(January 30, 2016) UNIST
research team, developed a new simple nanowire manufacturing technique.
A team of Korean researchers, affiliated with UNIST has
recently pioneered in developing a new simple nanowire manufacturing technique
that uses self-catalytic growth process assisted by thermal decomposition of
natural gas. According to the research team, this method is simple,
reproducible, size-controllable, and cost-effective in that lithium-ion
batteries could also benefit from it.
In their approach, they discovered that germanium nanowires
are grown by the reduction of germanium oxide particles and subsequent
self-catalytic growth during the thermal decomposition of natural gas, and
simultaneously, carbon sheath layers are uniformly coated on the nanowire
surface.
This study is a collaboration among scientists, including Prof.
SooJin Park (School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) and Prof. Sang Kyu Kwak
(School of Energy and Chemical Engineering), Dr. Sinho Choi (UNIST), Combined
M.S./Ph.D. Student Dae Yeon Hwang (UNIST), and Researcher Jieun Kim (Korea
Research Institute of Chemical Technology).
In a study, reported in the January 21, 2016 issue of Nano
Letters, the team demonstrated a new redox-responsive assembly method to
synthesize hierarchically structured carbon-sheathed germanium nanowires
(c-GeNWs) on a large scale by the use of self-catalytic growth process assisted
by thermally decomposed natural gas.
According to the team, this simple synthetic process not
only enables them to synthesize hierachially assembled materials from
inexpensive metal oxides at a larger scale, but also can likely be extended to
other metal oxides as well. Moreover, the resulting hierarchically assembled
nanowires (C-GeNWs) show enhanced chemical and thermal stability, as well as
outstanding electrochemical properties.