Tag: nanowires

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New Materials

Hybrid Graphene-POM_thumbHybrid materials. Polyoxometalates are nanometer-sized electroactive inorganic clusters alike oxides quantum dots. Anchoring them in carbons or conducting polymers allows for the harnessing of their electrochemical (faradaic) properties as electrodes for energy storage.  

 

HCu-PPy Nanocableybrid Nanostructures. Cu2O-PPy Nanocables_thumbAgPPy Nanosnakes_thumbConducting polymers and metals can be made to grow together to form self-assembled nanostructures: nanowires, nanocables or nanosnakes are some of the most spectacular. It also works with oxides.

Fractal Ni_thumbFractal Porosity. Fractal granularity.Fractal granularity LiFePO4How to induced porosity in a material spanning macro meso and micro-pores? Nickel was a beautiful example of fractal microstructure engineering.Then we made LiFePO4 active electrode materials with fractal granularity.

Ag-Agar_thumbMatrix Chemistry. Silver Nanoparticles and Nanostructures in Biopolymers. A polymer matrix is an elegant way to control the growth of nanoparticles. The reduction of Ag+ ions inside agar-agar gels led to protected Ag nanoparticles and nanostructures

 

New Chemical Compounds

Most of the time we seek to prepare materials and study their properties and performance. But sometimes we just synthesize new chemical compounds with no application in mind

WhAg2Cu2O3_thumb_01en they were discovered (or invented?) these compounds were not even advanced materials.  Ag2Cu2O3 was the first mixed oxide of copper and silver and it was synthesized because it didn’t exist. Not even in nature, as far as we know.

Ag2Cu2O3 : The First Silver-Copper Oxide. P. Gómez-Romero*, E. Tejada-Rosales, M.R. Palacín.  Angew.Chem. 1999, 111(4), 544-6. Angew.Chem.Int.Ed.Engl. 1999, 38(4), 524-5.

Latter on, this new compound was patented as an efficient catalyst for the partial oxidation of methanol to formaldehide and as a electrode for primaryLi batteries

Thermally stable catalysts comprising copper-silver mixed oxides, useful for oxidation of organic substrates, e.g. for the partial oxidation of alcohols. Patent Number(s): WO2003103831-A; WO2003103831-A1; ES2197013-A1; AU2003232853-A1; ES2197013-B1; AU2003232853-A8 Inventor(s): GOMEZ-ROMERO P, TEJADA-ROSALES E, MUNOZ-ROJAS D, CASAN-PASTOR N, MESTL G, WOELK H, CSIC and MAX PLANCK INST(PLAC-C), 30 05 2003. Derwent Primary Accession Number: 2004-071300 [48]

Micro-supercapacitors

Micro-supercapacitors are miniaturized electrochemical energy storage devices, recently developed, which can be directly integrated into other miniaturized electronic devices such as sensors-actuators or energy-harvesting microsystems providing excellent nano-/micro-scale peak power. As part of European project NEST (Nanowires for Energy Storage), we have developed the electrode and electrolyte designs to produce a micro-supercapacitor via a process compatible with integration in C-MOS microelectronics that can withstand solder reflow (280°C for 40 s). The design combines the high surface area of silicon nanowires and the high thermal stability of ionic liquids used as the electrolyte.

Scheme

Our recent efforts have been devoted to increase the energy and power densities of micro-supercapacitors via the fabrication of nanostructured electroactive materials. Si Nanowires coated with  MnO2 or conducting polymers (polyaniline, polypyrrole) allowed us to reach that goal.

 

EUROPEAN PATENT: ” Electrode material comprising silicon nanowires covered by a mesoporous oxide nanostructured coating and ionic liquid electrolytes for energy storage applications.”

Pedro Gómez-Romero, Deepak P. Dubal, David Aradilla, Gerard Bidan, CSIC-CEA  9-03-2015.

 

Ultrathin MnO2 nanoflakes grown on silicon nanowires for high performance micro-supercapacitors with Li-doped ionic liquid.

Deepak P. Dubal, David Aradilla, Gérard Bidan, Pascal Gentile, Thomas J.S. Schubert, Jan Wimberg, Saïd Sadki, Pedro Gomez-Romero*  Accepted   Scientific Reports (Nature pub. Group) 2015