Low-Temperature, Universal Synthetic Route for Mesoporous Metal Oxides by Exploiting Synergistic Effect of Thermal Activation and Plasma.

Mesoporous metal oxides exhibit excellent physicochemical properties and have been widely used in various fields, including energy storage/conversion, catalysis, and sensors. Although several soft-template approaches have been reported, high-temperature calcination for both metal oxide formation and template removal is necessary, which limits direct synthesis on a plastic substrate for flexible devices. Here, we introduce a universal synthetic approach that combines thermal activation and oxygen plasma (TAP) to synthesize diverse mesoporous metal oxides (V 2 O 5 , V 6 O 13 , TiO 2 , Nb 2 O 5 , WO 3, and MoO 3 ) at low temperatures (150 ∼ 200°C), which could be applicable to a flexible polymeric substrate. As a demonstration, we fabricated a flexible micro-supercapacitor by directly synthesizing mesoporous V 2 O 5 on an indium-tin oxide-coated colorless polyimide film. The energy storage performance was well maintained under severe bending conditions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.