Self-organized nano-and microstructure of electrochemical materials by design of fabrication approaches

Introduction of nanostructure into electrochemistry has been widely confirmed to succeed in the performance enhancement. The morphology control of electrochemical material has become a key to the combination of electrochemistry and nanoscience. Normally, it is not easy to realize the regular structures in nanoscale by self-organization for all materials. This must rely on the well-understood properties of the desired material. The crucial control parameter of morphology should be recognized first. In this case, the design of fabrication approach can fix a direction. For the electrochemical material, application normally requires the immobilization on electrode surface. Therefore, in situ formation methods are more appreciated. Here in this chapter, two different kinds of electrochemical materials-Prussian Blue, an inorganic complex compound, and Ni(en)₃Ag₂I₄, a hybrid material-served as examples to describe the nano/microstructure control of crystal growth by the targeted design of novel preparation approaches. Focusing on the different issues of structure control, different synthesis techniques have been developed to reach the goal. According to characterizations, these self-organized nanostructures can obviously increase the electrochemical performance of original materials which exhibits the meaningful and useful functions for the nanostructure self-organization that relied on this targeted design of fabrication approach.