Ricerc@Sapienza

A novel electrochemical method is proposed to synthesize nanostructured cobalt electrodes for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). An array of cobalt nanowires (CoNWs) supported by a nanostructured copper current collector was obtained by the sequential electrodeposition of cobalt and copper into the nanopores of alumina templates and selective etching of alumina. The illustrated method can be implemented with one-side open alumina templates generated by one-step aluminium anodization, thus excluding the application alumina membranes and their coating by sputter metal deposition.

The present contribution reports on the analysis of the electrochemical properties of screen-printed nickel oxide (NiO) in aqueous electrolyte when NiO is in the configuration of thin film (thickness, l ≤ 7 μm). This type of NiO samples presents mesoscopic morphology. The latter characteristic combined to the intrinsic electroactivity of the oxide leads to the observation of proportionality between NiO thickness and current density. In particular, NiO undergoes two distinct processes of oxidation with reversible features in aqueous media.