Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University , Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, United States.
J Am Chem Soc. 2017 Sep 13;139(36):12623-12631. doi: 10.1021/jacs.7b06173. Epub 2017 Sep 5.
Since their invention in the 1950s, composite carbon electrodes have been employed in a wide variety of applications, ranging from batteries and fuel cells to chemical sensors, because they are easy to make and pattern at millimeter scales. Despite their widespread use, traditional carbon composite electrodes have substandard electrochemistry relative to metallic and glassy carbon electrodes. As a result, there is a critical need for new composite carbon electrodes that are highly electrochemically active, have universal and easy fabrication into complex geometries, are highly conductive, and are low cost. Herein, a new solvent-based method is presented for making low-cost composite graphite electrodes containing a thermoplastic binder. The electrodes, which are termed thermoplastic electrodes (TPEs), are easy to fabricate and pattern, give excellent electrochemical performance, and have high conductivity (700 S m). The thermoplastic binder enables the electrodes to be hot embossed, molded, templated, and/or cut with a CO laser into a variety of intricate patterns. Crucially, these electrodes show a marked improvement in peak current, peak separation, and resistance to charge transfer over traditional carbon electrodes. The impact of electrode composition, surface treatment (sanding, polishing, plasma treatment), and graphite source were found to significantly impact fabrication, patterning, conductivity, and electrochemical performance. Under optimized conditions, electrodes generated responses similar to more expensive and difficult to fabricate graphene and highly oriented pyrolytic graphite electrodes. The TPE electrode system reported here provides a new approach for fabricating high performance carbon electrodes with utility in applications ranging from sensing to batteries.
自 20 世纪 50 年代发明以来，复合碳电极已广泛应用于从电池和燃料电池到化学传感器等各种应用，因为它们易于在毫米范围内制造和成型。尽管它们被广泛使用，但与金属和玻璃碳电极相比，传统的碳复合材料电极的电化学性能较差。因此，迫切需要新的复合碳电极，这些电极具有高度的电化学活性，能够通用且易于复杂几何形状的制造，具有高导电性，并且成本低廉。在此，提出了一种新的基于溶剂的方法，用于制造含有热塑性粘合剂的低成本复合石墨电极。这些电极称为热塑性电极（TPE），易于制造和成型，电化学性能优异，导电性高（700 S m）。热塑性粘合剂使电极能够通过热压印、模塑、模板和/或使用 CO 激光切割成各种复杂的图案。至关重要的是，与传统碳电极相比，这些电极在峰值电流、峰分离和对电荷转移的阻力方面有明显的改善。发现电极组成、表面处理（打磨、抛光、等离子体处理）和石墨源对制造、图案化、导电性和电化学性能有重大影响。在优化条件下，电极产生的响应类似于更昂贵且更难制造的石墨烯和高取向热解石墨电极。这里报道的 TPE 电极系统为制造具有从传感到电池等各种应用的高性能碳电极提供了一种新方法。
