Scientific Achievement
An oxidative chemical vapor deposition (oCVD) method is developed to deposit conformal, nanometric coatings on geometrically complex, porous carbon electrodes. Evaluation in a single electrolyte flow cell with an aqueous iron redox couple showed reduced kinetic, ohmic, and mass transport resistance as compared to uncoated samples.
Significance and Impact
We demonstrate a new approach to engineer the interfacial properties (e.g., wettability, stability, activity) of porous carbon electrodes through ultrathin polymeric surface coatings.
Research Details
- oCVD films of six thicknesses with varying crystalline properties were uniformally and conformally deposited onto AvCarb 1071 carbon cloth electrodes
- The performance and durability of coated and uncoated electrodes were assessed in a single-electrolyte flow cell with different electrolyte compositions and flow rates; coated electrodes showed enhanced maximum current at an applied overpotential of 350 mV by 6.7× and 3.7× in iron sulfate and iron chloride electrolytes, respectively.
