Fabrication of a Highly Conductive Ordered Porous Electrode by Carbon-Coating of a Continuous Mesoporous Silica Film

Abstract

A mesoporous silica film (MSF, 20 × 20 mm in size) with 3D accessible mesopores (Fmmm symmetry) was synthesized on a current collector substrate, and then the entire pore surface was coated with an extremely thin carbon layer. The resulting carbon-coated mesoporous silica film (C/MSF), which well retains the continuous silica phase with its ordered mesopore network intact, has many advantages over conventional MSFs, porous carbons, or carbon electrodes. Thanks to the continuous carbon-coated layer, C/MSF is electrically conductive, and besides, it has remarkably better stability in an aqueous solution than MSFs. These features enable C/MSF to be used as a stable electrode in aqueous electrolyte solutions. In addition, C/MSF exhibits a much higher rate of performance as an electrode of an electric double layer capacitor than conventional powdery electrodes, indicating that the C/MSF electrode has excellent electrical conductivity, which can be ascribed to the continuous film shape of C/MSF. Another noticeable feature of C/MSF is light transmittance (67.9% at a wavelength of 1000 nm). Thus, C/MSF can be a transparent porous electrode unlike any porous carbon electrodes ever reported. Furthermore, due to the uniform mesopores (2 nm in diameter), C/MSF showed a large capability of immobilizing a giant active species such as iron-porphyrin molecules. Indeed, a much larger current was detected for the charge transfer from C/MSF to the iron-porphyrin than in the case of the iron-porphyrin loaded on a conventional graphite electrode. C/MSF is therefore a promising candidate as an effective electrode in various fields.

Fabrication of Dense Non-Circular Nanomagnetic Device Arrays Using Self-Limiting Low-Energy Glow-Discharge Processing

“…The indent in the center of each Ni pillar resembles the filling issue that occurs during conformal deposition inside the trench – growth along the sidewalls eventually merges resulting in a dimple at the center of the pattern. This observation suggests that the SLIM processed resist is conductive [16]. Attempts to etch the pattern in an argon plasma to remove the overgrowth or flatten the dimple have always resulted in the degradation of the square shape of the Ni pillars, as shown in Figure 9b.…”

Bringing Porous Organic and Carbon‐Based Materials toward Thin‐Film Applications

“…B) Preparation procedure of a carbon‐coated mesoporous silica film (C/MSF) via alcohol‐coating and subsequent carbonization. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2011, the American Chemical Society.…”

“…Bottom: Transmittance of the MSF and C/MSF on the quartz plates at different wavelengths. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2011, the American Chemical Society.…”

Mesoporous silicas prepared by ammonium perchlorate oxidation and theirs application in the selective adsorption of high explosives

“…The former silicas can be used as ''pure'' mesoporous templates, and the latter composites, can probably be used as functional materials for applications in various fields [24][25][26][27][28][29]. This template removal strategy can also be extended to prepare other mesoporous silicas, such as those of space group Fm3m [14], Im3m [15], and Ia3d [16] (Fig.…”