II International Symposium on Carbon for Catalysis ABSTRACTS

MACRO-SHAPING OF CARBON NANOFIBERS :
PP-<strong>II</strong>-14
TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF NEW STRUCTURED CATALYSTS SUPPORTS
Louis B., Pham-Huu C., Amadou J., Houllé M., Dintzer Th., Bégin D., Janowska I.,
Ledoux M.J., Vieira R. 1 , Ziessel R. 2
Laboratoire des Matériaux, Surfaces et Procédés pour la Catalyse, UMR 7515 du CNRS,
ECPM, Université Louis Pasteur, 25, rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg Cedex 02, France
Part of the ELCASS (European Laboratory of Catalysis and Surface Science)
1 Laboratorio de Combustão e Propulsão, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Rodovia
Presidente Dutra Km 40, 12630-000 Cachoeira Paulista - SP, Brasil
2 Laboratoire de Chimie Moléculaire, ECPM, Université Louis Pasteur, 25, rue Becquerel,
67087 Strasbourg Cedex 02, France
e-mail: blouis@chimie.u-strasbg.fr
Carbon nanostructures with a 1D dimension, nanofibers and nanotubes, have witnessed a
large scientific and industrial interest owing to their exceptional physical and chemical
properties [1-3]. Among the different potential applications, the use of these structured carbon
nanostructures as catalyst support material seems to be one of the more promising [4]. An
increasing need for process optimisation led to the emergence of structured catalyst packings.
In reactors containing such packings, the pressure drop, the flow profile, the mass and heat
transfer, and the dispersion characteristics of the catalyst are found to improve significantly
[5-6]. Therefore in the present work, the synthesis and characterisation of a new type of
carbon nanofibers (CNF) composite having a structured macroscopic shape is reported.
CNF having uniform diameter of 30 nm, were produced in a large amount with yields up
to 100 wt%, the production rate being 50 g per g of Ni per hour via catalytic decomposition
of C 2 H 6 / H 2 mixture over a nickel (1 wt. %) catalyst supported on graphite microfibers. In
addition of producing a large amount of highly pure usually called “fluffy CNF”, the essence
of our work was to combine a nano/microscopic ordering with an appropriate design at the
macroscale, to produce structured catalytic supports. The shape of this nano/micro and finally
macrostructured C/C composite can be modified at will, depending the required purpose (see
Figure). This allows its use directly in the existing conventional reactors without the
problems linked to the small size of the unsupported CNF. This material displays a relatively
high surface area >100m 2 /g, essentially constituted by the external surface, and a complete
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