Center of Advanced Science and Engineering for Carbon, Case4Carbon, Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Small. 2012 Apr 23;8(8):1130-66. doi: 10.1002/smll.201101594. Epub 2012 Mar 2.
It is estimated that the world will need to double its energy supply by 2050. Nanotechnology has opened up new frontiers in materials science and engineering to meet this challenge by creating new materials, particularly carbon nanomaterials, for efficient energy conversion and storage. Comparing to conventional energy materials, carbon nanomaterials possess unique size-/surface-dependent (e.g., morphological, electrical, optical, and mechanical) properties useful for enhancing the energy-conversion and storage performances. During the past 25 years or so, therefore, considerable efforts have been made to utilize the unique properties of carbon nanomaterials, including fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene, as energy materials, and tremendous progress has been achieved in developing high-performance energy conversion (e.g., solar cells and fuel cells) and storage (e.g., supercapacitors and batteries) devices. This article reviews progress in the research and development of carbon nanomaterials during the past twenty years or so for advanced energy conversion and storage, along with some discussions on challenges and perspectives in this exciting field.
据估计，到 2050 年，世界将需要将其能源供应增加一倍。纳米技术通过创造新材料，特别是碳纳米材料，为高效的能量转换和存储开辟了新的前沿领域，以应对这一挑战。与传统的能源材料相比，碳纳米材料具有独特的尺寸/表面依赖性（例如形态、电学、光学和机械）特性，可用于提高能量转换和存储性能。因此，在过去的 25 年左右的时间里，人们做出了相当大的努力来利用碳纳米材料的独特性质，包括富勒烯、碳纳米管和石墨烯，将其作为能源材料，并且在开发高性能能量转换（例如太阳能电池和燃料电池）和存储（例如超级电容器和电池）设备方面取得了巨大进展。本文回顾了过去二十多年来碳纳米材料在先进能量转换和存储方面的研究和开发进展，并对这一令人兴奋的领域的挑战和前景进行了一些讨论。
