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Fabrication of Nanoporous Metals through Thermal Decomposition of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
Journal article

Fabrication of Nanoporous Metals through Thermal Decomposition of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Swarnendu Chatterjee, Yawei Li, Saad Intikhab and Joshua David Snyder
Meeting abstracts (Electrochemical Society), v MA2020-01(48), pp 2714-2714
01 May 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1149/MA2020-01482714mtgabs

Abstract

Nanoporous metals (np-M) owing to their high surface area-to-volume ratio and electrical/thermal conductivity, have emerged as promising materials for catalysis. There exists a group of processing methodologies by which np-M are formed through a top-down nanostructure evolution driven by the selective removal of a sacrificial component, all of which are a variation of dealloying. The driving force for the traditional electrochemical/chemical dealloying is difference of redox potentials and dissolution tendencies amongst the constituent metals. This limits the process to few noble metals e.g. Pt, Pd, Au etc. More recently liquid metal dealloying and vapor phase dealloying have shown success in mimicking the process of traditional dealloying based on difference of affinities of thermal dissolution in a liquid metal, and vapor pressures of the constituent metals, respectively. Nanoporosity evolution through current dealloying methodologies, however, is governed by strict requirements including sufficient separation in “reactivity” of the participating components and a homogeneous solid solution precursor alloy. This limits the viable alloy systems that may be used and the range of np-M's that may be formed with reasonable porosity length scales. Here, we report thermal decomposition of crystalline transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) as a new processing methodology for np-M formation, adding to the spectrum of dealloying protocols. We demonstrate application of this process to the formation of a broader class of np-M including W, Re, Mo, and Ta with feature sizes below 100 nm. The presented facile thermal treatment of TMDs offers a new methodology for the evolution of nanoporosity in a broad range of metals.

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