دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی آرایه نانوساختار ناهمگن برای تبدیل انرژی ذخیره سازی و الکتروشیمیایی - الزویر 2018

abstract

Rapid development of modern society raises more and more requirements for highly efficient energy conversion and storage. Electrochemical devices stand out as a most viable option for eventual substitute for fossil fuels, but suffer from problems like durability, operability, etc. Heterogeneous nanostructure arrays with distinguished superiorities have thus attracted intensive attention and yielded favorable electrochemical performance. In pursuit of deep understandings of their working modes, this review will focus on the interconnection among different constituents within each individual unit to correlate microscopic electrochemical processes with macroscopic performance. Here, the motivation of employing heterogeneous nanostructure arrays is first summarized. Then, the design principles, including three working modes, ‘Function-Function’, ‘Function-Assistance’, ‘Single-unit device’, are analyzed comprehensively to illuminate the interconnection among different constituents in electrochemical energy conversion and storage processes. Solar water splitting (energy conversion), alkali-ion battery and supercapacitors (energy storage) are termed collectively as typical electrochemical energy technologies to illustrate the superiorities of heterogeneous nanostructure arrays. Finally, perspectives of related fields will be concluded to broaden the future of heterogeneous nanostructure arrays.

Conclusion and perspective

Heterogenous nanostructure arrays stand as distinguished architectures owing to their distinctive structural features to meet the fundamental challenges concerning generation, transport and utilization of electrons, holes, ions and other molecular species. Hence, heterogeneous nanostructure arrays have attracted intensive attention and yielded favorable electrochemical performance. Within this context, the motivation of employing heterogeneous nanostructure arrays is present. The variations in size, dimensionality, alignment and constituent offer abundant diversity and resulting superiorities for the applications in electrochemical energy conversion and storage. Three working modes, including ‘Function-Function’, ‘Function-Assistance’, ‘Single-unit device’, take full play of different constituents to realize the synergistic (“1 + 1 > 2”) performance throughthe strong interactions among the constituents.

Despite decades of intense efforts, heterogenous nanostructure arrays in electrochemical energy conversion and storage are still in an early stage. More works are still necessary to achieve impacts to the real world.

First, electrochemical processes taking place either on the surface of or in the bulk of electrode materials could be complex. Direct observations of these processes are necessary to offer “on-site” information that can straightforwardly link to the electrochemical response. In-situ characterization techniques are a perfect solution to obtain such kind of direct observations. Attention should be paid to both thermodynamical and dynamic properties. It is vitally important to energy storage devices because their reaction feasibility is associated with dynamic properties while the current in-situ characterizations mostly focus on static studies. In addition, a heterogeneous electrode is often in a 3D configuration. An in-situ characterization technique that is capable of monitoring the reaction process with respectto a 3D chemical composition distribution within the electrode is extremely desirable. Cares should be made when developing new in-situ techniques regarding this point.