Review—Supercritical Deposition: A Powerful Technique for Synthesis of Functional Materials for Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage

Abstract

Supercritical fluid-based technologies are increasingly being used to develop novel functional nanostructured materials or improve the properties of existing ones. Among these, supercritical deposition (SCD) is an emerging technique to incorporate metals on supports. It has been used to deposit a wide variety of single or multi-metallic morphologies such as highly dispersed species, nanoparticles, nanorods and conformal films on high surface area supports, polymers and crystalline substrates. SCD is also attracting increasing attention for preparation of micro or nano-architectured functional materials in a highly controllable manner for electrochemical energy conversion and storage systems. Increasing number of studies in the literature demonstrates that materials synthesized using SCD are comparable or superior in performance as compared to their conventional counterparts. In this review, an overview of the fundamentals of the SCD technique is presented. Properties of a wide variety of nanostructured functional materials such as supported nanoparticles and films prepared using SCD for electrochemical applications are summarized. The electrochemical performance of these materials in electrochemical tests and also in fuel cells, electrolyzers and Li-ion batteries are also presented.