Seungyoung Park

Highly porous graphitic carbon and Ni2P2O7 for a high performance aqueous hybrid supercapacitor

An aqueous Na-ion based hybrid capacitor has been successfully developed by using highly porous graphitic carbon (HPGC) derived from waste writing paper and a new electrode material as a negative and positive electrode, respectively. HPGC was prepared via hydrothermal carbonization and subsequent KOH activation of waste writing paper which showed a highly porous stacked sheet-like morphology with an exceptionally high BET specific surface area (1254 m2 g−1). HPGC exhibited typical electrical double layer capacitor (EDLC) behavior with a high specific capacitance of 384 F g−1 and good negative working potential (−1.0 V) in an aqueous electrolyte. On the other hand, Ni2P2O7 was synthesized by a simple co-precipitation technique and tested as a cathode material which delivered a maximum specific capacitance of 1893 F g−1 at 2 A g−1 current density. The fabricated HPGC‖Ni2P2O7 hybrid device displayed excellent cyclic stability up to 2000 cycles and delivered a maximum energy density of 65 W h kg−1 at 800 W kg−1 power density in a Na-ion based aqueous electrolyte.

Carambola-shaped VO2 nanostructures: a binder-free air electrode for an aqueous Na–air battery

Binder-free and bifunctional electrocatalysts have vital roles in the development of high-performance metal–air batteries. Herein, we synthesized a vanadium oxide (VO2) nanostructure as a novel binder-free and bifunctional electrocatalyst for a rechargeable aqueous sodium–air (Na–air) battery. VO2 nanostructures were grown on reduced graphene oxide coated on carbon paper, which had a carambola morphology. We confirmed the bifunctional nature of VO2 nanostructures by analyzing their electrocatalytic activity associated with the oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction. The reaction pathway associated with electrocatalytic activity was also affirmed by computational modeling and simulation studies. Thereafter, an aqueous Na–air cell was built using novel binder-free VO2 nanostructures as the air electrode. The fabricated cell displayed a 0.64 V overpotential gap, 104 mW g−1 power density at 80 mA g−1 current density, 81% round trip efficiency and good cyclic stability up to 50 cycles.

Encapsulation of organic active materials in carbon nanotubes for application to high-electrochemical-performance sodium batteries

Sodium (Na) ion batteries are interesting candidates for replacing lithium (Li) ion batteries, primarily due to the abundance of Na in the environment. However, the performance and energy density of a Na-ion battery are inferior to those of a Li-ion battery. Organic active materials can help overcome the drawbacks associated with Na-ion batteries because of their many advantages. However, such organic polymer electrodes are subjected to a high self-discharge and low practical capacity because the polymer electrode easily dissolves in an organic electrolyte and forms an insulating layer. Therefore, in this study, we have designed a unique organic electrode in which an active polymer is encapsulated into a carbon nanotube (CNT) to form an electrode with high polymer content. The CNT is able to retain the active polymer within the electrode structure, providing an effective electronic conduction path. Moreover, the CNT can contain large amounts of active polymer and therefore exhibits superior electrochemical properties without self-discharge, making it well suited for use as a cathode material in a Na-ion battery.

Particle–Film Plasmons on Periodic Silver Film over Nanosphere (AgFON): A Hybrid Plasmonic Nanoarchitecture for Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Plasmonic systems based on particle-film plasmonic couplings have recently attracted great attention because of the significantly enhanced electric field at the particle-film gaps. Here, we introduce a hybrid plasmonic architecture utilizing combined plasmonic effects of particle-film gap plasmons and silver film over nanosphere (AgFON) substrates. When gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are assembled on AgFON substrates with controllable particle-film gap distances, the AuNP-AgFON system supports multiple plasmonic couplings from interparticle, particle-film, and crevice gaps, resulting in a huge surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) effect. We show that the periodicity of AgFON substrates and the particle-film gaps greatly affects the surface plasmon resonances, and thus, the SERS effects due to the interplay between multiple plasmonic couplings. The optimally designed AuNP-AgFON substrate shows a SERS enhancement of 233 times compared to the bare AgFON substrate. The ultrasensitive SERS sensing capability is also demonstrated by detecting glutathione, a neurochemical molecule that is an important antioxidant, down to the 10 pM level.

Transparent and Flexible Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Sensors Based on Gold Nanostar Arrays Embedded in Silicon Rubber Film

Integration of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors onto transparent and flexible substrates enables lightweight and deformable SERS sensors which can be wrapped or swabbed on various nonplanar surfaces for the efficient collection and detection of analytes on various surfaces. However, the development of transparent and flexible SERS substrates with high sensitivity is still challenging. Here, we demonstrate a transparent and flexible SERS substrate with high sensitivity based on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film embedded with gold nanostar (GNS) assemblies. The flexible SERS substrates enable conformal coverage on arbitrary surfaces, and the optical transparency allows light interaction with the underlying contact surface, thereby providing highly sensitive detection of analytes adsorbed on arbitrary metallic and dielectric surfaces which otherwise do not provide any noticeable Raman signals of analytes. In particular, when the flexible SERS substrates are covered onto metallic surfaces, the SERS enhancement is greatly improved because of the additional plasmon couplings between GNS and metal film. We achieve the detection capability of a trace amount of benzenethiol (10-8 M) and enormous SERS enhancement factor (∼1.9 × 108) for flexible SERS substrates on Ag film. In addition, because of the embedded structure of GNS monolayers within the PDMS film, SERS sensors maintain the high sensitivity even after mechanical deformations of stretching, bending, and torsion for 100 cycles. The transparent and flexible SERS substrates introduced in this study are applicable to various SERS sensing applications on nonplanar surfaces, which are not achievable for hard SERS substrates.