(563a) Electrified Chemical Synthesis Enabled By Three-Dimensional Carbon Joule Heaters from Recycled Polyolefin Blends

With carbon neutral initiatives and the continuous decline of renewable energy source costs, electrification of heat for chemical reactions is a promising strategy to industrial decarbonization, improving sustainability for the future of our society. To address this urgent need, manufacturing of Joule heaters is an important research area; key design criteria include low-cost precursors, high customizability, and efficient heating performance. This talk will present an upcycling strategy to prepare three-dimensional carbon structures through additive manufacturing utilizing mixed polyolefin waste streams. Through a facile crosslinking and pyrolysis process, structured carbons can be manufactured on-demand with a vast geometric design space. Fabricated carbons exhibit excellent Joule heating performance, which can be employed as catalyst supports for the production of hydrogen through ammonia decomposition. Noteworthily, this electrified chemical synthesis exhibits improved reaction conversions compared to thermally heated analogs, while having the advantages of rapid heating and cooling. To demonstrate the generalizability of this process, we also extended this strategy to varied catalytic nanoparticles as well as prepared carbon from other recycled polyolefin blend compositions. This scalable process can address several existing challenges simultaneously, including plastic waste upcycling and industrial decarbonization.