One-pot synthesis of silica-coated copper nanoparticles with high chemical and thermal stability.

With the recent development of nanotechnology, enhancement of the stability of nanomaterials is becoming ever more important for their practical applications. We studied the silica-coating of Cu nanoparticles and the enhanced stability of silica-coated Cu nanoparticles to oxidation. The metallic nanoparticles are easily oxidized and agglomerated compared with the bulk metals because the nanoparticles possess large specific surfaces.

Three-dimensional nanoelectrode by metal nanowire nonwoven clothes.

Metal nanowire nonwoven cloth (MNNC) is a metal sheet that has resulted from intertwined metal nanowires 100 nm in diameter with several dozen micrometers of length. Thus, it is a new metallic material having both a flexibility of the metal sheet and a large specific surface area of the nanowires. As an application that utilizes these properties, we propose a high-cyclability electrode for Li storage batteries, in which an active material is deposited or coated on MNNC.