Production of high throughput nano-porous silicon (NPS) powder with different architectures

Abstract

In this study, a powder technology manufacturing route as a pioneering, low cost, simple and safe method is used for the fabrication of nano-porous silicon (NPS) powder. It is a promising one as its high throughput for different applications due to their supposed low toxicity and good compatibility. The NPS has been prepared using a combination between high energy ball milling technique and wet alkali chemical etching based technique through the utilization of commercial silicon powder; with high yield efficiency (86.3%). Preparation of several NPS shapes (nanorods, nanoplates, nanwalls, nanospheres and nanobelts) are fabricated, which could be used in different applications. The most significant reduction of the crystallite size was observed by increasing the milling time. Transformation of crystallographic plane of the commercial powder Si (400) to the NPS {(111), (220), (211), (312) and (400)} is resulted, using several concentrations of (KOH) as the etchant and wetting agent {n-propanol (NPA)}.