National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC

Unm Rainforest Innovations

Stanley Shihyao Chou

Bryan James Kaehr

Stephen John Percival

Abhaya K Datye

Christopher Ryan Riley

Ivana Gonzales

James Eujin Park

Andrew De La Riva

Steam cracking of ethane, a non-catalytic thermochemical process, remains the dominant means of ethylene production. The severe reaction conditions and energy expenditure involved in this process incentivize the search for alternative reaction pathways and reactor designs which maximize ethylene yield while minimizing cost and energy input. According to the present invention, ethylene yields as high as 68% were obtained with a quartz open tube reactor without the use of a catalyst or a cofed stream of oxidizing agents. The open tube reactor design promotes simplicity, low cost, and negligible coke formation. Reactor designs can be optimized to improve the conversion of ethane to ethylene via non-oxidative dehydrogenation, an approach which shows promise for decentralized production of ethylene from natural gas deposits.

Efficient low-temperature, catalyst-free dehydrogenation of alkanes

An electrocatalyst comprises a crumpled transition metal dichalcogenide support loaded with catalytic metal nanoparticles through spontaneous reduction reactions. The support can be prepared by hydrothermal conversion of 2D nanosheets to 3D hierarchically crumpled sheets. As an example, using crumpled MoSas a support, highly tunable Ru loadings were obtained using the electrostatic interaction between MoSand RuClin solution. Control over Ru loading was leveraged to produce Ru&#x2014;MoSelectrocatalysts that demonstrate different nitrogen reduction reaction activities, and which show varying resistance to electrochemical sintering and deactivation. Further, these high surface area materials can be utilized for many applications, including electrocatalysts, supercapacitors, and batteries.

Electrocatalyst comprising a crumpled transition metal dichalcogenide support loaded with monodispersed metal nanoparticles

The present invention relates to additive manufacturing methods, in which crystalline materials can be formed by using a liquid precursor. In particular embodiments, the crystalline material is a perovskite. The methods include the use of a thermal voxel, which can be translated to form any arbitrary pattern of initial crystalline seed structure(s). Then, the seed structure can be incubated to promote crystal growth and/or crystal dissolution, thereby providing a patterned crystalline material.

Additive manufacturing of crystalline materials

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Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Stanley Shihyao Chou