Recycling of a spent alkaline battery as a catalyst for the total oxidation of hydrocarbons

Young-Kwon Park; Hocheol Song; Min Ki Kim; Sang-Chul Jung; Ho Young Jung; Sang Chai Kim

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123929

Recycling of a spent alkaline battery as a catalyst for the total oxidation of hydrocarbons

J Hazard Mater. 2021 Feb 5:403:123929. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123929. Epub 2020 Sep 15.

Authors

Young-Kwon Park¹, Hocheol Song², Min Ki Kim³, Sang-Chul Jung⁴, Ho Young Jung⁵, Sang Chai Kim⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Environmental Engineering, University of Seoul, Seoul 02504, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Environment and Energy, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Environmental Education, Mokpo National University, Muan, 58554, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Environmental Engineering, Sunchon National University, Sunchon 57975, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Department of Environment and Energy Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, Republic of Korea.
⁶ Department of Environmental Education, Mokpo National University, Muan, 58554, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: gikim@mokpo.ac.kr.

PMID: 33264979
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123929

Abstract

A spent alkaline battery-based (SB) catalyst was prepared from the black mass of a spent alkaline battery to determine the potential of recycling spent alkaline batteries as catalysts for the total oxidation of hydrocarbons. Five different acids (H₂SO₄, HNO₃, C₂H₂O₄, HCl, and H₃PO₄) were used to examine the effect of acid treatment on catalytic activity during catalyst preparation. Hexane, benzene, toluene, and o-xylene (HBTX) were adopted as the VOCs for experiments. The properties of the prepared catalysts were studied using ICP/OES, BET, XRD, ATR/FTIR, TGA, SEM, and H₂-TPR analyses. The results showed that acid treatment significantly influenced the activity of the SB (400) catalyst, with the type of acid also found to greatly influence the activity of the catalyst. The order of activity according to the type of acid was H₂SO₄ > HNO₃ > C₂H₂O₄ > HCl > H₃PO₄ > none. Good performance of an acid-treated SB catalyst was associated with high concentrations of manganese and iron and a large BET surface area. In addition, the sequence in which the TPR peaks appeared at low temperatures according to each acid treatment was consistent with that of catalyst activity.

Keywords: Acid treatment; Recycle; Spent alkaline battery; Total oxidation; Volatile organic compound.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't