Application of Equilibrium-Based PAH Adsorption to Modelling Graphene Synthesis in a Microwave-Assisted Plasma Reactor
Abstract
Graphene is a new material with potential to significantly impact many applications due to its unique physical and chemical properties. However, the commercialization of graphene is impeded by issues in graphene mass production. Recently, a potential production method that uses a microwave-assisted plasma reactor to produce graphene has been developed, and this method might make mass production of graphene possible. To aid in development of this new method, a novel computational model to simulate graphene synthesis in this system was developed. While it was the first attempt at modelling graphene synthesis in such a system, the model required improvement due to unconstrained polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) adsorption. This study aims to integrate an equilibrium-based PAH adsorption model used in carbon nanoparticles modelling into the current graphene synthesis model to solve the unconstrained PAH adsorption issue. The equilibrium-based model successfully reduced the PAH adsorption and provided better prediction on graphitic particles’ Feret diameter. However, the Feret diameter is still considered small compared to the experimental data, and further improvement to the computational model is needed.