Preparation And Electrocatalytic Properties Of TiC Nano-composite Electrodes

With the rapid development of industry, agriculture and urbanization, it has not only brought a variety of creature comforts, but also placed great pressure on our environment since the21th century. Water resource has faced some problems such as shortage of fresh water and water pollution. It is crucial for solving water pollution to develop a proper method with low cost and consuming to deal with wastewater. Electrochemical approach has been considered as an effective method to reductive organics especially persistent organic pollutants due to its low cost and easy operation. Titanium carbide has been a promising electrode material for its chemical stability, solution and electrochemical corrosion resistance.In this dissertation, carbon-coated titanium carbide nanoparticles were fabricated by DC arc-discharge method under different atmospheres. The composition, structure, morphology and size distribution of the resulting nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, Raman spectrum and TEM (HR-TEM). Their electrochemical properties have been studied with electrochemical workstation and high performance liquid chromatography.Carbon-coated TiC nanoparticles were prepared under the mixture atmosphere of methane, argon or hydrogen, while the pressed block of pure titanium powder acted as the anode and graphite rod as the cathode. It was found that all of nanoparticles consisted of TiC phases with face centered cubic (FCC) structure, and their size distribution was in the range of10-100nm with exceptional ones larger than200nm. Some of the nanoparticles were in cuboctahedron morphologies with the coating layers on the particles less than2nm. It was confirmed by Raman spectrum and HR-TEM analysis that the coating layer was carbon.Work electrodes fabricated by carbon-coated TiC nanoparticles were connected to the three-electrode system, and then their electrochemical performances were tested by the electrochemical workstation. The results showed that carbon-coated TiC electrodes had excellent stability and the degradation efficiency could be90%as the voltage was set as-1.0V and worked for two hours. This electrocatalytic performance suggested that such carbon-coated TiC electrodes can be a good cathode to electrochemically degrade the organic pollutants.