J Mater Sci Technol ›› 2012, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (8): 693-699.

• Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Fabrication and Dealloying Behavior of Monolithic Nanoporous Copper Ribbons with Bimodal Channel Size Distributions

Wenbo Liu1,2), Shichao Zhang1), Ning Li2), Jiwei Zheng1), Yalan Xing1)   

  1. 1) School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
    2) School of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610065, China
  • Received:2011-07-04 Revised:2011-10-23 Online:2012-08-31 Published:2012-08-30
  • Supported by:

    the State Key Basic Research Program of PRC (No. 2007CB936502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 50574008, 50954005 and 51074011), the National 863 Program Project (Nos. 2006AA03Z230 and 2008AA03Z208), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project (No. 2011M500214), the Basic Research Fund Project of Beihang University (No. 501LJJC2012101001), and the Shanghai Aerospace Science and Technology Innovation Fund Project (No. SAST201269)

Abstract:

Monolithic nanoporous copper (NPC) ribbons with bimodal channel size distributions can be fabricated through chemical dealloying of Mg-32 Cu alloy in an acidic solution at room temperature. The microstructure of the as-dealloyed samples was characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. These NPC ribbons are composed of interconnected large-sized channels (hundreds of nm) with highly porous channel walls (tens of nm). Both large- and small-sized channels are open, bicontinuous, and interpenetrating. Additionally, it is the first time to find that the evolution process of porous structure along the thickness direction of samples during the dealloying is from the interior to exterior, which is just
contrary to the coarsening process along the thickness direction during the post-dealloying. Meanwhile, the corresponding mechanism is discussed in detail.

Key words: Nanoporous copper, Dealloying, Bimodal channel size distribution, Microstructure, Electron microscopy