Hybrid energy generation models based on a variety of alternative energy supply technologies are considered the best way to cope with the depletion of fossil energy resources and to limit global warming. One of the currently missing technologies is the mimic of natural photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide and water into chemical fuel using sunlight. This idea has been around for decades, but artificial photosynthesis of organic molecules is still far away from providing real-world solutions. The scientific challenge is to perform in an efficient way the multi-electron transfer reactions of water oxidation and carbon dioxide reduction using holes and single electrons generated in an illuminated semiconductor. In this tutorial review the design of photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells that combine solar water oxidation and CO2 reduction is discussed. In such PEC cells simultaneous transport and efficient use of light, electrons, protons and molecules has to be managed. It is explained how efficiency can be gained by compartmentalisation of the water oxidation and CO2 reduction processes by proton exchange membranes, and monolithic concepts of artificial leaves and solar membranes are presented. Besides transferring protons from the anode to the cathode compartment the membrane serves as a molecular barrier material to prevent cross-over of oxygen and fuel molecules. Innovative nano-organized multimaterials will be needed to realise practical artificial photosynthesis devices. This review provides an overview of synthesis techniques which could be used to realise monolithic multifunctional membrane-electrode assemblies, such as Layer-by-Layer (LbL) deposition, Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), and porous silicon (porSi) engineering. Advances in modelling approaches, electrochemical techniques and in situ spectroscopies to characterise overall PEC cell performance are discussed.
We establish a new strategy to achieve fast and responsive hybrid distributed Bragg reflectors for environmental vapor sensing. We fabricated easily processable zinc oxide-polystyrene nanocomposites to grow high quality multilayers with large gas permeability and dielectric contrast, which enable fast and sensitive detection of vapor analytes. Multilayers fabricated by simple spin-coating of the nanocomposite and cellulose acetate show a 10-fold enhancement of the optical response to toluene exposure compared to reference distributed Bragg reflectors built with bare. polystyrene
The ability for artificially reproducing human brain type signals’ processing is one of the main challenges in modern information technology, being one of the milestones for developing global communicating networks and artificial intelligence. Electronic devices termed memristors have been proposed as effective artificial synapses able to emulate the plasticity of biological counterparts. Here we report for the first time a single crystalline nanowire based model system capable of combining all memristive functions – non-volatile bipolar memory, multilevel switching, selector and synaptic operations imitating Ca2+ dynamics of biological synapses. Besides underlying common electrochemical fundamentals of biological and artificial redox-based synapses, a detailed analysis of the memristive mechanism revealed the importance of surfaces and interfaces in crystalline materials. Our work demonstrates the realization of self-assembled, self-limited devices feasible for implementation via bottom up approach, as an attractive solution for the ultimate system miniaturization needed for the hardware realization of brain-inspired systems.
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