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

微邦德公司总部设在安大略省多伦多，是半导体封装和微芯片行业界面键合焊线技术研究、开发和应用的先驱和领先者。随着碳纳米材料的出现，该公司开始致力于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设备中。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，以提高单位质量或体积的能量。在所需的高电位下，碳质电极会自行降解或催化电解液成分的降解，而电解液成分被认为在细胞周期稳定和自放电中发挥着重要作用。这项建议的目的是确定材料加工的优化条件，以便具有代表性的纳米 碳模型材料石墨烯氧化物在高电池电压下对电解液表现出最好的电化学稳定性和最小的电催化活性。这个模型系统将基于氧化石墨烯单层，它可以进行不同程度的热处理，以创建具有不同比例的SP2/SP3杂化碳和不同横向微晶尺寸的材料库。我们假设这些结构导致材料稳定性的巨大变化以及它们对电解液降解的电催化活性。这种材料不仅是一个模型系统，而且由于其高比表面积和与自下而上的加工方法兼容，作为制造电池和超级电容器的电极材料也具有重要的前景。拟议的项目与Microond的核心技术利益有着内在的联系，其研发部门将参与项目的所有阶段，最终目标是为他们开发电化学储能系统找到纳米碳稳定的解决方案。这一研究成果将为将纳米碳用于许多高压电化学储能系统铺平道路，为加拿大不断发展的能源工业做出贡献。

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.