Abstract and subjects
High specific surface area structures are used in a variety of applications including production of highly sensitive biosensors, fabrication of separation membranes, manufacturing of high throughput catalytic microreactors, and development of efficient electrodes for batteries and fuel cells. In many electrochemical applications (i.e. sensors and batteries) it's also critical to have good conductive properties of the fabricated high surface area structures.
For energy harvesting technologies such as batteries and fuel cells, careful design of surface-to-volume ratio of the electrode surface is important, because while high specific surface area facilitates electrochemical reaction rates, it also increases overall electrode resistance. Thus, it is desirable to construct electrodes with a range of hierarchical features (for example with fractal structures).
We invented a novel fabrication technology for creating three-dimensional conductive high surface area structures based on the deposition and subsequent processing of the electroactive polymers (EAP). The proposed fabrication technique is capable of fast and inexpensive production of high surface area structures with the designed geometry, porosity, and conductivity.