Self-Assembly of Virus-Structured High Surface Area Nanomaterials and Their Application as Battery Electrodes

Abstract

High area nickel and cobalt surfaces were assembled using modified Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) templates. Rod-shaped TMV templates (300 x 18 nm) engineered to encode unique cysteine residues were self-assembled onto gold patterned surfaces in a vertically oriented fashion, producing a >10-fold increase in surface area. Electroless deposition of ionic metals onto surface-assembled virus templates produced uniform metal coatings up to 40 nm in thickness. Within a nickel-zinc battery system, the incorporation of virus-assembled electrode surfaces more than doubled the total electrode capacity. When combined, these findings demonstrate that surface-assembled virus templates provide a robust platform for the fabrication of oriented high surface area materials.

Mechanistic study of the hydrothermal reduction of palladium on the Tobacco mosaic virus

“…Materials created from TMV virions have been applied to electroless deposition 60 , battery electrodes 60 , memory devices 70 , chemical sensing 29 71 , catalysis 72 , solgel chemistry 46 .…”

Synthesis Processes for Li-Ion Battery Electrodes – From Solid State Reaction to Solvothermal Self-Assembly Methods

“…This virus was genetically engineered to express a novel coat protein cysteine residue, and to vertically pattern virus particles into gold surfaces via gold-thiol interactions. Gold-supported vertically aligned virion particles served as vertical templates for reductive deposition of Ni and Co at room temperature via electroless deposition, and thus produced high surface area electrodes [Royston, E. et al (2008)]. …”

An Evaluation of Biofield Treatment on Thermal, Physical and Structural Properties of Cadmium Powder

“…Cadmium is widely used in battery, predominantly in rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries as anode, stabilizers, coating applications etc. Higher specific surface area of a material plays an important role in many applications including battery electrodes, catalyst supports, and energy storage devices [1]. The increase in surface area of the electrodes in batteries leads to improve the cell current density and thus, deliver more power [2].…”