Nanofoams are a class of nanostructured, porous materials (foams) containing a significant population of pores with diameters less than 100 nm.
[8][9][10] A 2016 study discussed a low temperature/pressure microwave solvothermal method for fabricating pure copper, silver, and nickel metal nanofoams.
[11] Additionally, a 2020 publication discussed successful synthesis of nanofoam films from silver, gold, copper, and palladium through the use of a modified vacuum thermal evaporation method.
[19] Additionally, an iron-nitrogen co-doped carbon nanofoam was purposed to be fabricated through the acile salt-assisted pyrolysis process of chitooligosaccharides.
[20] Foamed biopolymers have multiple purported applications in the biomedical and pharmaceuticals industry due to their modified surface properties.
[17] These findings present implications for greater cellular surgery, as well as the manufacturing of biopolymers as a whole, due to these modifications from plasma irradiation.
They have many applications in the fields of mechanical, chemical, and biomedical engineering, including filtration, air management, and use in electrical systems.
[21] Ag foams with hierarchical porous structures are prepared by the following three-step method:[21] (i) Packing large spherical NaCl particles to create a hard template, with a distinct perform network of negative space.
(iii) Dissolving the Al-rich phase by a chemical attack with aqueous solutions of HCl or NaOH to form the final Ag foam.
It was found that on average silver nanofoams can maintain over 90% FECO in a wide potential window (−0.5 to −1.2 VRHE), enabling the maximum CO selective current density of 33 mA cm−2 and the mass activity of 23.5 A gAg−1, which are the highest values among recently reported metal foam-based electrocatalysts.
[27] The process of nanofoam growth via the Pulsed Laser Deposition has been described in terms of a "snowfall-like" mechanism:[26] (i) Carbon nanoparticles are generated upon laser ablation of a graphite target, either directly of because of the presence of a background atmosphere (ii) Nanoparticles stick together in micrometric-sized, fractal-like aggregates that grow in-flight within the deposition chamber (iii) fractal-like aggregates land on a suitable substrate, much like snowflakes land on the ground (iv) a void-rich, web-like nanofoam is obtained by the layering of fractal-like aggregates
Two of the most common alternatives to PLD synthesis are described below: Cellulose nanofibers (CNF) were constructed into nanofoams by:[28] (i) Recycled milk container board was pretreated with deep eutectic solvent (DES) to fibrillate it.
In experiments done, carbon nanofoams showed superior solar photo-thermal performance with an evaporation rate of 1.68 kg m−2 h−1 achieved under 1 sun irradiation.