THE ROLE CHEMICAL ENGINEERS PLAY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN

CHEMICAL PRODUCTS THAT ARE USEFUL IN THE SOCIETY

Eze Lotachukwu Ernest, Alozie Chinenye, Idagu Felix, Esomeonu Everistus and Nnaji
Eucharia Amara.

Sustainability of human beings in the 21st century requires development of renewable energy
systems based on technology innovation. Chemical engineering plays a key role in promoting
technology innovation relating to environmental and energy systems. The technological domains
to which chemical engineering has contributed have shift from petrochemicals to functional
materials and devices. An example of the key devices expected in the future is a combination of
solar cells and Li-ion batteries, in which the indispensable materials are silicon and carbon. The
shape and nanostructure of materials must be controlled to fabricate highly efficient devices at a
low cost. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) and spherical silicon solar cells (SSSC) with a
semi-concentration reflector system are discussed as examples of future materials and devices.
Chemical engineering is responsible for the development of modern chemical product through
mass production, product quality control, materials recycling, high-quality device fabrication, and
structuring knowledge.

Keywords Carbon nanotubes; Chemical engineering; Innovation; Li-ion batteries; Silicon solar
cells; Structuring knowledge.

Key Role Of Chemical Engineers

Chemical engineering has contributed to the development of an industrialized society in the 20th
century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared that the greenhouse
effect is due to CO2 produced by industrialization. We are now facing problems that are difficult
to solve. The role of chemical engineering has been addressed from the viewpoints of
globalization, sustainability, and technological innovation (Charpentier, 2007). For instance,
chemical engineering is responsible for recycling materials and for developing highly efficient
devices, new energy systems, and highly efficient processes.
For the 22nd century, it will also be essential to reduce the number of chemical elements in basic
indispensable devices such as memory media, displays, batteries, solar cells, and so on. Basically
speaking, chemistry aims to realize the required functions by synthesizing new materials, and this
results in increasing the number of chemical compounds, but chemical engineering can reduce the
number of chemical elements by controlling the shape and nanostructure of materials of future
devices. Science and technology mainly focus on what to make, and technologyand engineering
developed how to make it, as schematically shown in Figure 1. Collaboration among science,
technology, and engineering are necessary for realizing technology innovation, in which the key
role of chemical engineering is to fabricate innovative materials and devices at low cost for
sustainability. The role of chemical engineering has been changed from the process development
of petrochemicals to the process innovation of functional materials and devices, as shown in
Figure 2. Therefore, chemical engineering has to develop new methods of process innovation, that
is, self-organization.
In nature, living things ultimately have highly efficient devices consisting of hierarchical systems
self-organized by chance. It can be said that biological evolution is a history of constructing more
highly efficient devices. One of the key issues of technology innovation is to utilize self-
organization as nature has done. Chemical reaction engineering, developed for the design of
reactors, can be extended to design efficient devices by controlling the shape and nanostructure of
materials.
During the 21st century, new materials, new devices, new systems, new lifestyles, and a new
society have to be established for sustainability. Clean energy systems must be developed as soon
as possible. One of the candidates is a combination of solar cells and batteries so as to be liberated
from the current electric power system. The solar cell combined with a Li battery is an example of
such systems. The market growth of solar cells is about 25% per year worldwide. Recently,
however, the shortage of silicon supply has started to retard the growth of the market. Currently,
spherical silicon solar cells (Minemoto et al., 2006a) consisting of silicon balls of 1mm diameter
and reflective mirrors have been developed in Japan. Although the present energy conversion rate
(Minemoto et al., 2006b,c) of 11% for a given area is a little lower than the 13% of current crystal
Si solar cells, the amount of Si used can be reduced. Consequently, this can mitigate the silicon
shortage issue. The yield of silicon balls with high crystallinity was a concept that was realized by
chemical engineers. In a similar context, development of a new production process (Zadde et al.,
2002) for solar-grade silicon at a cheaper cost than that of the Siemens method will be another
good target for chemical engineers.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, knowledge has propagated with scientific and
technological development. Now, no professional can answer complica-
cated questions without global understanding. Scientific and technological domains have
diversified and have been divided into many pieces because of the evolution of knowledge.
Chemical engineering can provide a method of structuring knowledge in various domains. The
concept of unit process in the early 1900s, a sort of structuring of knowledge, succeeded in
developing industries. Today, the scientific circumstances are quite different and more
complicated, but the basic concept can be applied. The deliberations on the renewable energy
system, as an example, clearly demonstrates that the key point in technological innovation is how
to integrate knowledge from various domains. We have developed a platform (Komiyama et al.,
2004; Yamaguchi and Komiyama, 2001) of structured knowledge of materials and devices over
the past six years, mainly at the University of Tokyo. It has now become available in the private
sector. The key concept of structured knowledge is to understand the relationships among process,
structure, and function, considering the applications shown in Figure 3.

Innovation for a
Spherical Silicon
Solar Cell
There are many energy devices for the 21st century. One of the most promising devices is the
combination of solar cells and Li-ion batteries. Both devices, already available worldwide, should
be lower in cost and higher in efficiency. They are used for both solar houses and electric cars. The
form of devices is also important for common use. The current form, a rigid style with solid cases,
must be changed to flexible styles. One of the examples discussed here is a spherical silicon solar
cell (SSSC) with a semi-concentration reflector system. SSSC is not an ultimate device, but shows
essential features such as less silicon usage, low cost, durability, and flexibility. In the future, the
current efficiency of about 11% will be improved up to 18%.
Spherical silicon solar cells (SSSC) with a semi-concentration reflector system, schematically
shown in Figure 4, have been developed as a new type of conventional silicon solar cell (SSC).
The base material is the same but the form of the silicon material is different. SSSC and SSC are
spherical and planar, respectively. There are several reasons why the shape of SSC results in
technological innovation of current SSC.

First, production cost of SSSC can be reduced to much lower than that of SSC. The amount of
silicon used for SSSC is reduced to one-fifth to one-seventh due to the concentration of solar rays
by the reflective mirrors. The cost of solargrade silicon can be dramatically reduced by changing
the current process, the Siemens method (SiHCl3 þH2 ! Siþ3HCl), to a new process, the DuPont
method, as an example (see Figure 5). The Siemens method, whose reactor is a kind of chemical
vapor deposition (CVD) reactor, produces polycrystalline silicon for the conventional pulling
process, the Czochralski process. On the other hand, the DuPont method (SiCl4 þ2Zn ! Si
þ2ZnCl2), whose reactor is a kind of furnace that produces granular and needle-like silicon, is not
good for the pulling process. In the pulling process, to obtain single-crystal silicon, bulk
polycrystal silicon is favorable because of its melting characteristic. The powdered silicon is hard
to melt in a crucible under conventional temperature, say about 1700K, because of having less
thermal conductivity. The cost of silicon production using the Siemens method is roughly three
times of that of the DuPont method. SSSC can use powdered silicon to produce a silicon ball. The
amount and the cost of silicon used for SSSC are much lower, and this results in low cost. The
low-cost SSSC can reduce the current cost of electricity charges. Therefore, SSSC will dominate
SSC for generating energy.
At the same time, an innovative battery system is required. A Li-ion battery is an essential
device for stabilizing the electricity produced from fluctuating renewable
energy resources. There are still a lot of technological issues for realizing the efficiency and
capacity sufficient for a practicable system. The future Li-ion battery for automobile use requires
high capacity and a high charging rate. The key materials for such future innovative Li-ion
batteries are single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) and silicon nanoparticles as promising
anode materials.
 Second, SSSC is much easier to use than SSC. SSSC is flexible and subject to bending and
rolling because SSSC films consist of discrete silicon balls. The flexible SSSC can be used for
automobile roofs and for curved surfaces of houses.
Third, the energy conversion efficiency of SSSC has the potential to exceed that of SSC,
although the current efficiency of SSSC is a little bit lower than that of SSC. SSSC, having a
reflective mirror to concentrate solar light, can enhance the light intensity by several times and
results in an increase in the energy conversion efficiency rate. The efficiency achievable due to
cell design is about 18%.
In conclusion, only a small change in the shape of silicon crystals results in a big difference on
the solar cell market. Let’s summarize the technological innovation required for SSSC. First,
silicon ball crystals, with a few grains inside the ball, have to be fabricated at a high-speed
production rate. The supercooling of the silicon balls must be controlled during phase transition
from molten to solid. Chemical engineering can predict the temperature of silicon balls that fall
down in a furnace by taking radiative and convectional heat transfer into consideration (Kuzuoka
et al., 2007). Furthermore, the triggered point for the onset of solidification from supercooling
must be controlled for silicon balls consisting mostly of a single crystal with few grains. If the
production rate is slow, the supercooling is reduced, but the production cost is high. In general,
seeking the appropriate balance among the production rate, quality of products, and production
cost is a problem needing to be solved by the methods of chemical engineering. Second, the
DuPont method, which is not in use now, must be revised in terms of the quality of silicon
powders. We need to do a lot of research on fabricating granular silicon. For SSSC, silicon crystal
balls must be fabricated from granular silicon by a new method. Everything mentioned here
relates to process innovation considering shape control and nanostructure control. The
nanostructure of materials is crucial for quality control of devices.
Innovation for Future Materials
There are a lot of sophisticated materials proposed as for the future. We think that silicon and
carbon are key materials for sustainable development. There are several types of solar cells, but
silicon-based solar cells are the most promising from the perspectives of safety and durability.
Future highly efficient devices can be materialized by controlling the shape and nanostructure, as
already mentioned about SSSC. The nano-carbon family is a good example of a future material.
The current nano-carbon family consists of carbon black, carbon fiber, fullerene, nanowall,
nanohorn, nanotube, and so on. Most of them involve graphite sheets.
Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT), a type of nanotube, has many potential applications
from composites to field emission display (FED) and field emission transistors (FET), as shown in
Figure 6. The key issue is to reduce the cost of SWNT, because the current price is in the order of
about $100per g. The target price is $1per g for composites, Li-ion batteries, and transparent
electrodes. It is clear that the production process is the key to dramatically reducing the cost of
SWNT. Material scientists have made huge efforts in developing SWNT and its applications. Now,
chemical engineers have to develop an innovative process for producing SWNT. The production
process depends on the application, because the nanostructures and the physical properties
required of devices depend on the process of SWNT. In conclusion, many processes have to be
studied considering the relationships of process, structure, and function (PSF). Chemical
engineering can contribute to the structuring of knowledge of nanomaterial fabrications by
understanding PSF.
 The key technology to SWNT growth is to control nanoparticles of catalysts on a substrate. We
have developed a novel method of studying the size of catalyst particles, which is a combinatorial
method of mapping the combination of catalysts in two dimensions on a substrate while changing
the thickness of the catalyst (Noda et al., 2006). In Figure 7, SWNT grown on a substrate whose
horizontal position

Figure 7. Schematic of CMD method and a photograph of resulting VA-CNTs of a series of

diameters.
corresponds to the size of catalyst particles is shown. The dependency of SWNT growth on the
size of catalyst particles can be understood by small number of experiments (Noda et al., 2007).
The hidden role of a substrate, on which hydrocarbon adsorbed is decomposed like a reforming
process, was revealed by our sophisticated experiments, as schematically shown in Figure 8. As a
result, the mechanism of SWNT growth understood by the combinatorial method is quite general
in terms of the knowledge of chemical engineers, but unique for material scientists.
Mass production of SWNT at a low cost for composites and transparent electrodes is an open
area for chemical engineers. The transparent electrodes fabricated by sputtering of indium tin
oxide (ITO) can be substituted by SWNT networks. The current sheet resistance of a SWNT film
of our preliminary experiment, 1.9kX=&, under 92% optical transmittance is one order higher
than that of ITO, but it will be improved if SWNT networks become hierarchical networks like
blood vessels. The control of hierarchical aggregates for future nanomaterials is also an open area
for chemical engineers.

Structuring Knowledge

The main objective of structuring knowledge is to stimulate new ideas for understanding
nanomaterials in ways that strongly relate processes, nanostructures, functions, and applications.
People in industry are concerned about solutions to problems when developing products and want
to gain generalized knowledge. It is necessary to match industrial problems with generalized
academic knowledge in a timely manner. Although material scientists focus on differences in
material characteristics, the formation of the nanostructures of advanced materials can be unified
conceptually with mechanism-oriented knowledge. Chemical engineering can offer a methodology
to structure knowledge for deep understanding of the relationships among processes, structures,
and functions, as shown in Figure 3. The key is to elucidate the mechanisms of nanostructure
formation, such as clustering, nucleation, and micro-phase separation, that occur in various types
of fabrication processes.
New ideas based on
structured knowledge
eventually result in
technological
innovation.

Figure 8. Catalytic role of Al2O3 substrates in hydrocarbon dissociation during CVD.

The fabrication of SWNT catalysts is a good example of structured knowledge. The productivity
of carbon nanotubes (CNT) strongly depends on the catalysts, as shown in Figure 8. Therefore,
there are a lot of studies about catalysts for CNT. We can categorize the catalysts as two types:
floating and supported. Floating catalysts are usually synthesized in vapor phase after being
injected into a reactor as vapor or liquid. Supported catalysts are commonly deposited on a
substrate by sputtering, CVD, and thermal decomposition after coating. The size and the number
density of catalysts must be controlled for the vertically aligned growth of SWNT.
Methods of catalyst synthesis consist of multiple procedures, and there are many combinations of

procedures.

Theoverview of catalyst preparations for CNT can be

shown simply, as in Figure 9, which is a typical knowledge network developed as one of the
knowledge engines in our structuring knowledge platform. In Figure 9, the source materials, the
preparation of the precursors, the structure of the precursors, the fabrication of the catalysts, and
the final structure of the catalysts are well related. Since most of the items are linked to papers,
web pages, and knowledge networks that explain the relationships of existing knowledge more
precisely, we could determine the essence of catalyst preparation for CNT. Then, we found a new
combination for the fabrication process of catalysts by developing a new method, combinatorial
masked deposition (CMD), shown in Figure 7. The combinatorial method itself has already been
developed in material science as a cost-effective experimental method. We applied the
combinatorial method to investigate the composition and the size of the nanoparticles of SWNT
catalysts. As a result, we have succeeded in reproducing the super growth of SWNT and in
developing a new process for the mass production for SWNT at a low cost.

Conclusion
Chemical engineers should commit themselves to structuring knowledge. Also, they should deal
with the mechanism of nanostructure formation in the material and device processes, because
functional organized micro-and nanostructures play a key role in many future areas, including
energy conversion and storage, biotechnology, and general materials applications. If these can be
achieved, a new era of chemical engineering will be realized. Material recycling, high-efficiency
energy, and renewable energy required for the 22nd century must be achieved by reducing the
number of chemical elements. Silicon and carbon are key materials. Controlling the shape and the
nanostructure of materials can enable highly efficient devices. Chemical engineering can realize
highly efficient processes and low-cost mass production by developing new reaction engineering
that designs material structures with reactions.

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