopy and EDS.
Catalyst (Ca2MnO4) was prepared via decomposition and calcination of metal salts. It was characterized for its propensity to reduce CO2, via thermogravimetric analysis under different temperature conditions over a number of cycles. The CO2-mediator was activated in pure nitrogen to create non-stoichiometric composition, and re-oxidized in carbon dioxide. Results show potential for converting carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, for its use in the water-gas shift reaction to make hydrogen. Possible means of bypassing catalyst regeneration are explained and explored.