Comprehensive Structural, Surface-Chemical and Electrochemical Characterization of Nickel-Based Metallic Foams

Abstract

Nickel-based metallic foams are commonly used in electrochemical energy storage devices (rechargeable batteries) as both current collectors and active mass support. These materials attract attention as tunable electrode materials because they are available in a range of chemical compositions, pore structures, pore sizes, and densities. This contribution presents structural, chemical, and electrochemical characterization of Ni-based metallic foams. Several materials and surface science techniques (transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), focused ion beam (FIB), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)) and electrochemical methods (cyclic voltammetry (CV)) are used to examine the micro-, meso-, and nanoscopic structural characteristics, surface morphology, and surface-chemical composition of these materials. XPS combined with Ar-ion etching is employed to analyze the surface and near-surface chemical composition of the foams. The specific and electrochemically active surface areas (As, Aecsa) are determined using CV. Though the foams exhibit structural robustness typical of bulk materials, they have large As, in the range of 200-600 cm(2) g(-1). In addition, they are dual-porosity materials and possess both macro- and mesopores.

On the Temperature Performance of Ethanol Oxidation Reaction at Palladium-Activated Nickel Foam

“…Nickel foam was provided by MTI Corporation (purity: >99.99 % Ni; thickness: 1.6 mm; surface density: 346 g m −2 ; porosity: ≥95 %), where no information on the specific surface area of this foam was given. However, the electrochemically active surface area of the MTI foam has been estimated at 19.2 cm ) in recent work from this laboratory [21] (compare with similar values recorded by Grden et al [22] and by van Drunen et al [23], based on the impedance and the cyclic voltammetry-derived data, correspondingly). All studied working electrodes were 1 cm×1 cm.…”

“…These values are dramatically higher than that reported for the unmodified Ni foam material in Experimental section above, as well as those recently recorded in works by Verlato et al [13], Grden et al [22] and by van Drunen et al [23]. Similarly, a radical modification of electrochemically active surface area for nickel foam was achieved on Pt-modified (via chemically induced reduction) electrode in ref.…”

Enhancement of Ethanol Oxidation Reaction on Pt (PtSn)-Activated Nickel Foam Through In situ Formation of Nickel Oxy-Hydroxide Layer

“…These findings are in very good agreement with those presented by Barbosa et al [5], Motheo et al [17] and by Kim and Park [18]. It should be stressed however that comprehensive studies of Ni oxide growth and characterization were published in important papers by van Drunen et al [22] and by Alsabet et al [39][40][41].…”

“…In addition, nickel foam itself could be made catalytic for alcohol oxidation reaction through the surface formation of extensive oxide/hydroxide layer [5,[17][18][19]. Nickel foams are usually produced by chemical vapour deposition (CVD), physical vapour deposition (PVD) and electrochemical or electroless deposition method with a polyurethane foam precursor [16,[20][21][22]. Extensive structural and electrochemical characterizations of the CVD-based nickel foam were published by Grden et al [21] and by van Drunen et al [22,23].…”

Cathodic Evolution of Hydrogen on Platinum-Modified Nickel Foam Catalyst

“…The circuit includes a constant phase element (CPE) for distributed capacitance; R ct and C dl (as CPE dl ) elements correspond to the HER charge-transfer resistance and double-layer capacitance components, and R sol is solution resistance , correspondingly. Interestingly, analogous HER studies performed on Ptactivated (fully characterized [28]), CVD-produced nickel foam [29,30] and a 3-D porous Ni electrode structure [31] resulted in Tafel slopes on the order of 90 to 159 mV dec −1 and exchange current densities of 3.9 × 10 −4 [30] and 9.5×…”