Conformal Nanoscale Conductive Polymer Films on Carbon Nanotube Forests for Electrochemical Water Desalination

Vapor-phase oxidative molecular layer deposition (oMLD) is employed to coat CNT forests with conformal nanoscale redox-active polymer films. The coating preserves the open-cell forest morphology while increasing electrochemical capacity by up to 3.25× and mechanical yield strength by up to 25.3×. Uniform polymer coatings are observed for thicknesses below 28 nm of deposition, at which time clogging of external pores prevents additional oMLD deposition within a forest interior. These findings demonstrate that oMLD deposition of redox-active polymer films simultaneously improves the capacity and robustness of CNT forests, as required for CNT forest use in electrochemical applications, including electrochemical water desalination.