Robust hierarchical 3D carbon foam electrode for efficient water electrolysis.

Herein we report a 3D heterostructure comprising a hierarchical macroporous carbon foam that incorporates mesoporous carbon nanotubes decorated with cobalt oxide nanoparticles as an unique and highly efficient electrode material for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in electrocatalytic water splitting. The best performing electrode material showed high stability after 10 h, at constant potential of 1.7 V vs. RHE (reversible hydrogen electrode) in a 0.1 M KOH solution and high electrocatalytic activity in OER with low overpotential (0.38 V vs RHE at 10 mA cm-2). The excellent electrocatalytic performance of the electrode is rationalized by the overall 3D macroporous structure and with the firmly integrated CNTs directly grown on the foam, resulting in a large specific surface area, good electrical conductivity, as well as an efficient electrolyte transport into the whole electrode matrix concurrent with an ability to quickly dispose oxygen bubbles into the electrolyte. The eminent properties of the three-dimensional structured carbon matrix, which can be synthesized through a simple, scalable and cost effective pyrolysis process show that it has potential to be implemented in large-scale water electrolysis systems.

Industrially benign super-compressible piezoresistive carbon foams with predefined wetting properties: from environmental to electrical applications.

In the present work electrically conductive, flexible, lightweight carbon sponge materials derived from open-pore structure melamine foams are studied and explored. Hydrophobic and hydrophilic surface properties - depending on the chosen treatment conditions - allow the separation and storage of liquid chemical compounds. Activation of the carbonaceous structures substantially increases the specific surface area from ~4 m(2)g(-1) to ~345 m(2)g(-1), while retaining the original three-dimensional, open-pore structure suitable for hosting, for example, Ni catalyst nanoparticles. In turn the structure is rendered suitable for hydrogenating acetone to 2-propanol and methyl isobutyl ketone as well for growing hierarchical carbon nanotube structures used as electric double-layer capacitor electrodes with specific capacitance of ~40 F/g. Mechanical stress-strain analysis indicates the materials are super-compressible (>70% volume reduction) and viscoelastic with excellent damping behavior (loss of 0.69 ± 0.07), while piezoresistive measurements show very high gauge factors (from ~20 to 50) over a large range of deformations. The cost-effective, robust and scalable synthesis - in conjunction with their fascinating multifunctional utility - makes the demonstrated carbon foams remarkable competitors with other three-dimensional carbon materials typically based on pyrolyzed biopolymers or on covalently bonded graphene and carbon nanotube frameworks.