What is “designer carbon?” What’s it good for? According to Stanford researchers – lots of applications including energy storage, solar panels and even carbon capture.
Heading up the Stanford team is Zhenan Bao, Professor of Chemical Engineering. She and his colleagues have published their “designer carbon” discovery, which they call HPG carbon, in the most recent issue of the journal ACS Central Science. Activated carbon is often produced from coconut shells but the materials contain pores with no consistency. Her team found a new method of synthesizing carbon using a water-based polymer similar to the material in a soft contact lens. These polymers are classified as hydrogels and form a three-dimensional interconnected network containing organic molecules and nitrogen. The material is ideal for conducting electricity.
The team manufactured nanometer-thick carbon sheets and then added potassium hydroxide to increase their surface areas. Voila, designer carbon which can be altered chemically by changing the polymer and organic composition and by applying heat to increase pore volume. This creates carbon with record-high surface areas – over 4,000 square meters per gram making the material useful for numerous applications.
The design team sees applications for super-capacitors, batteries and electrodes. One application should produce lithium-sulfur batteries that are stable and perform better. With the material heated to create a highly dense mat of small pores you don’t have any polysulfides leaching out to weaken battery performance.
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