Carbon nanofibers (CNF) are widely used as active agents for electrodes in Li-ion secondary battery cells, supercapacitors, and fuel cells. Nanoscale coatings on CNF electrodes can increase the output and lifespan of battery devices. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) can control the coating thickness at the nanoscale regardless of the shape, suitable for coating CNFs. However, because the CNF surface comprises stable C–C bonds, initiating homogeneous nuclear formation is difficult because of the lack of initial nucleation sites. This study introduces uniform nucleation site formation on CNF surfaces to promote a uniform SnO2 layer. We pretreat the CNF surface by introducing H2O or Al2O3 (trimethylaluminum + H2O) before the SnO2 ALD process to form active sites on the CNF surface. Transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy both identify the SnO2 layer morphology on the CNF. The Al2O3-pretreated sample shows a uniform SnO2 layer, while island-type SnOx layers grow sparsely on the H2Opretreated or untreated CNF.

Porous Cu with a dispersion of nanoscale Al2O3 particles is fabricated by freeze-drying CuO-Al2O3/camphene slurry and sintering. Camphene slurries with CuO-Al2O3 contents of 5 and 10 vol% are unidirectionally frozen at -30oC, and pores are generated in the frozen specimens by camphene sublimation during air drying. The green bodies are sintered for 1 h at 700oC and 800oC in H2 atmosphere. The sintered samples show large pores of 100 μm in average size aligned parallel to the camphene growth direction. The internal walls of the large pores feature relatively small pores of ~10 μm in size. The size of the large pores decreases with increasing CuO-Al2O3 content by the changing degree of powder rearrangement in the slurry. The size of the small pores decreases with increasing sintering temperature. Microstructural analysis reveals that 100-nm Al2O3 particles are homogeneously dispersed in the Cu matrix. These results suggest that a porous composite body with aligned large pores could be fabricated by a freeze-drying and H2 reducing process.

Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized using ultrasonic spray pyrolysis. The morphologies, crystal structures, chemical bonding states, and electrochemical properties of the nanoparticles are investigated. The FTO nanoparticles show uniform morphology and size distribution in the range of 6-10 nm. The FTO nanoparticles exhibit excellent electrochemical performance with high discharge specific capacity and good cycling stability (620mA h g−1 capacity retention up to 50 cycles), as well as excellent high-rate performance (250 mA h g−1 at 700mAg−1) compared to that of commercial SnO2. The improved electrochemical performance can be explained by two main effects. First, the excellent cycling stability with high discharge capacity is attributed to the nano-sized FTO particles, which are related to the increased electrochemical active area between the electrode and electrolyte. Second, the superb high-rate performance and the excellent cycling stability are ascribed to the increased electrical conductivity, which results from the introduction of fluorine doping in SnO2. This noble electrode structure can provide powerful potential anode materials for high-performance lithiumion batteries.

In this study, graphite composites were fabricated by warm press molding method to realize commercialization of PEM fuel cells. Graphite composites have been considered as alternative economic materials for bipolar plate of PEM fuel cells. Graphite powder that enables to provide electrical conductivity was selected as the main substance. The graphite powder was mixed with phenolic resin and the mixture was pressed using a warm press method. First of all, the graphite powder was pulverized with a ball mill for the dense packing of composite. As the ball milling time increases, the average size of particles decreases and the size distribution becomes narrow. This allows for improvement of the uniformity of graphite composite. However, the surface electrical resistivity of graphite composite increases as the ball milling time increases. It is due to that graphite particles with amorphous phase are generated on the surface due to the friction and collision of particles during pulverizing. We found that the contact electrical resistivity of graphite particles increases as the particle size decreases. The contact electrical resistivity of graphite powders was reduced due to high molding pressure by warm press molding. This leads to improvement of the mechanical properties of graphite composite. Hydrogen gas impermeability was measured with the graphite composite, showing a possibility of the application for bipolar plate in fuel cell. And, I-V curves of the graphite composite bipolar plate exhibit a similar performance to the graphite bipolar plate.

Porous carbon materials were prepared with a thermal treatment of coal tar pitch at 550 in the Ar gas. Growth, merger, and distribution of pore were characterized with scanning electron microscopy as variation ascending temperature gradient and chamber pressure. After graphitizing at the 2600 (1 hr.), walls and connecting parts between pores were investigated with X-ray diffraction patterns. Wall thickness and pore size decreases as increasing ascending temperature gradient, and pore size becomes homogeneous. Graphite quality and thermal conductivity become higher due to the enhanced orientation of walls and connecting parts between pores.