Chemical Engineering September 2020 - 9

Coretec partners with Evonik
to produce cyclohexasilane
he Coretec Group Inc. (Ann
Arbor, Mich.; www.thecoretec
group.com) recently entered a
supply partnership with specialty
chemical company Evonik Industries
AG (Essen, Germany; www.
evonik.com) in which Evonik will produce
cyclohexasilane (CHS; Si6H12)
for application development using
intellectual property developed by
Coretec. Coretec has developed a
proprietary process for synthesizing
CHS, a precursor of pure silicon.
Under the agreement, Evonik will
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T
produce 50-g samples of CHS by the
end of 2020 for use by industrial customers
in the development of silicon
applications, such as Si quantum
dots for next-generation (specificfrequency)
LED lights, Si anodes for
Li-ion batteries and low-power semiconductor
computer chips.
Coretec CEO Michael Kraft notes
that the company's new process for
CHS synthesis enables safe and lowcost
production of CHS. Users can
now take advantage of CHS's unique
properties, such as making high-purity
amorphous Si at low temperatures.
The physical properties of amorphous
Si differ from crystalline Si, and are
critical to the use of Si in quantum
dots and other applications, he says.
Further, CHS is a liquid at ambient
temperature and pressure, and
allows the delivery of high-purity silicon
to various manufactured products
in a liquid form, and at much
lower temperatures than would be
required for gas-based plasma-deposition
of Si. This reduces manufacturing
costs and may eliminate
certain manufacturing steps in making
Si-containing technology products,
Kraft says.
Coretec has filed for patents on
the intellectual property associated
with the new CHS synthesis process,
which differs from a previous process
under development by Coretec, which
could not be scaled effectively (Chem.
Eng., September 2016, p. 10).
7.0 "
could also serve as a starting material for sustainable
methanol synthesis.
For the project, Muhler collaborated with Bochum-based
researcher Daniel Laudenschleger
and Mülheim-based researcher Holger Ruland.
oil-adSorbiNg matS
Researchers from King Abdullah University of
Science and Technology (KAUST; Thuwal, Saudi
Arabia; www.kaust.edu.sa) have developed an
intrinsically porous polymer with a very high internal
surface area that could be an ideal material for
soaking up oil spills. The polymer's structure also
incorporates hydrophobic trifluoromethyl groups,
which enables the material to reject water while
adsorbing non-polar liquids, such as oil.
The polymer is composed of a fluorinated polyimide
(PIM-PI) with a high Brunauer-Emmett-
Teller (BET) surface area of 565 m2g−1. The nanofibrous
sorbent is produced by electrospinning of
PIM-PI (6FDA-TrMPD), which was synthesized
by a one-pot, high-temperature polycondensation
reaction between 4,4'-(hexafluoroisopropylidene)diphthalic
anhydride (6FDA) and
2,4,6-trimethyl-m-phenylenediamine
(TrMPD).
Electrospinning of 6FDA-TrMPD from a solution
of dimethylformamide (DMF) produced ultrafine
nanofibers. The developed sorbent showed high
sorption capacities of 25-56 g per gram of sorbent
for a variety of oils and non-polar solvents,
(Continues on p. 10)
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ChemiCal engineering www.Chemengonline.Com September 2020
9

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Chemical Engineering September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering September 2020