Nanoporous Metals: Fabrication and Structure-Properties Relationship

Nanoporous metals represent a unique class of materials with promising properties for a wide set of applications in advanced technology. Their combined self-supported monolithic form, high surface area, and high electrical conductivity are only the most obvious peculiarities of this kind of material. Since the beginning of an intensive work in 2001, nanoporous metals have shown high potential and tunable properties. However, the effective use in real applications is hampered by some challenging issues, such as the difficult fabrication of low-cost metals in a nanoporous form, the mechanical fragility and the low stability in certain working environments, i.e. electrolytes or high temperatures, and by the lack of a full understanding of the origin of some peculiar properties. The work presented in this thesis has been done with the purpose to address these issues. The fabrication of nanoporous metals and related composites has been studied to enlarge the possible properties of the common nanoporous gold and copper, and at the same time to find new strategies for the fabrication of nanoporous aluminum, a promising material for its low-cost, low-density, high electrical conductivity and corrosion resistance. Moreover, nanoporous gold thermal stability and behavior toward the degradation of organic dyes were further explored.