Editorial Nanomaterials for Energy-Efficient Applications · Editorial Nanomaterials for...
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Editorial Nanomaterials for Energy-Efficient Applications Xiaohu Huang, 1 Guozhong Xing, 2 Yongfeng Li, 3 and Ekaterina Nannen 4 1 Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A ∗ STAR), 3 Research Link, Singapore 117602 2 School of Materials Science and Engineering, e University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia 3 Key Laboratory of Physics and Technology for Advanced Batteries (Ministry of Education), College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China 4 Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Duisburg-Essen, 47057 Duisburg, Germany Correspondence should be addressed to Xiaohu Huang; [email protected] Received 4 December 2014; Accepted 4 December 2014 Copyright © 2015 Xiaohu Huang et al. is 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. e ways we used to generate and utilize energy have been threatening our living environment. For example, the crude oil spills in Gulf of Mexico in 2010 leſt devastating effects to the Gulf ecosystem, Fukushima nuclear plant leaks in Japan in 2012 threatened the lives of thousands of people, and the Haze in the cities of China at present affects the health of millions of people. All of them remind us of the global energy and environment crisis that we have to face in the near future. Alternative solutions in energy generation and utilization have to be explored towards a sustainable earth. Many breakthroughs in the area of nanomaterials and nanosciences have been reported recently [1–12], which open up tremendous opportunities to tackle the challenges in energy and environment. With shrinking the size of the materials into nanoscale, fewer materials are required, which translates to higher utility efficiency of the resources. Moreover, with the dimensions of the materials decreasing to a scale comparable to the characteristic length of the phys- ical properties, behaviors of photon emission [1], electron transport [2], surface train [3], and phonon scattering [4] change drastically compared to their bulk counterpart. e resulting properties have very important implications to their applications in high brightness light-emitting diodes [5–7], low power nanoelectronics [2], high efficiency solar cells [8], thermoelectric power generator [4], and so forth. In addition, the large surface-to-volume ratio in nanomaterials facilitates more efficient chemical reactions, which is highly desirable in many applications such as high performance batteries and catalysts [9, 10]. erefore, the research activities of nanoma- terials on energy-related applications have surged over the past decade, which is manifested by the exponential growth of the corresponding research publications and citations as shown in Figure 1. It is very clear that the research on energy- related nanoscience and nanotechnology has been becoming extremely active since 2010. However, the success of nanomaterials in energy-efficient applications relies on our ability to synthesize nanomaterials at will and to understand and tailor the properties of the nanomaterials [11, 12] and to integrate the nanomaterials into devices [1, 2, 7, 9]. is special issue solicits some of these topics to foster the applications of nanomaterials in the emerging energy research. Moreover, the research trend of nanomaterials towards high performance energy-efficient applications could be summarized from the articles published in this special issue, for example, chemical doping, interface engineering, and hybridizing. We hope that the readers will find in this special issue not only the interesting results but also important questions to be resolved and finally incorporate the findings into their own research. We hope this special issue can inspire more Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Nanomaterials Volume 2015, Article ID 524095, 2 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/524095
Transcript of Editorial Nanomaterials for Energy-Efficient Applications · Editorial Nanomaterials for...
EditorialNanomaterials for Energy-Efficient Applications
Xiaohu Huang,1 Guozhong Xing,2 Yongfeng Li,3 and Ekaterina Nannen4
1 Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A∗STAR), 3 Research Link,Singapore 1176022School of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia3Key Laboratory of Physics and Technology for Advanced Batteries (Ministry of Education), College of Physics, Jilin University,Changchun 130012, China4Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Duisburg-Essen, 47057 Duisburg, Germany
Correspondence should be addressed to Xiaohu Huang; [email protected]
Received 4 December 2014; Accepted 4 December 2014
Copyright © 2015 Xiaohu Huang 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.
The ways we used to generate and utilize energy have beenthreatening our living environment. For example, the crudeoil spills in Gulf of Mexico in 2010 left devastating effectsto the Gulf ecosystem, Fukushima nuclear plant leaks inJapan in 2012 threatened the lives of thousands of people,and the Haze in the cities of China at present affects thehealth of millions of people. All of them remind us of theglobal energy and environment crisis that we have to face inthe near future. Alternative solutions in energy generationand utilization have to be explored towards a sustainableearth.
Many breakthroughs in the area of nanomaterials andnanosciences have been reported recently [1–12], whichopen up tremendous opportunities to tackle the challengesin energy and environment. With shrinking the size ofthe materials into nanoscale, fewer materials are required,which translates to higher utility efficiency of the resources.Moreover, with the dimensions of the materials decreasing toa scale comparable to the characteristic length of the phys-ical properties, behaviors of photon emission [1], electrontransport [2], surface train [3], and phonon scattering [4]change drastically compared to their bulk counterpart. Theresulting properties have very important implications to theirapplications in high brightness light-emitting diodes [5–7],low power nanoelectronics [2], high efficiency solar cells [8],thermoelectric power generator [4], and so forth. In addition,
the large surface-to-volume ratio in nanomaterials facilitatesmore efficient chemical reactions, which is highly desirablein many applications such as high performance batteries andcatalysts [9, 10]. Therefore, the research activities of nanoma-terials on energy-related applications have surged over thepast decade, which is manifested by the exponential growthof the corresponding research publications and citations asshown in Figure 1. It is very clear that the research on energy-related nanoscience and nanotechnology has been becomingextremely active since 2010.
However, the success of nanomaterials in energy-efficientapplications relies on our ability to synthesize nanomaterialsat will and to understand and tailor the properties of thenanomaterials [11, 12] and to integrate the nanomaterialsinto devices [1, 2, 7, 9]. This special issue solicits some ofthese topics to foster the applications of nanomaterials inthe emerging energy research. Moreover, the research trendof nanomaterials towards high performance energy-efficientapplications could be summarized from the articles publishedin this special issue, for example, chemical doping, interfaceengineering, and hybridizing.
We hope that the readers will find in this special issuenot only the interesting results but also important questionsto be resolved and finally incorporate the findings into theirown research. We hope this special issue can inspire more
Hindawi Publishing CorporationJournal of NanomaterialsVolume 2015, Article ID 524095, 2 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/524095
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Figure 1: The numbers of (a) publications and (b) citations retrieved from Web of Science by listing both “nano” and “energy” as the keywords in the search engine. The search was conducted on November 21, 2014; thus any update after that was not reflected in this figure.
research efforts on nanomaterials towards energy-efficientand environmentally friendly applications.
Xiaohu HuangGuozhong Xing
Yongfeng LiEkaterina Nannen
References
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[7] E. Neshataeva, T. Kummell, G. Bacher, and A. Ebbers, “All-inorganic light emitting device based on ZnO nanoparticles,”Applied Physics Letters, vol. 94, no. 9, Article ID 091115, 2009.
[8] C. F. Guo, T. Y. Sun, F. Cao, Q. Liu, and Z. F. Ren, “Metallicnanostructures for light trapping in energy-harvesting devices,”Light: Science and Applications, vol. 3, article e161, 2014.
[9] G. Z. Xing, Y. Wang, J. I. Wong, Y. M. Shi, S. Li, and H.Y. Yang, “Hybrid CuO/SnO
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effective and high performance binder free lithium ion batteriesanode materials,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 105, Article ID143905, 2014.
[10] H. R. Byon, J. Suntivich, and Y. Shao-Horn, “Graphene-basednon-noble-metal catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction inacid,”Chemistry ofMaterials, vol. 23, no. 15, pp. 3421–3428, 2011.
[11] X. Huang, L. Li, X. Luo, X. Zhu, and G. Li, “Orientation-controlled synthesis and ferromagnetism of single crystallineCo nanowire arrays,” The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol.112, no. 5, pp. 1468–1472, 2008.
[12] G. Z. Xing, X. S. Fang, X. Huang et al., “Ultrathin single-crystalZnO nanobelts: Ag-catalyzed growth, optical absorption andfield emission properties,” Nanotechnology, vol. 21, Article ID255701, 2010.
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