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Nanomaterials
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Nanomaterials for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage
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Nanomaterials for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Solar Energy and Solar Cells".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 6708

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Wee-Jun Ong

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Guest Editor
Center of Excellence for NaNo Energy & Catalysis Technology (CONNECT), School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Sepang 43900, Malaysia
Interests: advanced nanomaterials; photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis; electrocatalysts for energy conversion; thermal catalysis for energy and environmental science; energy storage devices
Dr. Lutfi Kurnianditia Putri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang 14300, Malaysia
Interests: photo(electro)catalysis; functional nanomaterials; graphene; solar energy conversions; environmental remediation
Prof. Dr. Abdul Rahman Mohamed

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Guest Editor
School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang 14300, Malaysia
Interests: reaction engineering & catalysis; air pollution and waste water control engineering; nanoscience & nanotechnology
Dr. Valérie Keller

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Chemistry and Processes for Energy, Environment and Health (ICPEES), CNRS/University of Strasbourg, 25 rue Becquerel, CEDEX 2, 67087 Strasbourg, France
Interests: photocatalysis for energy and environmental application; elaboration and immobilisation of photocatalytic nano-materials; photoconversion; self-decontaminating substrates

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nanomaterials have since played vital roles to the advancement of many key technologies. Reducing particle size to the nanometre scale have since unearthed a cornucopia of properties that have been favourable to a wide-array of applications, most evidently, in solar energy conversion and storage. The heterogenous nature in solar energy conversion and storage processes which chiefly rely on physical interaction and/or chemical reactions at the surface or interface make them highly exploitable to manipulations in surface chemistry, energy and kinetics that arise upon nanostructuring. More directly, nanostructured materials have the advantage of enhanced surface area and thus host more favourable charge/ion/mass transport properties. Moreover, nanomaterials differ to its bulk counterpart not only by a matter of scale, but they can also harbour novel properties, thereby unlocking new useful mechanisms e.g., quantum confinement, causing nanomaterials to achieve higher solar energy conversion and storage efficiency.

This special issue therefore brings into focus nanotechnology as a powerful faculty to leverage further advancement in many energy-related applications. In particular, the topics of interest in this special issue are on nanomaterials synthesis technologies, nanoscale-induced mechanisms and fundamental understanding in the nanomaterial structure and performance relationship for applications.

Prof. Dr. Wee-Jun Ong
Dr. Lutfi Kurnianditia Putri
Prof. Dr. Abdul Rahman Mohamed
Dr. Valérie Keller
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • photovoltaics
  • photo(electro)catalysis
  • batteries
  • supercapacitors
  • hydrogen storage
  • solar cells
  • photothermal catalysis
  • solar-driven evaporation
  • energy conversion
  • environmental remediation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 4532 KiB  
Article
Solution-Processed SnO2 Quantum Dots for the Electron Transport Layer of Flexible and Printed Perovskite Solar Cells
by Muhammad Salman Kiani, Zhandos T. Sadirkhanov, Alibek G. Kakimov, Hryhorii P. Parkhomenko, Annie Ng and Askhat N. Jumabekov
Nanomaterials 2022, 12(15), 2615; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12152615 - 29 Jul 2022
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2763
Abstract
Flexible and printed perovskite solar cells (PSCs) fabricated on lightweight plastic substrates have many excellent potential applications in emerging new technologies including wearable and portable electronics, the internet of things, smart buildings, etc. To fabricate flexible and printed PSCs, all of the functional [...] Read more.
Flexible and printed perovskite solar cells (PSCs) fabricated on lightweight plastic substrates have many excellent potential applications in emerging new technologies including wearable and portable electronics, the internet of things, smart buildings, etc. To fabricate flexible and printed PSCs, all of the functional layers of devices should be processed at low temperatures. Tin oxide is one of the best metal oxide materials to employ as the electron transport layer (ETL) in PSCs. Herein, the synthesis and application of SnO2 quantum dots (QDs) to prepare the ETL of flexible and printed PSCs are demonstrated. SnO2 QDs are synthesized via a solvothermal method and processed to obtain aqueous and printable ETL ink solutions with different QD concentrations. PSCs are fabricated using a slot-die coating method on flexible plastic substrates. The solar cell performance and spectral response of the obtained devices are characterized using a solar simulator and an external quantum efficiency measurement system. The ETLs prepared using 2 wt% SnO2 QD inks are found to produce devices with a high average power conversion efficiency (PCE) along with a 10% PCE for a champion device. The results obtained in this work provide the research community with a method to prepare fully solution-processed SnO2 QD-based inks that are suitable for the deposition of SnO2 ETLs for flexible and printed PSCs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage)
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19 pages, 23906 KiB  
Article
Design and Numerical Investigation of a Lead-Free Inorganic Layered Double Perovskite Cs4CuSb2Cl12 Nanocrystal Solar Cell by SCAPS-1D
by Yizhou He, Liyifei Xu, Cheng Yang, Xiaowei Guo and Shaorong Li
Nanomaterials 2021, 11(9), 2321; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11092321 - 07 Sep 2021
Cited by 41 | Viewed by 4543
Abstract
In the last decade, perovskite solar cells have made a quantum leap in performance with the efficiency increasing from 3.8% to 25%. However, commercial perovskite solar cells have faced a major impediment due to toxicity and stability issues. Therefore, lead-free inorganic perovskites have [...] Read more.
In the last decade, perovskite solar cells have made a quantum leap in performance with the efficiency increasing from 3.8% to 25%. However, commercial perovskite solar cells have faced a major impediment due to toxicity and stability issues. Therefore, lead-free inorganic perovskites have been investigated in order to find substitute perovskites which can provide a high efficiency similar to lead-based perovskites. In recent studies, as a kind of lead-free inorganic perovskite material, Cs4CuSb2Cl12 has been demonstrated to possess impressive photoelectric properties and excellent environmental stability. Moreover, Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystals have smaller effective photo-generated carrier masses than bulk Cs4CuSb2Cl12, which provides excellent carrier mobility. To date, there have been no reports about Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystals used for making solar cells. To explore the potential of Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystal solar cells, we propose a lead-free perovskite solar cell with the configuration of FTO/ETL/Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystals/HTL/Au using a solar cell capacitance simulator. Moreover, we numerically investigate the factors that affect the performance of the Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystal solar cell with the aim of enhancing its performance. By selecting the appropriate hole transport material, electron transport material, thickness of the absorber layer, doping densities, defect density in the absorber, interface defect densities, and working temperature point, we predict that the Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystal solar cell with the FTO/TiO2/Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystals/Cu2O/Au structure can attain a power conversion efficiency of 23.07% at 300 K. Our analysis indicates that Cs4CuSb2Cl12 nanocrystals have great potential as an absorbing layer towards highly efficient lead-free all-inorganic perovskite solar cells. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage)
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