Fabrication And Electrochemical Applications Of Mesoporous Carbon/Metallic Oxide Nanocomposite

Today in the21st century, the development of material sciencegradually goes to highly synthetic, structure and function-designable, andnanocomposite materials. Mesoporous Carbon (MC) is a kind of novelhigh-performance material, with a very high specific surface area, highporosity, and unique pore structure (pore size ranging between2-50nm),which has attracted a great attention since its emergence. After over tenyears of research, the fabrication and characterization of MC have beenwell developed, and it has been widely used as catalysts, adsorbents,sensors, and hydrogen storage materials. Metal oxides, such as titaniumdioxide (TiO2) and manganese dioxide (MnO2), have a high performanceand a wide range of applications; moreover, nanoscaled metal oxides evenbroaden its potential in many more areas like catalysis, adsorption, sensors,and electrochemistry. It has been believed that advanced materials with acombined advantage from MC and nano metaloxides should be generatedif MC/metal oxide nanocomposite could be generated.This paper attempts to synthesize MC/TiO2and MC/MnO2nanocomposites, and to seek their applications in electrochemistry.Specific research works and conclusions are as follows:1. The fabrication of MC/TiO2nanocomposite and its application asanode material for lithium ion battery.Uniformed polydopamine (PDA) layer was coated in the surface ofthe titanate nanotubes directly through in-situ polymerization, andMC/TiO2nanocomposite (TiO2@MC) was obtained after high temperaturecarbonization. Hydrofluoric acid was used for further processing to control the titanium content in the material. This nanocomposite was used asanode material of lithium ion battery, which has a capacity of commercialgraphite electrode level, with an excellent charge-discharge efficiency andcycle stability, as the result showed.2. The fabrication of MC/MnO2nanocomposite and its application assupercapacitor electrode material.Dopamine’s self-polymerization on the surface of carbon nanotubesand further high temperature carbonization to obtain mesoporous carbonmaterial, and MC/MnO2nanocomposite (MC@MnO2) was formed by theredox reaction between carbon and potassium permanganate (KMnO4) inan aqueous solution. We further explored its application as supercapacitorelectrode material.