| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Novel Trends in Synchrotron and FEL-Based Analysis Focus Topic | Thursday Sessions |
| Session SA-ThP |
| Session: | Novel Trends in Synchrotron and FEL-Based Analysis Focus Topic Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Tyler Fears, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| Authors: | T.M. Fears, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory J.A. Hammons, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory F. Qian, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory T. Braun, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory A.L. Troksa, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory M.H. Nielsen, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory J.B. Forien, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory T.F. Baumann, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory T.Y. Han, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory S.O. Kucheyev, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory M. Bagge-Hansen, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Metal nanowire aerogels are a new class of nanoporous materials desirable for a number of applications in energy storage, generation, and utilization. These materials are made by freezing suspensions of high-aspect-ratio (a ≈ 1000) metal nanowires and gently removing the solidified matrix, e.g., via freeze-drying, to prevent collapse of the porous nanowire network. As such, the porosity in the final aerogel is intrinsically linked to solvent phase separation and crystallization during freezing which is highly sensitive to the conditions under which it takes place, e.g., temperature, solvent composition, and sample geometry.
Herein will be discussed recent developments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to produce high-quality ultra-low-density (1-30 mg/cm3) metal aerogels via a facile freeze-casting approach. Due to the hierarchical structure of the aerogels (1-100 µm micropores in a nanoporous matrix of 3-30 nm diameter nanowires) it was necessary to use a wide variety of complementary in situ/ex situ analysis techniques to ascertain the structure and origin of these hierarchical features. This presentation will discuss the unique properties of these aerogels and the advanced analysis techniques used in their characterization, e.g., USAXS/SAXS/WAXS, X-ray tomography, XPS, optical microscopy, and electron microscopy. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. DOE by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.