Letter abstract
Nature Materials 5, 713 - 717 (2006)
Published online: 13 August 2006 | doi:10.1038/nmat1709
Subject Categories: Catalytic materials | Materials for energy | Nanoscale materials
Electrochemical lithiation synthesis of nanoporous materials with superior catalytic and capacitive activity
Yong-Sheng Hu1,3, Yu-Guo Guo1,3, Wilfried Sigle2, Sarmimala Hore1, Palani Balaya1 & Joachim Maier1
Nanoporous materials have attracted great technological interest during the past two decades, essentially due to their wide range of applications: they are used as catalysts, molecular sieves, separators and gas sensors as well as for electronic and electrochemical devices1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Most syntheses of nanoporous materials reported so far have focused on template-assisted bottom-up processes, including soft templating6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (chelating agents, surfactants, block copolymers and so on) and hard templating11, 12 (porous alumina, carbon nanotubes and nanoporous materials) methods. Here, we exploit a mechanism implicitly occurring in lithium batteries at deep discharge13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 to develop it into a room-temperature template-free method of wide applicability in the synthesis of not only transition metals but also metal oxides with large surface area and pronounced nanoporosity associated with unprecedented properties. The power of this top-down method is demonstrated by the synthesis of nanoporous Pt and RuO2, both exhibiting superior performance: the Pt prepared shows outstanding properties when used as an electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation, and the RuO2, when used as a supercapacitor electrode material, exhibits a distinctly better performance than that previously reported for non-hydrated RuO2 (refs 19,20).
- Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: Yu-Guo Guo1,3 e-mail: y.guo@fkf.mpg.de
Correspondence to: Joachim Maier1 e-mail: s.weiglein@fkf.mpg.de
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