title: The Bright Future for Electrode Materials of Energy Devices: Highly Conductive Porous Na-Embedded Carbon.
abstract: High electrical conductivity and large accessible surface area, which are required for ideal electrode materials of energy conversion and storage devices, are opposed to each other in current materials. It is a long-term goal to solve this issue. Herein, we report highly conductive porous Na-embedded carbon (Na@C) nanowalls with large surface areas, which have been synthesized by an invented reaction of CO with liquid Na. Their electrical conductivities are 2 orders of magnitude larger than highly conductive 3D graphene. Furthermore, almost all their surface areas are accessible for electrolyte ions. These unique properties make them ideal electrode materials for energy devices, which significantly surpass expensive Pt. Consequently, the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with the Na@C counter electrode has reached a high power conversion efficiency of 11.03%. The Na@C also exhibited excellent performance for supercapacitors, leading to high capacitance of 145 F g-1at current density of 1 A g-1.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Michigan Technological University , 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295, United States.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Michigan Technological University , 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295, United States.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2136, United States.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712-1589, United States.
authors.forename: Alexander J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Pak
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712-1589, United States.
authors.forename: Eunsu
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Paek
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78712-1589, United States.
authors.forename: Gyeong S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Michigan Technological University , 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295, United States.
authors.forename: Yun Hang
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Hu
keywords: DSSCs; Na-embedded carbon; electrode materials; supercapacitor