Facile synthesis of nanostructured carbon materials over RANEY® nickel catalyst films printed on Al2O3 and SiO2 substrates

Jhih-Fong Lin; Melinda Mohl; Mikko Nelo; Geza Toth; Ákos Kukovecz; Zoltán Kónya; Srividya Sridhar; Robert Vajtai; Pulickel M. Ajayan; Wei-Fang Su; Heli Jantunen; Krisztian Kordas

doi:10.1039/C4TC02442G

Facile synthesis of nanostructured carbon materials over RANEY® nickel catalyst films printed on Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ substrates†

Jhih-Fong Lin,^ab Melinda Mohl,^a Mikko Nelo,^a Geza Toth,^a Ákos Kukovecz,^cd Zoltán Kónya,^ce Srividya Sridhar,^f Robert Vajtai,^f Pulickel M. Ajayan,^f Wei-Fang Su,^b Heli Jantunen^a and Krisztian Kordas*^a

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Microelectronics and Materials Physics Laboratories, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4500, FI-90570 Oulu, Finland
E-mail: lapy@ee.oulu.fi

^b Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, 1, Roosevelt Road, Section 4, Taipei 106-17, Taiwan

^c Department of Applied and Environmental Chemistry, University of Szeged, RerrichBelater 1, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary

^d MTA-SZTE “Lendület” Porous Nanocomposites Research Group, RerrichBelater 1, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary

^e MTA-SZTE Reaction Kinetics and Surface Chemistry Research Group, RerrichBelater 1, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary

^f Department of Material Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

Abstract

A quick and convenient approach that combines a printing process and chemical vapor deposition is developed for facile construction of nanostructured metal–carbon composite structures. Films of porous RANEY® nickel catalyst particles are deposited on various substrates by stencil printing from dispersions of the catalyst and poly(methyl methacrylate) in 2-(2-butoxyethoxy)ethyl acetate. After removing the organic binders at elevated temperatures, the mesoporous Ni film is applied as a growth template for synthesizing nanostructured carbon materials on the surface. Depending on the synthesis conditions, carbon nanofibers and nanotubes, as well as graphite deposits, are found to form on the substrates, allowing a robust and scalable production of carbon based inert electrodes of high specific surface area. In addition to structural characterization of the composites by means of scanning and transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermal gravimetric and surface adsorption analyses, the produced carbon/RANEY® nickel composites are also studied as electrodes in electrochemical capacitors (specific capacitance of ∼12 F g⁻¹) and in field emitter devices with a low turn-on field (<1.0 V μm⁻¹). The results indicate the carbon/RANEY® nickel composites are suitable for direct integration on substrates used frequently in microelectronics.

Journal of Materials Chemistry C

Facile synthesis of nanostructured carbon materials over RANEY® nickel catalyst films printed on Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ substrates†

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Facile synthesis of nanostructured carbon materials over RANEY® nickel catalyst films printed on Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ substrates

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Journal of Materials Chemistry C