Amended Silicate Sorbents for Mercury Removal from Flue Gas

65659 Meso carbon micro beads (MCMB) produce the best performing anode for lithium-ion batteries, but their expense limits the wide spread use of these batteries. The MCMB expense results from the use of an expensive synthetic mesophase pitch, available only from overseas sources, plus extensive processing. This project will develop domestic source pitches for synthesizing MCMBs. The refined domestic source pitch will provide a precursor for producing MCMBs, as well as other carbon forms, at substantial cost savings and also will provide improved lithium-ion battery performance. In Phase I, domestic source coal tar and petroleum pitches and pitch extracted directly from coal were purified and converted to mesophase pitch. The mesophase pitch was utilized to produce MCMBs at substantially lower costs while providing equivalent lithium-ion battery performance. Another form of carbon was produced from the mesophase which is more economical than MCMB¿s and provide improved lithium-ion battery performance. In Phase II, an improved, low cost process to produce mesophase from domestic pitches will be optimized and scaled up to 10-100kg batch sizes. The mesophase pitch will be utilized to produce MCMBs by an alternate low cost process, as well as the alternate form of carbon which has demonstrated improved lithium-ion battery performance. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Low cost lithium-ion batteries with improved performance should have wide spread applications in hand-held electronics, electric vehicles of all types, and a variety of defense and commercial applications for secondary batteries.