Paintable Battery

If the components of a battery, including electrodes, separator, electrolyte and the current collectors can be designed as paints and applied sequentially to build a complete battery, on any arbitrary surface, it would have significant impact on the design, implementation and integration of energy storage devices. Here, we establish a paradigm change in battery assembly by fabricating rechargeable Li-ion batteries solely by multi-step spray painting of its components on a variety of materials such as metals, glass, glazed ceramics and flexible polymer substrates. We also demonstrate the possibility of interconnected modular spray painted battery units to be coupled to energy conversion devices such as solar cells, with possibilities of building standalone energy capture-storage hybrid devices in different configurations

Supramolecular nanostructuring of silver surfaces via self-assembly of [60]fullerene and porphyrin modules

Recent achievements in our laboratory toward the "bottom-up" fabrication of addressable multicomponent molecular entities obtained by self-assembly of C-60 and porphyrins on Ag(100) and Ag(111) surfaces are described.. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) studies on ad-layers constituting monomeric and triply linked porphyrin modules showed that the molecule:, self-organize into ordered supramolecular assemblies, the ordering of which is controlled by the porphyrin chemical structure, the metal substrate, and the surface coverage. Specifically, the successful preparation of unprecedented two-dimensional porphyrin-based assemblies featuring regular pores on Ag(111) surfaces has been achieved. Subsequent co-deposition of C-60 molecules on top of the porphyrin monolayers results in selective self-organization into ordered molecular hybrid bilayers, the organization of which is driven by both fullerene coverage and porphyrin structure. In all-ordered fullerene-porphyrin assemblies, the C-60 guests organize, unusually, into long chains and/or two-dimensional arrays. Furthermore, sublimation of C-60 on top of the porous porphyrin network reveals the selective long-range inclusion of the fullerene guests within the hosting cavities. The observed mode of the C-60 self-assembly originates from a delicate equilibrium between substrate-molecule and molecule-molecule interactions involving charge-transfer processes and conformational reorganizations as a consequence of the structural adaptation, of the fullerene-porphyrin bilayer

A Two-Dimensional Porphyrin-Based Porous Network Featuring Communicating Cavities for the Templated Complexation of Fullerenes

An unprecedented two-dimensional porphyrin network featuring dynamic pores capable of hosting fullerenes is realized following a bottom-up approach at a single-crystal silver surface. Surface- and porphyrin-driven long-range interactions between the C-60 guest molecules and porphyrin layer result in the formation of exceptionally large supramolecular hybrid chains and islands (see Figure and Cover)

Adsorption and dynamics of long-range interacting fullerenes in a flexible, two-dimensional, nanoporous porphyrin network

Herein, a detailed investigation of the adsorption and dynamics of C-60 and C-70 fullerenes hosted in a self-assembled, two-dimensional, nanoporous porphyrin network on a solid Ag surface is presented. Time-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) studies of these supramolecular systems at the molecular scale reveal distinct host-guest interactions giving rise to a pronounced dissimilar mobility of the two fullerenes within the porphyrin network. Furthermore, long range coverage-dependant interactions between the all-carbon guests, which clearly affect their mobility and are likely mediated by a complex mechanism involving the Ag substrate and the flexible porphyrin host network, are observed. At increased fullerene coverage, this unprecedented interplay results in the formation of large fullerene chains and islands. By applying a lattice gas model with nearest-neighbour interactions and by evaluating the fullerence-pair distribution functions, the respective coverage-dependant guest-guest interaction energies are estimated

Band Formation from Coupled Quantum Dots Formed by a Nanoporous Network on a Copper Surface

The properties of crystalline solids can to a large extent be derived from the scale and dimensionality of periodic arrays of coupled quantum systems such as atoms and molecules. Periodic quantum confinement in two dimensions has been elusive on surfaces, mainly because of the challenge to produce regular nanopatterned structures that can trap electronic states. We report that the two-dimensional free electron gas of the Cu(111) surface state can be trapped within the pores of an organic nanoporous network, which can be regarded as a regular array of quantum dots. Moreover, a shallow dispersive electronic band structure is formed, which is indicative of electronic coupling between neighboring pore states.