The effects of reactor design on the synthesis of titanium carbide-derived carbon

Titanium carbide-derived carbon with residual metal is synthesized by partial chlorination at 500 °C. This partial metal removal in the carbide creates vacancies, about which the carbon reorganizes to form an amorphous, porous carbon structure. To understand the titanium removal process on a bulk scale, three reactor designs were tested: (1) a flow-over horizontal-bed reactor, (2) a vertical flow-through packed-bed reactor, and (3) a fluidized-bed reactor. These reactors were chosen to investigate how various Cl2 flow patterns impact the etching uniformity on individual TiC-CDC particles. Both the horizontal- and packed-bed reactors lost approximately 10-15 wt% of the original Ti content in 0.5 h and lost more than 95 wt% of the Ti content at 3 h of etching; however, the fluidized-bed reactor lost approximately 85 wt% of the original Ti content in 0.5 h and reached a level of etching corresponding to more than 95 wt% at 1 h. Additionally, the horizontal- and packed-bed reactors were found to etch the TiC-CDC particles non-uniformly, while the fluidized-bed reactor produced samples with uniformly etched particles that followed the core-shell model of Ti extraction.