Effect of ordered intermediate porosity on ion transport in hierarchically nanoporous electrodes

The high surface area of nanoporous electrodes makes them promising for use in electrochemical double-layer supercapacitors, desalination and pollution remediation, and drug delivery applications. When designed well and operating near their peak power, their charging rates are limited by ion transport through their long, narrow pores. This can be alleviated by creating pores of intermediate diameter that penetrate the electrode. We have fabricated electrodes featuring these by creating colloidal crystal-templated opals of nanoporous gold formed by dealloying. The resulting electrodes contain a bimodal pore-size distribution, with large pores on the order of several 100 nm and small pores on the order of 10 nm. Electrochemical impedance spectrometry shows that porous gold opals sacrifice some capacitance, but possess a lower internal resistance, when compared to a porous gold electrode with only the smaller-diameter pores. The architectural flexibility of this approach provides a greater ability to design a balance between power density and energy density.