Preparation And Applications Of Metal-Coated Carbon Fibers And Metal-Coated Sponges Based On Polymer-Assisted Metal Electroless Deposition

This thesis explores the research and application of polymer-assisted metal?electroless?deposition?PAMD?as a simple,green,environmentally friendly,low-cost,high-efficiency metal deposition method.One of the main goals of this thesis is the tuning of obtainable conductive nanoparticle size by changing some experimental parameters.It is anticipated that variations in particle size and abundance of the metal particles on the surface?surface concentration?result in different functions.This different functionality yields in broadening of the range of application of the PAMD method toward enhanced flexible and wearable devices,and in application related to energy,catalysis,photothermal conversion,oil-water separation and so on.The main research contents are as follows:First,carbon fiber?T300?is employed as a base material.After pretreatment with?air?plasma,silanization,radical polymerization,and ion exchange,electroless deposition of metals,such as gold,silver,copper,and nickel,is performed.The surface resistances of the metal copper,silver,gold and nickel modified carbon fiber cloth are 0.253?/sq,0.152?/sq,0.523?/sq and 0.473?/sq,respectively.And the corresponding metal particle sizes are 200nm,200 nm,100 nm and 50 nm,respectively.Since the nano-metal particles on the surface of the carbon fiber are closely arranged to form a dense pinhole-free and conductive metal film,the nanometer thick metal film thus obtained not only ensures high conductivity of the metal,but also retains the high mechanical strength and uniaxial flexibility of the carbon fiber.Thereby,an ultra-light,highly conductive,metal-modified flexible carbon fiber with high mechanical strength is obtained,which can be used in a variety of flexible wearable devices.Second,a polydimethylsiloxane?PDMS?sponge is prepared by sugar leaching technique.Onto the abundant surface of the PDMS sponge,nano-gold is deposition.For the deposition,parameters such as plasma treatment,silanization,radical polymerization,ion exchange,and so on,are adjusted.Furthermore,pre-treatment time,concentration of copper deposition solution and gold deposition solution,are tuned to obtain a layer of uniform size and narrow particle size range of 9-40 nm?gold particles?.The large specific surface area of the gold nanoparticles and three-dimensional interconnected structure of PDMS sponge are synergies perfectly for an application in heterogeneous catalysis.The obtained black gold sponge catalyzes the reduction of p-nitrophenol?4-NP?with a catalytic rate up to 1.51×10⁶ min^-1mol^-1 and a catalytic efficiency up to 99.78%.