Editorial Multifunctional Hybrid Nanomaterials for Energy ...
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Editorial Multifunctional Hybrid Nanomaterials for Energy Storage Zhengping Zhou , 1,2 Jiawei Gong , 3 Yichen Guo , 4 and Linqin Mu 1,5 1 Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Penn State Behrend, Eire, PA 16563, USA 4 Materials Science and Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA 5 Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China Correspondence should be addressed to Zhengping Zhou; [email protected] Received 28 February 2019; Accepted 28 February 2019; Published 3 April 2019 Copyright © 2019 Zhengping Zhou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Over the past few decades, nanomaterials have played a cru- cial role in the development of energy storage. A tremendous progress in the design and preparation of new nanomaterials has brought a large number of solutions to the existing chal- lenges in energy storage systems, such as high energy and power densities, high efficiency, long-term stability, and low-cost processes. As an emerging material, multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials, usually integrating two or more dispa- rate nanomaterials (e.g., polymeric, semiconductive, carbo- naceous, and inorganic materials), have been considered a promising candidate to address these challenges. In particu- lar, the hybridization of these nanomaterials can lead to unique superior multifunctions and thus offers the vast promise of applications in chemical and biological sensing, heterogeneous catalysis, energy conversion and storage, and environment and human health. Currently, people are learning to integrate different types of nanomaterials to tailor the structures and improve the properties including but not limited to a high specific surface area, a well-controlled pore or particle size, a homogeneous distribution, and a strong attachment between nanomaterial interfacial surfaces. The ability to tailor the structures and properties of hybrid nanomaterials over broad length scales suggests that researches on hybrid nanomaterials will have a tremendous impact in the fields of polymer, carbon, nano- technology, physical chemistry, and electrochemistry. How- ever, the design and preparation of multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials remain challenging and their introduction into practical applications is not yet satisfactory. Therefore, it is highly desirable to provide a breakthrough on the state-of-the-art nanomanufacturing and scale-up nanotech- nology to design and synthesize advanced multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials with improved performance. In this special issue, we present an elegant collection of high-quality reviews and original articles that illustrate the importance of developing multifunctional hybrid nanoma- terials for energy storage and related applications. A deep understanding and relevant theoretical calculations for exploring the behaviors of integrated nanomaterials at their interface have also been obtained by fundamental investiga- tions. The purpose of this editorial is to provide a brief introduction for each published or accepted paper and highlight their major findings and discoveries. In the fol- lowing, we review all the articles in our special issue, and we believe this editorial will interest the broadest possible section of readership. Traditional mesoporous metal oxide materials for super- capacitor electrodes undergo either high cost or performance limits (e.g., specific capacitance and cycle life). A new kind of cost-effective complex materials was designed and synthe- sized by L. Song et al. through an internal template method. This innovated material made of mesoporous nickel-based capsule complex with Fe 3 O 4 was used as a supercapacitor electrode, exhibiting a high specific capacitance of 739.8 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g in a 6 M KOH electrolyte solu- tion. They demonstrated a good capacitance retention of Hindawi Journal of Nanomaterials Volume 2019, Article ID 3013594, 2 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/3013594
Transcript of Editorial Multifunctional Hybrid Nanomaterials for Energy ...
EditorialMultifunctional Hybrid Nanomaterials for Energy Storage
Zhengping Zhou ,1,2 Jiawei Gong ,3 Yichen Guo ,4 and Linqin Mu 1,5
1Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA2Department of Mechanical Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA3Department of Mechanical Engineering, Penn State Behrend, Eire, PA 16563, USA4Materials Science and Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA5Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhengping Zhou; [email protected]
Received 28 February 2019; Accepted 28 February 2019; Published 3 April 2019
Copyright © 2019 Zhengping Zhou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work isproperly cited.
Over the past few decades, nanomaterials have played a cru-cial role in the development of energy storage. A tremendousprogress in the design and preparation of new nanomaterialshas brought a large number of solutions to the existing chal-lenges in energy storage systems, such as high energy andpower densities, high efficiency, long-term stability, andlow-cost processes. As an emerging material, multifunctionalhybrid nanomaterials, usually integrating two or more dispa-rate nanomaterials (e.g., polymeric, semiconductive, carbo-naceous, and inorganic materials), have been considered apromising candidate to address these challenges. In particu-lar, the hybridization of these nanomaterials can lead tounique superior multifunctions and thus offers the vastpromise of applications in chemical and biological sensing,heterogeneous catalysis, energy conversion and storage, andenvironment and human health.
Currently, people are learning to integrate different typesof nanomaterials to tailor the structures and improve theproperties including but not limited to a high specific surfacearea, a well-controlled pore or particle size, a homogeneousdistribution, and a strong attachment between nanomaterialinterfacial surfaces. The ability to tailor the structures andproperties of hybrid nanomaterials over broad length scalessuggests that researches on hybrid nanomaterials will have atremendous impact in the fields of polymer, carbon, nano-technology, physical chemistry, and electrochemistry. How-ever, the design and preparation of multifunctional hybridnanomaterials remain challenging and their introduction
into practical applications is not yet satisfactory. Therefore,it is highly desirable to provide a breakthrough on thestate-of-the-art nanomanufacturing and scale-up nanotech-nology to design and synthesize advanced multifunctionalhybrid nanomaterials with improved performance.
In this special issue, we present an elegant collection ofhigh-quality reviews and original articles that illustrate theimportance of developing multifunctional hybrid nanoma-terials for energy storage and related applications. A deepunderstanding and relevant theoretical calculations forexploring the behaviors of integrated nanomaterials at theirinterface have also been obtained by fundamental investiga-tions. The purpose of this editorial is to provide a briefintroduction for each published or accepted paper andhighlight their major findings and discoveries. In the fol-lowing, we review all the articles in our special issue, andwe believe this editorial will interest the broadest possiblesection of readership.
Traditional mesoporous metal oxide materials for super-capacitor electrodes undergo either high cost or performancelimits (e.g., specific capacitance and cycle life). A new kind ofcost-effective complex materials was designed and synthe-sized by L. Song et al. through an internal template method.This innovated material made of mesoporous nickel-basedcapsule complex with Fe3O4 was used as a supercapacitorelectrode, exhibiting a high specific capacitance of 739.8 F/gat a current density of 1A/g in a 6M KOH electrolyte solu-tion. They demonstrated a good capacitance retention of
HindawiJournal of NanomaterialsVolume 2019, Article ID 3013594, 2 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2019/3013594
72.8% after 1000 cycles of charge/discharge processes, indi-cating this new complex material as a promising electrodematerial for use in supercapacitors. The work by T.-S. Chenet al. presented a C-TiO2-Pd composite electrode for use ina semivanadium/iodine redox flow battery (semi-V-I RFB)system. The authors found out that the C-TiO2-Pd electrodesenhanced the electrocatalytic activity of the designedsemi-V-I RFB system and then led to an improved energystorage ability. A high energy efficiency of 81.23% wasobtained. This excellent work could bring us a new designand assembly technology to further improve the overall effi-ciency of energy storage systems.
To break up the performance limits of anode materials inLi-ion batteries, C.-C. Lin et al. have designed and preparedcarbon nanotubes/graphene deposited with cobalt. A goodunderstanding on how the sputtering power levels/timeperiods influence the specific capacity of Li-ion batterieshas been explored. This study tells us that a longer timeperiod of cobalt sputtering will lead to a higher capacity. Dif-ferently, the specific capacity increased at the power levelrange of 50-100W, but decreased at the range of 100-150W. X. Pan et al. have reported a direct template-free elec-trodeposition method to synthesize hexagonal CuSn prismelectrodes for Li-ion batteries. The batteries exhibited an ini-tial discharge capacity of 345mAh/g and still maintained ahigh capacity of 210mAh/g after 10 cycles. When the elec-trodeposition time was increased, the diameter of CuSnprism increased, but the structure converted to be inho-mogeneous and unsteady. Moreover, the size of CuSnprism strongly influenced the capacity and cycle perfor-mance of Li-ion batteries.
A study of amicrobistable piezoelectric energy harvester isreported by L.H. Chen et al. Based on Hamilton’s principles,they have established a nonlinear oscillation differential?equation by investigating thermoelectromechanical couplingeffect. With the size effect, the strain gradient theory isextended to the nonlinear problemofmicrobistable piezoelec-tric energy harvesting.When the ambient vibration frequencywas increased, themicroscale bistable energy harvester led to asnap-through phenomenon. Gao et al. have investigated therelationship between the electrical tree development and thepartial discharges of cross-linked polyethylene cables.According to their calculation, an early warning caused bythe defects in cable insulation can be detected, which helpsto effectively monitor the cable conditions.
Paraffin wax has been proven to be a very promisingphase-change material for the purpose of latent heat thermalstorage. However, the low intrinsic thermal conductivity ofparaffin restrains its performance. To improve the thermalconductivity, A. Badakhsh et al. produced a paraffin compos-ite reinforced with the AlN-coated SiC ceramic powder(SiC@AlN). Due to the high affinity between AlN and paraf-fin, SiC@AlN powder can be evenly dispersed within the par-affin matrix, which creates the conductive networks toenhance the thermal conductivity of the composite. In addi-tion, this paraffin composite is proven to be cost-effective andeasily processable.
Another interesting research is reported in detail byW.-N. Wang et al., who explored a facile two-step solution
method for the synthesis of upconversion nanoparticles withZn0.5Cd0.5S ([email protected]) core-shell and yolk-shellnanostructures. They demonstrated that the [email protected] core-shell nanostructures can be converted tothe yolk-shell nanostructures through a calcination at400°C. In addition, the [email protected] yolk-shell nano-structures substantially improved the photocatalytic activityfor reduction of Cr(VI) under near-infrared light. The paperby Amin et al. investigated the band gap changes of Ge/CdSbilayer films under different annealing temperatures. At hightemperatures, Ge diffused into a CdS layer, forming a mixedphase of CdGeS. It was found that the optical band gap of thebilayer has a linear relationship with the annealing tempera-ture. Increasing the temperature led to a wide band gap. Thisfinding proposed a practical method of engineering the bandgap of Ge/CdS bilayer films, which paves a way to their appli-cations in optoelectronic devices.
In view of the above review and discussion, we believethat the present special issue explored the latest research onmultifunctional hybrid nanomaterials including fundamen-tal theory and experiments together with reviews and articles.More efficient designs and synthesis processes, as well as thefurther understandings on the interfacial chemistry of inte-grated materials in energy storage systems, are needed.
Conflicts of Interest
The guest editors declare that this work was conducted in theabsence of any commercial or financial relationships thatcould be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Authors’ Contributions
All the guest editors wrote the editorial and contributed toand approved the final editorial.
Zhengping ZhouJiawei GongYichen GuoLinqin Mu
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