Faculty Publications
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Item Polyvinyl alcohol-polystyrene sulphonic acid blend electrolyte for supercapacitor application(2009) Muthu, M.S.; Bhat, D.K.A new polymer blend electrolyte based on poly vinyl alcohol and poly styrene sulphonic acid has been studied as an electrolyte for supercapcitors. A carbon-carbon supercapacitor has been fabricated using this electrolyte and its electrochemical characteristics and performance have been studied. The conductivity has been calculated using the bulk impedance obtained through impedance spectroscopy. The real and imaginary parts of the electrical modulus of samples show a long tail feature, which can be attributed to high capacitance of the material. The super capacitor showed a fairly good specific capacitance of 40 F g- 1 and a time constant of 5 s. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Item Nano ZnO-activated carbon composite electrodes for supercapacitors(2010) Muthu, M.S.; Bhat, D.K.; Aggarwal, A.; Prahladh Iyer, S.; Sravani, G.A symmetrical (p/p) supercapacitor has been fabricated by making use of nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO)-activated carbon (AC) composite electrodes for the first time. The composites have been characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). Electrochemical properties of the prepared nanocomposite electrodes and the supercapacitor have been studied using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and AC impedance spectroscopy in 0.1 M Na2SO4 as electrolyte. The ZnO-AC nanocomposite electrode showed a specific capacitance of 160 F/g for 1:1 composition. The specific capacitance of the electrodes decreased with increase in zinc oxide content. Galvanostatic charge-discharge measurements have been done at various current densities, namely 2, 4, 6 and 7 mA/cm2. It has been found that the cells have excellent electrochemical reversibility and capacitive characteristics in 0.1 M Na2SO4 electrolyte. It has also been observed that the specific capacitance is constant up to 500 cycles at all current densities. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Item Interactions Between Soils and Laboratory Simulated Electrolyte Solution(2010) Nayak, S.; Sunil, B.M.; Shrihari, S.; Sivapullaiah, P.V.To study the impact of salt water intrusion on two types of soils from west coast region of India were investigated in the laboratory. The key characteristics evaluated included Atterberg limits, compaction characteristics, hydraulic conductivity and chemical characteristics of selected soils. The sea at this coast receives effluent from different points and hence the characteristics change with time and locality. Therefore, to maintain uniform composition, 0.5 N sodium chloride solution (NaCl) was prepared in the laboratory and batch tests were used to determine the immediate effect on soils. Soil specimens were prepared by mixing the soils with 0.5 N NaCl in the increments of 0, 5, 10 and 20% by weight to vary the degree of contamination. Experimental results of soils mixed with 0.5 N NaCl showed that the maximum dry density increases and the optimum moisture content (OMC) decreases with increasing sodium chloride concentration. The study also revealed that the hydraulic conductivity of the soils tested increases with increase in sodium chloride concentration. The Atterberg limits of contaminated specimens show a remarkable change when compared with uncontaminated specimens. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.Item Novel eco-friendly synthesis of graphene directly from graphite using 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl and study of its electrochemical properties(Elsevier B.V., 2015) Subramanya, B.; Bhat, D.K.Herein we report a simple, low cost, highly efficient and environment friendly one-pot method for the high throughput synthesis of graphene directly from graphite using 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl (TEMPO) and H2O2 under microwave irradiation. The formation mechanism of graphene nanosheets (GNS) as investigated by Raman spectroscopy and electron microscopy techniques reveal surface defect generation, intercalation and exfoliation as the main steps. The rapid and local Joule heating of graphite by microwave radiation results in simultaneous deoxygenation and exfoliation forming GNS. The as-synthesized GNS are a few layer thick with a high surface area of 937.6 m2 g-1 and a high C/O ratio of 9.2. These results open the perspective of replacing toxic oxidizing and reducing agents by environment friendly chemicals of similar efficacy, thus facilitating the large-scale production of GNS by a greener method. Furthermore, GNS exhibits good electrochemical performance with a large specific capacitance (197 F g-1), excellent rate capability and a long cycle life (1000 cycles) in neat 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIMBF4) electrolyte. It also has a high energy density of 76.03 W h kg-1 while simultaneously possessing a high power density of 1.12 kW kg-1. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.Item Effect of acid dopants in biodegradable gel polymer electrolyte and the performance in an electrochemical double layer capacitor(Institute of Physics Publishing custserv@iop.org, 2015) Sudhakar, Y.N.; Muthu, M.; Bhat, D.K.Proton-conducting biodegradable gellan gum gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) have been prepared using three different dopants, namely ortho-phosphoric (o-H3PO4), sulfuric (H2SO4) and hydrochloric acids (HCl). The GPEs were cross-linked using borax. The polymeric gels were characterized by spectroscopic, thermal, ionic conductivities and dielectric measurements. Proton conductivity was in the range of 5.1 × 10-3 to 3.7 × 10-4 s cm-1 and activation energies were between 0.14 meV and 0.19 meV, at different temperatures. Among the doped acids, the H3PO4 doped GPE exhibited thermal stability at varying temperature. Electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) were fabricated using activated carbon as electrode material and GPEs. The EDLCs were tested using cyclic voltammetry, ac impedance spectroscopic and galvanostatic charge-discharge techniques. The maximum specific capacitance value was 146 F g-1 at a scan rate of 2 mV s-1. Quite stable values were obtained at a constant current density up to 1000 cycles. © 2015 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.Item Novel Fe-Ni-Graphene composite electrode for hydrogen production(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Badrayyana, S.; Bhat, D.K.; Shenoy, U.S.; Ullal, Y.; Hegde, A.We have developed a novel, efficient and economical composite electrode for hydrogen production. The electrode has been formed by embedding graphene in the Fe-Ni matrix via room temperature electrodeposition. The obtained active coatings have been tested for their efficiency and performance as electrode surfaces for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in 6 M KOH by cyclic voltammetry and chronopotentiometry techniques. The coating obtained at 60 mA cm-2 exhibited approximately 3 times higher activity for hydrogen production than that of binary Fe-Ni alloy. Addition of graphene to electrolyte bath resulted in porous 3D projections of nano-sized spheres of Fe-Ni on the surface of graphene, which effectively increased the electrochemically active surface area. XPS analysis results showed the equal distribution of both Ni metal and NiO active sites on the composite. The addition of graphene favoured the deposition of metallic nickel, which accelerated the rate determining proton discharge reaction. All these factors remarkably enhanced the HER activity of Fe-Ni-Graphene (Fe-Ni-G) composite electrode. The Tafel slope analysis showed that the HER follows Volmer-Tafel mechanism. The structure-property relationship of Fe-Ni-G coating has been discussed by interpreting field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis results. © 2015 Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Item Effect of electrolyte temperature on the formation of highly ordered nanoporous alumina template(Elsevier B.V., 2016) Boominathasellarajan, B.; Sharma, M.; Ghosh, S.K.; Nagaraja, H.S.; Barshilia, H.C.; Chowdhury, P.In this work, we present a systematic influence of electrolyte temperature along with anodizing potential on the pore parameters during two-step anodization of Al in H2SO4 electrolyte. Top surface morphology of the nanoporous templates was examined with the help of field emission scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscope. Three-dimensional (3D) Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) image analysis was then employed to quantify pore regularity and pore periodicity as a function of both the bath temperature (1-15 °C) and the anodic potential (15-25 V). A highest pore regularity ratio of 5 × 108 was obtained at 3°C and 25 V with a pore diameter of 32 ± 3 nm and inter-pore distance of 65 nm. With further increase in temperature, the pore regularity ratio was found to decrease drastically. It was found that higher temperature favored the dissolution of compact aluminum oxide layer isotropically along the pore length. This process in effect enhanced the pore size, growth rate, and template top surface roughness without affecting much inter-pore distance. Self-ordering of the pores was found to improve with increasing anodizing potential with a critical influence of the current density along with inter-pore distance. The mechanism of pore growth was discussed in terms of temperature-dependent activation energy controlled dissolution of aluminum. The typical activation energy evaluated at 25 V was 72.8 kJ/mol at 3°C. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Item Record-low sintering-temperature (600 °c) of solid-oxide fuel cell electrolyte(Elsevier Ltd, 2016) Prasad Dasari, H.P.; Ahn, K.; Park, S.-Y.; Hong, J.; Kim, H.; Yoon, K.J.; Son, J.-W.; Kim, B.-K.; Lee, H.-W.; Lee, J.-H.One of the major problems arising with Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) electrolyte is conventional sintering which requires a very high temperature (>1300 °C) to fully densify the electrolyte material. In the present study, the sintering temperature of SOFC electrolyte is drastically decreased down to 600 °C. Combinational effects of particle size reduction, liquid-phase sintering mechanism and microwave sintering resulted in achieving full density in such a record-low sintering temperature. Gadolinium doped Ceria (GDC) nano-particles are synthesized by co-precipitation method, Lithium (Li), as an additional dopant, is used as liquid-phase sintering aid. Microwave sintering of this electrolyte material resulted in decreasing the sintering temperature to 600 °C. Micrographs obtained from Scanning/Transmission Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM) clearly pointed a drastic growth in grain-size of Li-GDC sample (?150 nm) than compared to GDC sample (<30 nm) showing the significance of Li addition. The sintered Li-GDC samples displayed an ionic conductivity of ?1.00 × 10-2 S cm-1 at 600 °C in air and from the conductivity plots the activation energy is found to be 0.53 eV. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Item Electroactive poly(vinylidene fluoride) fluoride separator for sodium ion battery with high coulombic efficiency(Elsevier B.V., 2016) Janakiraman, S.; Surendran, A.; Ghosh, S.; Anandhan, S.; Adyam, A.Electroactive separators are recent interest in self-charging rechargeable batteries. In this study, electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is characterized as an electroactive separator for Na-ion batteries. The intrinsic ?-phase with high porosity of the separator is confirmed from X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) studies. The electroactive separator is immersed in 1M NaClO4-ethylene carbonate (EC)/diethyl carbonate (DEC) (1:1 by weight) solution. The physicochemical characteristics of electroactive separator electrolyte (EaSE) were investigated using sodium ion conductivity, ion transference number and contact angle measurements. Linear and cyclic voltammetry studies were also carried out for the electrolyte system to evaluate oxidation stability window. The inherent ?-phases of the separator as obtained by electrospinning has an ionic conductivity of ~ 7.38 × 10- 4 S cm- 1 under ambient condition. Sodium ion cell made from EaSE with Na0·66Fe0.5Mn0·5O2 as cathode and Na metal as anode has displayed a stable cycle performance with a coulombic efficiency of 92% after 90 cycles. © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.Item Synthesis of effective electrocatalyst for water splitting application from simple Cu-Ni bath(Allerton Press Incorporation journals@allertonpress.com, 2017) Elias, L.; Banjan, R.U.; Hegde, A.C.Electrocatalytically active Cu-Ni alloy coatings have been developed from a simple electrolyte having only Cu+2 and Ni+2 ions, without the use of any additive. Electrocatalytic character of the coatings was tested for their hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in 1.0 M KOH medium, alongside with their corrosion behaviours. Cyclic voltammetry and chronopotentio-metry study revealed that the deposition current density has a prominent role on the alkaline water splitting behaviour of the coatings, depending on their phase structure, composition and surface morphology. It was found that the c.d. has an inverse dependence on HER and OER. The Cu-Ni alloy coatings developed, respectively at 3.0 and 4.0 A dm–2, were found to be the best coatings for HER and OER, depending on the surface morphology. The electrocatalytic activity of Cu-Ni alloy coating for HER, deposited at 3.0 A dm–2 (optimal), was further improved through electrochemical dissolution of the as-deposited coating. The increase in the electrocatalytic activity for HER has been attributed to the enhancement in the exposed surface area of Ni active sites due to the leaching of Cu from the alloy matrices, evidenced by the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The dependencies of HER and OER on to the surface of Cu-Ni alloy coatings were analysed in terms of deposition c.d. of the coatings, and the results are discussed. © 2017, Allerton Press, Inc.