Themed collection Advanced Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion and Storage

Guest Editors Wee-Jun Ong, Nanfeng Zheng and Markus Antonietti introduce the Nanoscale themed collection on advanced nanomaterials for energy conversion and storage.

Advanced carbon-based materials are highlighted for light- and electricity-driven oxygen reduction and water oxidation towards hydrogen peroxide.

2D nanosheets give enhanced surface area to volume ratios in particle morphology and they can also provide defined surface sites to disperse foreign atoms.

Engineering the surface/near-surface nanostructure is a promising strategy to improve the electrocatalytic performance of alloys, which can maximize the exposure and utilization of active sites.

Recent advances in the on-going approaches for activating electrospun carbon nanofibers and addressing the key issues faced are critically examined in connection with their electrochemical performance as supercapacitor electrodes.

This review highlights recent advances in the strategies for engineering active sites on surfaces and in open frameworks toward photocatalytic CO₂ reduction.

Unraveling the reaction mechanism behind CO₂RR via a series of in situ measurements is a crucial step for advancing the development of efficient and selective catalyst and relations between product selectivity.

A novel heterostructure consisting of highly ordered TiO₂ nanoarrays grown on the MXene nanosheets displays formidable dual chemisorption capability to trap polysulfides and superior electrochemical performance for Li–S batteries.

Lithium metal is promising anode material for next-generation battery system. Here, mesoporous carbon material is applied as a host material and it extends Li metal's cycle life.

Size effects of Pt on electrooxidation are revealed by in situ electrochemical SERS using bifunctional Au–Pt core–satellite nanocomposites.

We developed a carbon underlayer from low-cost carbon dots between FTO and hematite photoanodes. The bulk and interfacial charge transfer dynamics of hematite are greatly improved, leading to a remarkable enhancement in the photocurrent response.

TiO₂ is one of the most widely used photocatalysts and photothermocatalysts.

Enhanced C₂H₄ selectivity on the defect rich, rough and dendritic surface.

Seebeck coefficient measurements provide unique insights into the electronic structure of single-molecule junctions.

The coating of perovskites with D35 improves the performance of PSCs. D35 plays a versatile functional role.

A MoS₂@SnS heterostructure can serve as an advanced anode for sodium-ion batteries with enhanced reaction kinetics.

Electrochemical activation with a different pH environment changes the morphology and intrinsic catalytic properties of carbon-supported IrNi nanoparticles for oxygen evolution reaction (OER).

Trifunctional electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are crucial for many electrochemical devices.

Two-dimensional transition metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides, popular by the name MXenes, are an emerging class of materials for tunable plasmonic electrochromic applications.

Sluggish dynamics of polysulfide conversion leads to reduced utilization of active sulfur and rapid capacity decay.

Homogeneously embedded Sb NPs in a SiOC with the size of 5–40 nm were synthesized via the pyrolysis of a preceramic polymer. SiOC/Sb exhibits high rate capability with a charge-storage capacity of 549 mAh g⁻¹ at a current density of 2232 mA g⁻¹.

Porous tubular carbon assemblies encapsulating NiFe alloys as bifunctional catalysts toward ORR and OER were designed via a sacrificial-template strategy.

An interlayer favoring Li ion diffusion and polysulfide blocking for Li–S batteries was fabricated by using porous carbon nanosheets embedded with TiO₂ nanoparticles.

A ternary heterostructure Ru/RuO₂/g-C₃N₄ was designed for ammonia photosynthesis under visible light irradiation, which exhibited 6 times higher activity with excellent stability than the pristine g-C₃N₄.

1T concentration controllable 1T/2H-MoS₂ with enhanced electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction performance has been synthesized.

Interstratified 2D nanohybrids of chromium hydroxide–molybdenum disulfide with improved electrode functionality are synthesized by the self-assembly of anionic monolayered MoS₂ nanosheets with cationic chromium hydroxide nanoclusters.

Multilayer NiCo-MOF nanosheet assemblies hold great potential as an electrode material for EES equipment. A facile one-pot synthesis procedure, high capacity and stable performance are prominent features of multilayer NiCo-MOF materials.

Interface-modulated ultrathin Ni(II) MOF/g-C₃N₄ heterojunctions exhibit greatly improved charge separation and, consequently, 18-fold photoactivity enhancement for the CO₂RR.

Well-aligned Ni-MOF nanosheet arrays vertically grown on nickel foam were synthesized via a facile in situ solvothermal strategy, which exhibited remarkably improved photocatalytic activities to typical VOCs under visible light irradiation.

A self-adaptive NiS₂/3DGO electrode was designed and the conversion reaction mechanism during potassium storage processes was clearly revealed.

Novel nanostructured non-redox-metal potassium metal–organic framework, [C₇H₃KNO₄]_n, as an effective organic anode for long-cycle life OPIBs.

Photocatalyst Ni-NiS/C/ZnO shows improved photocatalytic CO₂-reduction activity due to enhanced light absorption, good CO₂ adsorption and effective charge separation.

Graphitic carbon was fully embedded inside the graphitic carbon nitride hollow sphere via the modified shape-selective templating method in order to enchance visible light absorption and promote charge seperation.