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Ultra-fine metal particles dispersed on single-walled carbon nanotubes for energy devices

  • Energy materials
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Abstract

We prepared metal nano-particles deposited on SWCNTs by heat-treatment of SWCNTs encapsulating metal complex (Ni(acac)2, Cu(acac)2) molecules inside their hollow cores. It was confirmed by synchrotron radiation x-ray absorption spectra that the obtained nano-particles were metallic Ni and Cu. Electron microscopic measurements revealed that the diameters of most of the metal particles are less than 10 nm and that they were well dispersed on SWCNTs even in the bundles. Ni metal particles on SWCNTs were converted to Ni(OH)2 particles by electrochemical treatment in 1 M KOH aqueous solution. We investigated the Ni-MH battery electrode properties of the obtained Ni(OH)2/SWCNT sample. We expect Ni(OH)2/SWCNT to work as high-power battery electrode, because the reversible charge/discharge capacity of Ni(OH)2/SWCNT did not change much with increasing the scan rate from 2 to 1000 mV/s. Cu/SWCNT worked as a CO2 photo-reduction catalyst by combing it with light-absorbing semiconductors. In the photo-catalyst, Cu works as a metal co-catalyst to enhance the reaction efficiency. We used inorganic semiconductor TiO2 and organic semiconductor epindolidine (EPI). It was found that both Cu/SWCNT/TiO2 and Cu/SWCNT/EPI can work as CO2 photo-reduction catalyst. The external CO2 to CO quantum yield of Cu/SWCNT/EPI catalyst under the simulated solar light (AM1.5G, 100 mW/cm2) was 2.2 × 10−4%.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the JSPS Japanese-German Graduate Externship (Grant No. 2019/R1), JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 19H02809, 19K15502 and 20K20946, the Sumitomo Foundation, the Hibi Science Foundation, the Thermal & Electric Energy Technology Foundation, and the Society of Iodine Science. W. H. was supported by the Project GRK2495/J from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Funding

Funding was provided by Jsps Japanese-German Graduate Externship (Grant Number 2019/R1), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant Numbers KAKENHI 19H02809, 19K15502, 20K20946), Sumitomo Foundation, Hibi Science Foundation, Thermal and Electric Energy Technology Foundation, Society of Iodine Science, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GRK2495/J).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Science and Applied Chemistry, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8555, Japan

    Yosuke Ishii, Sae Ishikawa, Itta Yamada, Kohei Kondo, Shinya Jindo & Shinji Kawasaki

  2. Division of Chemistry and Materials, Faculty of Textile Science and Technology, Shinshu University, Ueda, 386-8567, Japan

    Yoshiyuki Hattori

  3. Department of Material Science and Engineering, Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (I-MEET), Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Energy Campus Nürnberg, Fürther Straße 250, 90429, Nuremberg, Germany

    Oleksandr Mashkov & Wolfgang Heiss

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  1. Yosuke Ishii
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Ishii, Y., Ishikawa, S., Yamada, I. et al. Ultra-fine metal particles dispersed on single-walled carbon nanotubes for energy devices. J Mater Sci 57, 4300–4310 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-022-06894-6

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