Provided is a plating lamination technology for providing a highly adhesive inner layer of a printed circuit board. The plating lamination technology is effective in providing an electroless plated laminate, including a non-etched/low-roughness pretreated laminate or a low-roughness copper foil, and a printed circuit board including the plated laminate.

A method of coating an antimicrobial conductive metal layer on a non-conductive surface of articles with novel chemistry and methods with just a few process steps consisting of contacting the chemistries at room temperature for short durations is disclosed. The methodology is environmentally friendly, non-toxic aqueous bath of different salt compositions for providing uniform anti-microbial metal coating on the articles. The cost-effective methodology can be used on a wide variety of non-conductive surfaces such as glass, fibers, textiles, ceramic, plastic, foam and so on.

An antimicrobial device can include a common touch surface of a non-metallic material, and an antimicrobial metal layer applied to the common touch surface at an average thickness ranging from a single metal atom in thickness to 1 mm.

Methods of treating metal nanocrystals are provided. In embodiments, such a method comprises exposing metal nanocrystals comprising a metal and characterized by at least one twinning boundary therein, to a plating solution comprising a reducing agent and coating metal cations comprising a different metal, under conditions to form a coating of the different metal on surfaces of the metal nanocrystals via electroless deposition by chemical reduction of the coating metal cations, thereby providing coated metal nanocrystals. Methods of forming bulk nanostructured metal alloys from the coated metal nanocrystals are also provided.

Provided is a metal matrix nanocomposite comprising: (a) a metal or metal alloy as a matrix material; and (b) multiple graphene sheets that are dispersed in said matrix material, wherein said multiple graphene sheets are substantially aligned to be parallel to one another and are in an amount from 0.1% to 95% by volume based on the total nanocomposite volume; wherein the multiple graphene sheets contain single-layer or few-layer graphene sheets selected from pristine graphene, graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, graphene fluoride, graphene chloride, graphene bromide, graphene iodide, hydrogenated graphene, nitrogenated graphene, doped graphene, chemically functionalized graphene, or a combination thereof and wherein the chemically functionalized graphene is not graphene oxide. The metal matrix exhibits a combination of exceptional tensile strength, modulus, thermal conductivity, and/or electrical conductivity.

A process for producing a highly conducting film of conductor-bonded graphene sheets that are highly oriented, comprising: (a) preparing a graphene dispersion or graphene oxide (GO) gel; (b) depositing the dispersion or gel onto a supporting solid substrate under a shear stress to form a wet layer; (c) drying the wet layer to form a dried layer having oriented graphene sheets or GO molecules with an inter-planar spacing d.sub.002 of 0.4 nm to 1.2 nm; (d) heat treating the dried layer at a temperature from 55° C. to 3,200° C. for a desired length of time to produce a porous graphitic film having pores and constituent graphene sheets or a 3D network of graphene pore walls having an inter-planar spacing d.sub.002 less than 0.4 nm; and (e) impregnating the porous graphitic film with a conductor material that bonds the constituent graphene sheets or graphene pore walls to form the conducting film.

A process for producing a highly conducting film of conductor-bonded graphene sheets that are highly oriented, comprising: (a) preparing a graphene dispersion or graphene oxide (GO) gel; (b) depositing the dispersion or gel onto a supporting solid substrate under a shear stress to form a wet layer; (c) drying the wet layer to form a dried layer having oriented graphene sheets or GO molecules with an inter-planar spacing d.sub.002 of 0.4 nm to 1.2 nm; (d) heat treating the dried layer at a temperature from 55° C. to 3,200° C. for a desired length of time to produce a porous graphitic film having pores and constituent graphene sheets or a 3D network of graphene pore walls having an inter-planar spacing d.sub.002 less than 0.4 nm; and (e) impregnating the porous graphitic film with a conductor material that bonds the constituent graphene sheets or graphene pore walls to form the conducting film.

Provided is a composition for forming a plating base on which plating is applied without a pretreatment, especially any activation process for the plating base, conventionally believed to be necessary, as well as a thus-formed plating base and a method of forming a plating coat over the plating base. The plating base is a coating film formed by applying and drying a metal nanoparticle dispersion liquid or a metal nanoparticle dispersion ink in which metal nanoparticles are protected with a small amount of protecting agent. Thus, a metal film can be formed by plating without operations such as substrate cleaning or catalyst imparting and activating. Since it is not necessary to wash the substrate with acid or base solution or to heat-treat it at a high temperature, many variations of materials become available for the substrate.

Materials and methods for coating an electrochemically active electrode material for use in a lithium-ion battery are provided. In one example, an electrochemically active electrode material comprises: a polymer coating applied directly to an exterior surface of the electrochemically active electrode material; a metal plating catalyst adhered to the continuous polymer; and a continuous metal coating that completely covers the metal catalyst and continuous polymer coating. The electrochemically active electrode material may comprise a powder comprising one or more secondary particles, and the polymer and metal coatings may be applied to exterior surfaces of these secondary particles.

The present invention pertains to an electrode-forming composition comprising: (a) at least one fluoropolymer [polymer (F)]; (b) particles of at least one active electrode material [particles (P)], said particles (P) comprising: —a core comprising at least one active electrode compound [compound (NMC)] of formula (I): Li[Li.sub.x(A.sub.pB.sub.QC.sub.w).sub.1-x]O.sub.2 (I) wherein A, B and C, different from each other, are selected from the group consisting of Fe, Ni, Mn and Co, x is comprised between 0 and 0.3, P is comprised between 0.2 and 0.8, preferably between 0.2 and 0.5, more preferably between 0.2 and 0.4, Q is comprised between 0.1 and 0.4, and W is comprised between 0.1 and 0.4, and —an outer layer consisting of a metal compound [compound (M)] different from Lithium, said outer layer at least partially surrounding said core; and (c) a liquid medium [medium (L)]. The present invention also pertains to a process for manufacturing said electrode-forming composition, to the use of said electrode-forming composition in a process for manufacturing a positive electrode and to the positive electrode obtainable therefrom.