NIST researchers are using a novel process to make photocatalysis materials using nanostructured carbon nanotubes.
The work is described in a paper published online today in Science.
Researchers in the Advanced Light Source (ALS) program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are the lead authors on this work.
The scientists used nanoscale, organic materials as photocatalysers to generate photocatolysts from the carbon nanofibers.
These carbon nanostructure materials have a number of desirable properties that can help improve photocatalkates.
One of these properties is their ability to act as photocatters.
They can form nanoscales of carbon nanorods that are able to separate light signals.
Another is that they can be used to capture light in the visible range.NIST researchers first created a photocatastic compound from a photoelectrochemical reaction with carbon nanobots.
In this case, the researchers used a process called photosynthesis that involves converting organic molecules into a molecule of carbon.
A few weeks later, the nanoparticles were grown in a photovoltaic cell.
The nanobot was then used to create a photocatterer.
The new process has three steps: first, the photocatactic compound is produced from organic molecules in a reaction that produces the carbon nanoparticles, then, the molecules are transferred to a photodetector, and finally the nanoparticle is recombined with another photoelectron to form a photocathode.
This process is similar to a method used to make semiconductors, according to the paper.
It involves the use of two materials: one, a polymer, that can be broken down into simpler carbon and another that is a semiconductor.NICP is a new program under the Advanced Photon Source program at Lawrence Berkeley.
The NICP program was created by the Department of Energy to make nanoscal technology available to researchers to accelerate the design and development of nanocatalytic materials for research and development.
This program has received a total of $2.7 billion since its inception in 2017.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.