Nanoporous Copper-Nickel - Macroscopic bodies of a strong and deformable nanoporous base metal by dealloying

TL;DR

This paper introduces nanoporous Copper-Nickel as a new, strong, and deformable macroscopic metal with controllable nanoscale features, expanding the range of nanoporous metals beyond precious ones.

Contribution

It demonstrates the fabrication of uniform, deformable nanoporous Copper-Nickel with controllable pore sizes and high strength, suitable for macroscopic applications.

Findings

Nanoporous Copper-Nickel can be made with mm dimensions.

It exhibits ductile deformation under compression.

Feature sizes are tunable from 13 to 40 nm.

Abstract

Uniform macroscopic samples of nanoporous metal with high deformability have so far been limited to precious metals such as Au, Pd and Pt. Here we propose nanoporous Copper-Nickel (npCN) as a nanoporous base metal that can be made with mm dimensions and exhibits significant deformability. NpCN forms a uniform bicontinous network structure with feature sizes that can be controlled from 13 to 40 nm by thermal annealing. Continuous compression tests confirm ductile deformation behavior accompanied with a high strength compared to macroporous Cu- and Ni-foams with similar solid fraction.