The potentiostatic synthesis and microgravimetric kinetics of hybrid materials polypyrrole/PW12O403- has been investigated. Every electrogenerated film was controlled by cyclic voltammetry. Charge consumed during polymerization, weight of the electrogenerated films, charge stored in the film, weight of the film after charge/discharge cycles, productivity of the electropolymerization charge (mg mC-1) and specific charge (mA h g-1) stored in the material were obtained for every film. The influence of the variables potential of polymerization, pyrrole or polyoxometalate concentrations, temperature, and polymerization time was studied. Whatever the conditions of synthesis, a constant productivity of 1.9 × 10-3 mg mC-1 was obtained. Every electrogenerated film undergoes a weight loss up to 80% during the initial cathodic voltammetric control. The insoluble part of the films electrogenerated at increasing potentials stores an almost constant specific charge near 100 mA h g-1, showing that increasing rates of degradation processes, usually found in other electropolymerization processes, are not present in this system. The high reaction order of the kinetics related to the polyoxometalate concentration was attributed to the formation of adducts polyoxometalate−pyrrole, adducts being the electroactive species during electropolymerization. Results show that the mechanism of the electropolymerization process does not change in a significant way when the conditions of synthesis are changed.
ABSTRACT The South Alamein study area is located in the Western desert of Egypt between the prolific petroleum trends of Razzak-Alamein and Baharriya. The petroleum system of the area has been evaluated within an exploration framework. Potential source rocks in the Cretaceous Alam El Bueib and Abu Roash Formations and the Cenozoic Apollonia Formation display good petroleum potential; however, they are thermally immature over a large part of the studied area. Compilation of existing data and new measurements have been carried out to determine the initial source potential of the Jurassic Khatatba Formation source rock as well as its kinetic parameters for hydrocarbon generation. Results show that maturation of the Jurassic source rock does not occur below 140 °C or a vitrinite reflectance of around 0.9%. This combination of temperature and vitrinite reflectance is not unusual for a mixed type II-type III source rock, but has crucial implications for exploration in the area. The main hydrocarbon kitchens are located northward of the study area and migration to the south began around 40 Ma ago. The hydrocarbons are primarily trapped in the crest of the Mesozoic tilted blocks. It is believed that both migration and trapping have been influenced by fault hydraulic behaviour. Since this behaviour is complex, a sensitivity analysis was carried out on the migration pathway compared with the fault sealing factor to understand the filling history of the structures.
Manganese-based materials can catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), although their activity is known to depend on the crystalline phases and on the concentration of surface-active species. In the present study, we have optimized these two parameters to obtain improved catalysts for ORR. A sol-gel method was used to synthesize LaMnO3-manganese oxides composites with different lanthanum-to-manganese atomic ratios. The synthesized materials, which can be described as La1-xMnOz, were tested under ORR conditions and characterized by several physicochemical techniques such as SEM, XPS, EDX or XRD. It was found that the concentration of lanthanum governs the formation of different crystal phases and determines the crystallite size. Besides, high values of x tend to increase the surface concentration of manganese and therefore to produce more active sites for ORR. Among the materials analysed, La0.6MnOz mixed with carbon black (Vulcan) showed the best electrocatalytic performance. The high tolerance to methanol makes this electrocatalyst a promising alternative to substitute Pt-based materials in alkaline electrolytes.