Noble metal-free bifunctional oxygen evolution and oxygen reduction acidic media electro-catalysts.

Identification of low cost, highly active, durable completely noble metal-free electro-catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in PEM based water electrolysis and metal air batteries remains one of the major unfulfilled scientific and technological challenges of PEM based acid mediated electro-catalysts. In contrast, several non-noble metals based electro-catalysts have been identified for alkaline and neutral medium water electrolysis and fuel cells. Herein we report for the very first time, F doped Cu1.

Scribable multi-walled carbon nanotube-silicon nanocomposites: a viable lithium-ion battery system.

A novel electrode fabrication technique involving a manual scribing action of vertically aligned silicon coated multiwall carbon nanotubes (VASCNTs) on a copper foil have been developed as a viable approach to Li-ion battery electrodes. The scribed electrodes were prepared without the use of any conductive additives and binders, and they were directly assembled in a coin cell. These 'binder-less' scribed Si-CNT electrodes exhibited a very high discharge capacity in excess of 3000 mA h g(-1) and a low first cycle irreversible loss (FIR) (19%).