Abstract
Ordered mesoporous metal oxides with a high specific surface area, tailored porosity and engineered interfaces are promising materials for electrochemical applications. In particular, the method of evaporation-induced self-assembly allows the formation of nanocrystalline films of controlled thickness on polar substrates. In general, mesoporous materials have the advantage of benefiting from a unique combination of structural, chemical and physical properties. This Perspective article addresses the structural characteristics and the electrical (charge-transport) properties of mesoporous metal oxides and how these affect their application in energy storage, catalysis and gas sensing.
Highlights
Because of the small dimensions of the crystallites in the pore walls and the high interface density, defect chemistry and surface spacecharge effects strongly affect the device performance and provide the unique possibility of tailoring the materials properties. In this Perspective, we review and describe the interplay between structure and electrical transport properties of mesoporous metal oxides, with a particular focus on applications in electrochemical energy storage, catalysis and gas sensing
In the following, we briefly describe the evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA)-based preparation of mesostructured thin films, which affords a high degree of control over the intrinsic and extrinsic processing parameters
While the origin of the unusual p(O2)-dependence still remains largely unclear, the results show that the high surface area of mesoporous materials can significantly alter their electrical properties
Summary
The principles of self-assembly for sol–gel-derived mesoporous materials have been described in considerable detail elsewhere and will not be further discussed here.[13,14,15,16,17,28,29,30,31,32] in the following, we briefly describe the EISA-based preparation of mesostructured thin films, which affords a high degree of control over the intrinsic (chemistry) and extrinsic (environment) processing parameters. Brezesinski et al synthesized cubic mesoporous TiO2 thin films by a conventional sol–gel route using KLE and TiCl4 as polymer structure-directing agent and precursor, respectively, and by a particle-based route, with anatase nanocrystals serving as preformed building blocks.[19] The authors demonstrated that the nanocrystal films can withstand much higher temperatures (up to 900 1C) before losing nanoscale order. They showed much improved Li-storage properties, especially greater power density due to high levels of pseudocapacitive charge storage. We discuss the protonic conductivity in nanoscale oxides
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