抄録
Given sufficient synthetic control, electroless plating is a suitable method for the fabrication of precisely defined nanomaterials. This study focuses on requirements which have to be met for the homogeneous and conformal electroless metal deposition within ion track etched polymer templates, allowing the fabrication of high aspect ratio metal nanotubes. Namely, the effects of (i) the seed density of the substrate, (ii) the surface-selectivity of the plating reaction and (iii) the deposition speed and the grain size of the resulting deposit are examined, and strategies to modify these characteristics in order to improve nanotube formation are illustrated. With optimized procedures, Ag, Au and Pt nanotubes were obtained. As an application example, metal nanotube membranes were utilized as flow-through microreactors, catalyzing the reduction of 4-nitrophenol with sodium borohydride. By partial exchange of Ag precursor structures with Pt, roughened Ag-Pt nanotubes with significantly improved activity were obtained. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2012.578]
