Editorial: Carbon- and Inorganic-Based Nanostructures for Energy Applications

Multifunctional Conductive Paths Obtained by Laser Processing of Non-Conductive Carbon Nanotube/Polypropylene Composites

“…Zero-dimensional (0D), 1D and 2D carbon structures have the potential to become materials of the next generation to be used in a series of applications, ranging from neuroscience [1] to energy fields [2]. As for materials for energy applications the research has been very active in recent years [3] and the interest includes, among other fields, supercapacitors [4], energy harvesting/storage [3,5], conversion devices [6,7], flexible electronics [8], sensors [9,10] and other electrochemical applications [11,12]. The limited amount in nature, the increasing price and demand for conventional materials (in particular metals) suggest that low-cost, high-performance and new materials would be desirable [13].…”

“…obtained from energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis 2. calculated from TGA profiles 3. phase identification from XRD patterns of the TGA residues.…”

10 years of frontiers in carbon-based materials: carbon, the “newest and oldest” material. The story so far

“…Therefore, a significant number of contributions on these topics were published in the Carbon-Based Materials section. Regarding energy applications, the editorial article elaborated by Cesano et al (2020b) revealed an exponential growth of articles related to energy materials including applications in supercapacitors, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), and electrochemical reactions such as OER. On the other hand, Kotal et al (2016) reviewed different applications of graphene aerogel-based materials including sensors, actuators and energy storage such as batteries and supercapacitors.…”

Type-II CuFe2O4/Graphitic Carbon Nitride Heterojunctions for High-Efficiency Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Generation

“…Designing semiconductor photocatalysts to power a new economic paradigm based on solar fuels as the primary energy currency has emerged as an urgent imperative in light of Paris climate goals to keep anthropogenic global warming below 1.5 °C. − In recent years, photocatalytic water splitting has attracted substantial attention. − Semiconductor heterostructures comprising disparate components are particularly attractive by dint of their ability to effectively separate charge carriers in analogy to photosynthetic pathways. − Graphitic-C 3 N 4 has attracted considerable attention as a “metal-free” photo/electrocatalyst and has a range of desirable properties such as being nontoxic and readily accessible from earth-abundant precursors. − However, the photocatalytic properties of g-C 3 N 4 are limited by a high electron–hole recombination rate. , A primary limitation of g-C 3 N 4 derives from its intrinsic electronic structure wherein the conduction band is primarily N 2p in origin, whereas the valence band is C 2p in origin; their substantial hybridization and resulting orbital overlap increases the recombination of electron–hole pairs. − To promote effective charge separation, band-engineered heterostructures with energetic offsets are required to promote interfacial charge transfer upon photoexcitation. − Such heterostructures with programmable charge transfer reactivity can effectively separate electrons and holes, thus enabling their utilization in photocatalytic reactions. − To enhance the photocatalytic activity of n-type g-C 3 N 4 , it is important to interface this material with a p-type semiconductor to establish thermodynamic band offsets that promote charge separation. In this work, we demonstrate heterostructures interfacing g-C 3 N 4 with p-type CuFe 2 O 4, which yields optimal energetic offsets resulting in charge separation. , Type-II heterostructures assembled based on the insertion of CuFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles between the galleries of g-C 3 N 4 show excellent electrocatalytic and photocatalytic performance in the presence of hole scavengers.…”