Submit to Nanomaterials Review for Nanomaterials Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Fullerenes, CNTs, Graphene-Related and 2D Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage

Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "2D and Carbon Nanomaterials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 6658

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Javier Martinez Rodrigo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Institute for Optoelectronics Systems and Microtecnology (ISOM), E.T.S.I.Telecomunicación, Technical University of Madrid (UPM), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: graphene; 2D materials; energy; nanotechnology; nanoelectronics; AFM
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, humanity has doubled its energy expenditure, and this trend will increase in the coming years. New developments in nanometric materials may be the key to creating more efficient and versatile energy conversion and storage devices. Also during this period, scientists have developed and started to manipulate nanometric materials such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, graphene and other 2D materials. These materials have attracted increasing attention since their discovery due to their excellent mechanical, thermal, optical and electrical properties.

The use of these nanomaterials in energy storage devices is one of the most promising applications as a consequence of the increasing demand for more efficient, longer-lasting and more compact portable electronic devices. The high specific surface area and the high electrical conductivity of these nanomaterials improve energy charge storage and increase the performance in batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells.

On the other hand, the optical properties of these nanomaterials can be used for electrodes in solar cells or other devices in order to generate electrical energy. Additionally, using their mechanical properties, these nanomaterials can be used as a part of mechanical transducers. Finally, the combination of these nanocarbon materials with other 2D materials will allow the creation of new electrodes or devices that could generate and store energy in a more powerful and more efficient way.

This Special Issue will present comprehensive research outlining progress in the application of these nanomaterials to improve the performance of energy conversion and storage. We invite authors to contribute original research and review articles covering the current progress in these nanomaterials for the fabrication of electrodes or devices for energy conversion and storage.

Prof. Dr. Javier Martinez Rodrigo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

graphene
fullerenes
carbon nanotubes
2D materials
energy
solar cells
supercapacitors
batteries
fuel cells
transducers

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

18 pages, 6435 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on the Application of Nitrogen-Doped Holey Graphene in Supercapacitors with Organic Electrolyte

by Yu-Ren Huang, Nen-Wen Pu, Guan-Min Wu, Yih-Ming Liu, Ming-Hsien Lin, Yi-Le Kwong, Siou-Cheng Li, Jeng-Kuei Chang and Ming-Der Ger

Nanomaterials 2023, 13(10), 1640; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13101640 - 14 May 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1260

Abstract

We present a facile low-cost method to produce nitrogen-doped holey graphene (N-HGE) and its application to supercapacitors. A composite of N-HGE and activated carbon (AC) was used as the electrode active material in organic-electrolyte supercapacitors, and the performances were evaluated. Melamine was mixed into graphite oxide (GO) as the N source, and an ultra-rapid heating method was used to create numerous holes during the reduction process of GO. X-ray photoelectron spectra confirmed the successful doping with 2.9–4.5 at.% of nitrogen on all samples. Scanning electron micrographs and Raman spectra revealed that a higher heating rate resulted in more holes and defects on the reduced graphene sheets. An extra annealing step at 1000 °C for 1 h was carried out to further eliminate residual oxygen functional groups, which are undesirable in the organic electrolyte system. Compared to the low-heating-rate counterpart (N-GE-15), N-HGE boosted the specific capacity of the supercapacitor by 42 and 22% at current densities of 0.5 and 20 A/g, respectively. The effects of annealing time (0.5, 1, and 2 h) at 1000 °C were also studied. Longer annealing time resulted in higher capacitance values at all current densities due to the minimized oxygen content. Volumetric specific capacitances of 49 and 24 F/cm³ were achieved at current densities of 0.5 and 20 A/g, respectively. For the high-power-density operation at 31,000 W/kg (or 10,000 W/L), an energy density as high as 11 Wh/kg (or 3.5 Wh/L) was achieved. The results indicated that N-HGE not only improved the conductivity of the composite supercapacitors but also accelerated ion transport by way of shortened diffusion paths through the numerous holes all over the graphene sheets. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fullerenes, CNTs, Graphene-Related and 2D Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 5173 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of Thermal and Laser-Reduced Graphene Oxide Production for Energy Storage Applications

by M. Belén Gómez-Mancebo, Rodolfo Fernández-Martínez, Andrea Ruiz-Perona, Verónica Rubio, Pablo Bastante, Fernando García-Pérez, Fernando Borlaf, Miguel Sánchez, Assia Hamada, Andrés Velasco, Yu Kyoung Ryu, Fernando Calle, Laura J. Bonales, Alberto J. Quejido, Javier Martínez and Isabel Rucandio

Nanomaterials 2023, 13(8), 1391; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13081391 - 17 Apr 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2035

Abstract

A way to obtain graphene-based materials on a large-scale level is by means of chemical methods for the oxidation of graphite to obtain graphene oxide (GO), in combination with thermal, laser, chemical and electrochemical reduction methods to produce reduced graphene oxide (rGO). Among these methods, thermal and laser-based reduction processes are attractive, due to their fast and low-cost characteristics. In this study, first a modified Hummer’s method was applied to obtain graphite oxide (GrO)/graphene oxide. Subsequently, an electrical furnace, a fusion instrument, a tubular reactor, a heating plate, and a microwave oven were used for the thermal reduction, and UV and CO₂ lasers were used for the photothermal and/or photochemical reduction. The chemical and structural characterizations of the fabricated rGO samples were performed by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy measurements. The analysis and comparison of the results revealed that the strongest feature of the thermal reduction methods is the production of high specific surface area, fundamental for volumetric energy applications such as hydrogen storage, whereas in the case of the laser reduction methods, a highly localized reduction is achieved, ideal for microsupercapacitors in flexible electronics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fullerenes, CNTs, Graphene-Related and 2D Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 6897 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Laser-Induced Graphene Microsupercapacitors: Structure, Quality, and Performance

by Andres Velasco, Yu Kyoung Ryu, Assia Hamada, Alicia de Andrés, Fernando Calle and Javier Martinez

Nanomaterials 2023, 13(5), 788; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13050788 - 21 Feb 2023

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4132

Abstract

Laser-induced graphene (LIG) is a graphenic material synthesized from a polymeric substrate through point-by-point laser pyrolysis. It is a fast and cost-effective technique, and it is ideal for flexible electronics and energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors. However, the miniaturization of the thicknesses of the devices, which is important for these applications, has still not been fully explored. Therefore, this work presents an optimized set of laser conditions to fabricate high-quality LIG microsupercapacitors (MSC) from 60 µm thick polyimide substrates. This is achieved by correlating their structural morphology, material quality, and electrochemical performance. The fabricated devices show a high capacitance of 22.2 mF/cm² at 0.05 mA/cm², as well as energy and power densities comparable to those of similar devices that are hybridized with pseudocapacitive elements. The performed structural characterization confirms that the LIG material is composed of high-quality multilayer graphene nanoflakes with good structural continuity and an optimal porosity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fullerenes, CNTs, Graphene-Related and 2D Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

12 pages, 5037 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Fabricating Graphene Oxide/h-BN Metal Insulator Semiconductor Diodes by Nanosecond Laser Irradiation

by Siddharth Gupta, Pratik Joshi, Ritesh Sachan and Jagdish Narayan

Nanomaterials 2022, 12(15), 2718; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12152718 - 8 Aug 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2382

Abstract

To employ graphene’s rapid conduction in 2D devices, a heterostructure with a broad bandgap dielectric that is free of traps is required. Within this paradigm, h-BN is a good candidate because of its graphene-like structure and ultrawide bandgap. We show how to make such a heterostructure by irradiating alternating layers of a-C and a-BN film with a nanosecond excimer laser, melting and zone-refining constituent layers in the process. With Raman spectroscopy and ToF-SIMS analyses, we demonstrate this localized zone-refining into phase-pure h-BN and rGO films with distinct Raman vibrational modes and SIMS profile flattening after laser irradiation. Furthermore, in comparing laser-irradiated rGO-Si MS and rGO/h-BN/Si MIS diodes, the MIS diodes exhibit an increased turn-on voltage (4.4 V) and low leakage current. The MIS diode I-V characteristics reveal direct tunneling conduction under low bias and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling in the high-voltage regime, turning the MIS diode ON with improved rectification and current flow. This study sheds light on the nonequilibrium approaches to engineering h-BN and graphene heterostructures for ultrathin field effect transistor device development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fullerenes, CNTs, Graphene-Related and 2D Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage)

► Show Figures