This presentation will describe the characteristics of a Cu nanowire electrode that has 15 times more surface area (2.4x106 m-1) and is 32 times more conductive (1.4x10-6 ohm m) than carbon paper. The improvement in surface area is due to the small diameter of the nanowires relative to carbon fibers. The higher conductivity is due to the intrinsically higher conductivity of Cu, and the fact that the metal nanowires can be sintered together. The porosity of the nanowire electrode is 0.94, but its hydraulic permeability was 89 times lower than carbon paper. For Cu ion reduction, the Cu nanowire electrode can achieve the same single-pass conversion as carbon paper at flow rates up to 1000 times greater under mass transport-limited conditions, and 10 times greater under kinetically limited conditions. We will also report results for the hydrogenation of furfural and for water oxidation. Future work will focus on improving the hydraulic permeability of flow-through electrodes while maintaining a >10x increase in surface area relative to carbon paper.
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Figure 1. Images for Cu nanowire-based electrode and carbon paper.