Fu Xuewei, Wang Yu, Zhong Wei-Hong, Cao Guozhong
School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164, United States.
Department of Materials and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-2120, United States.
ACS Omega. 2017 Apr 27;2(4):1679-1686. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.7b00289. eCollection 2017 Apr 30.
Creation of three-dimensional (3D) porous nanostructured electrodes with controlled conductive pathways for both ions and electrons is becoming an increasingly important strategy and is particularly of great interest for the development of high-performance energy storage devices. In this article, we report a facile and environmentally friendly self-assembly approach to fabricating advanced 3D nanostructured electrodes. The self-assembly is simply realized via formation of a multifunctional protein coating on the surface of electrode nanoparticles by using a denatured soy protein derived from the abundantly prevalent soybean plant. It is found that the denatured protein coating plays three roles simultaneously: as a surfactant for the dispersion of electrode nanoparticles, an ion-conductive coating for the active materials, and a binder for the final electrode. More importantly, it is interestingly found that being a unique surfactant, the surface protein coating enables the self-assembly behavior of the electrode nanoparticles during the evaporation of aqueous dispersion, which finally results in 3D porous nanostructured electrodes. In comparison with the most classic binder, poly(vinylidene fluoride), the advantages of the 3D nanostructured electrode in terms of electrochemical properties (capacity and rate capability) are demonstrated. This study provides an environmentally friendly and cost-effective self-assembly strategy for fabrication of advanced nanostructured electrodes using electrode nanoparticles as the building block.
创建具有可控离子和电子传导路径的三维（3D）多孔纳米结构电极正成为一种越来越重要的策略，对于高性能储能设备的开发尤其具有重大意义。在本文中，我们报道了一种简便且环保的自组装方法来制备先进的3D纳米结构电极。这种自组装是通过使用源自大量种植的大豆植物的变性大豆蛋白在电极纳米颗粒表面形成多功能蛋白质涂层来简单实现的。研究发现，变性蛋白质涂层同时发挥三种作用：作为电极纳米颗粒分散的表面活性剂、活性材料的离子传导涂层以及最终电极的粘合剂。更重要的是，有趣的是发现作为一种独特的表面活性剂，表面蛋白质涂层在水分散体蒸发过程中使电极纳米颗粒具有自组装行为，最终形成3D多孔纳米结构电极。与最经典的粘合剂聚偏二氟乙烯相比，展示了3D纳米结构电极在电化学性能（容量和倍率性能）方面的优势。本研究提供了一种环保且经济高效的自组装策略，用于以电极纳米颗粒为构建单元制备先进的纳米结构电极。
