Graphene oxide stability and electrocatalysis towards electrolyte degradation at high electrochemical potentials

Microbonds是一家总部位于安大略省多伦多的公司，是半导体封装和微芯片行业界面键合线技术研究、开发和应用的先驱和领导者。随着碳纳米材料的出现，该公司已经开始将这些纳米级碳用于界面工程应用，特别是在微电子和电化学器件中。许多下一代储能技术，如电池和超级电容器，正在将电化学电池推向更高的电压，以提高其单位质量或体积的能量。在所需的高电位下，碳质电极可以自我降解或催化电解质成分的降解，这被认为在电池循环稳定性和自放电中起着重要作用。本提案的目的是确定材料加工的最佳条件，使具有代表性的纳米

Microbonds is a Toronto, Ontario-based company, a pioneer and leader in the research, development and application of interfacial bonding wire technology for the semiconductor packaging and microchip industries. With the advent of carbon nanomaterials, the company has become engaged in using these nanoscale carbons for interfacial engineering applications, especially in microelectronics and electrochemical devices. Many next-generation energy storage technologies such as batteries and supercapacitors are pushing electrochemical cells to higher voltages in order to boost their energy per unit mass or volume. At the high potentials required, carbonaceous electrodes are known to degrade themselves or catalyze the degradation of electrolyte components, which are thought to play a significant role in cell cycle-stability and self-discharge. The objective of this proposal is to identify an optimized condition for material processing so that a representative nano carbon model material, graphene oxide, can show best electrochemical stability and least electrocatalytic activity towards the electrolyte at high cell voltages. This model system will be based on graphene oxide monolayers which can be thermally treated to various extents to create a library of materials with varying fractions of sp2/sp3 hybridized carbons and varying lateral crystallite sizes. We hypothesize that these structures lead to large variations in material stability as well as their electrocatalytic activity towards electrolyte degradation. Beyond just being a model system, this material also holds significant promise as an electrode material for making batteries and supercapacitors, due to its high specific surface area and compatibility with bottom-up processing methods. The proposed project is intrinsically related to the core technology interest of Microbonds, and its R&D division will partake in all phases of the project, with the end goal to find a solution to nano carbon stabilization for their development of electrochemical energy storage systems. The outcome of this research will pave the way of using nano carbons for many high voltage electrochemical energy storage systems, contributing to the ever expanding energy industry in Canada.