AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Applied Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session AS+NS-TuA

Paper AS+NS-TuA1
Hydrogen Interactions on Nanostructured Carbon Aerogel Surfaces

Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 2:00 pm, Room C2

Session: Nanoparticle and Nanoscale Surface Chemistry I
Presenter: T.M. Willey, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Authors: T.M. Willey, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
A. Deriy, Argonne National Laboratory
B.J. Kozioziemski, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
M. Worsely, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
G. Nyce, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
J.R.I. Lee, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
J. Ilavsky, Argonne National Laboratory
S. Ghosal, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
K.J. Wu, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
A.V. Hamza, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
T. van Buuren, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Generating clean power from nuclear fusion has been an elusive goal over the past several decades. Although many incremental improvements continue towards this goal, one of several challenges for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is to produce inexpensive, highly symmetric and/or highly controlled deuterium-tritium ice layers within millimeter-sized spherical targets. Ultra low density, nanostructured materials such as aerogels could be useful to serve as scaffoldings for forming uniform hydrogen ice layers. We have studied the aerogel structure and as well as nanoscale wetting of liquid hydrogen onto aerogel surfaces using ultra small angle x-ray scattering (USAXS). We have focused on two 30 mg/cc carbon aerogel structures; the first is a dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) polymer aerogel and the second, a carbon nanotube based aerogel. We are able to observe and control nanoscale hydrogen droplet formation within the DCPD structure, while scattering from nanotube-based aerogels indicates wetting with little or no indication of droplet formation. The combination of ultra-low density, hydrogen uptake, and wetting differences are promising developments for materials to be used in designer targets for ICF. Both aerogels, but especially the nanotube-based aerogel exhibit minimal structural changes when submerged and frozen in cryogenic hydrogen.