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A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanocomposite Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 May 2023 | Viewed by 9005

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hanfeng Liang

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Guest Editor

State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 3610051, China
Interests: electrocatalysis; energy storage; surface engineering; coatings; plasma
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Dr. Qiu Jiang
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Guest Editor

School of Materials and Energy, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
Interests: miniaturized energy devices; 2D materials
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Dr. Gang Huang
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Guest Editor

Materials Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia
Interests: metal batteries; metal–O₂ batteries

Prof. Dr. Yi-Zhou Zhang

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Guest Editor

Institute of Advanced Materials and Flexible Electronics (IAMFE), School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Interests: printed electronics; flexible electrochemical energy storage; MXene; hydrogels; 3D printing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Materials in nanoscale dimensions possess unique electronic, physical, and mechanical properties compared with their bulk counterparts, enabling their diverse applications in batteries, supercapacitors, solar cells, fuel cells, multifunctional catalysts, and many more. In particular, nanocomposites synergistically combine the unique properties of multiple nanomaterial components, and their multiple functionalities offer them more flexibility in chemical composition, morphology, and properties for specific applications. Research on composite nanomaterials has recently provided opportunities in a broad spectrum of novel energy-related applications; this includes energy harvesting, conversion, and storage. We invite authors to contribute comprehensive reviews and original research articles covering the most recent progress and new developments in designing advanced nanocomposites for energy-related applications. The format of welcomed articles includes full papers, communications, perspective views, and reviews. We believe this research topic will bring a broad impact and is of interest to a broad spectrum of readers in chemistry, materials, nanoscience, and energy science and technologies.

The areas to be covered in this Special Issue may include, but are not limited to:

Prediction and simulation of the properties of novel nanocomposite systems
Structural and compositional design of nanocomposites and new synthetic methods
Advanced characterization of nanocomposites
Fundamental understanding of the synergy of nanocomposites
Performance optimization of nanocomposites for energy-related applications

Prof. Dr. Hanfeng Liang
Prof. Dr. Qiu Jiang
Dr. Gang Huang
Prof. Dr. Yizhou Zhang
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 2600 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

nanomaterials
composites
energy storage
catalyst
battery
supercapacitor
structural design

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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Open AccessArticle

Antimony Nanoparticles Encapsulated in Self-Supported Organic Carbon with a Polymer Network for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries Anode

and

Nanomaterials 2022, 12(14), 2322; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12142322 - 06 Jul 2022

Viewed by 836

Abstract

Antimony (Sb) demonstrates ascendant reactive activation with lithium ions thanks to its distinctive puckered layer structure. Compared with graphite, Sb can reach a considerable theoretical specific capacity of 660 mAh g⁻¹ by constituting Li₃Sb safer reaction potential. Hereupon, with a self-supported organic carbon as a three-dimensional polymer network structure, Sb/carbon (3DPNS-Sb/C) composites were produced through a hydrothermal reaction channel followed by a heat disposal operation. The unique structure shows uniformitarian Sb nanoparticles wrapped in a self-supported organic carbon, alleviating the volume extension of innermost Sb alloying, and conducive to the integrality of the construction. When used as anodes for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), 3DPNS-Sb/C exhibits a high invertible specific capacity of 511.5 mAh g⁻¹ at a current density of 0.5 A g⁻¹ after 100 cycles and a remarkable rate property of 289.5 mAh g⁻¹ at a current density of 10 A g⁻¹. As anodes, LIBs demonstrate exceptional electrochemical performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposite Design for Energy-Related Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Electrochemical Properties of an Sn-Doped LATP Ceramic Electrolyte and Its Derived Sandwich-Structured Composite Solid Electrolyte

and

Nanomaterials 2022, 12(12), 2082; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12122082 - 16 Jun 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1637

Abstract

An Li_1.3Al_0.3Sn_xTi_1.7−x(PO₄)₃ (LATP-xSn) ceramic solid electrolyte was prepared by Sn doping via a solid phase method. The results showed that adding an Sn dopant with a larger ionic radius in a concentration of x = 0.35 enabled one to equivalently substitute Ti sites in the LATP crystal structure to the maximum extent. The uniform Sn doping could produce a stable LATP structure with small grain size and improved relative density. The lattice distortion induced by Sn doping also modified the transport channels of Li ions, which promoted the increase of ionic conductivity from 5.05 × 10⁻⁵ to 4.71 × 10⁻⁴ S/cm at room temperature. The SPE/LATP-0.35Sn/SPE composite solid electrolyte with a sandwich structure was prepared by coating, which had a high ionic conductivity of 5.9 × 10⁻⁵ S/cm at room temperature, a wide electrochemical window of 4.66 V vs. Li/Li⁺, and a good lithium-ion migration number of 0.38. The Li||Li symmetric battery test results revealed that the composite solid electrolyte could stably perform for 500 h at 60 °C under the current density of 0.2 mA/cm², indicating its good interface stability with metallic lithium. Moreover, the analysis of the all-solid-state LiFePO₄||SPE/LATP-0.35Sn/SPE||Li battery showed that the composite solid electrolyte had good cycling stability and rate performance. Under the conditions of 60 °C and 0.2 C, stable accumulation up to 200 cycles was achieved at a capacity retention ratio of 90.5% and a coulombic efficiency of about 100% after cycling test. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposite Design for Energy-Related Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Magnetic Properties in Mn-Doped δ-MoN: A Systematic Density Functional Theory Study

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Nanomaterials 2022, 12(5), 747; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12050747 - 23 Feb 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 832

Abstract

Due to the potential applications of transition metal nitrides in modern electronic and spintronic devices, we have systematically studied the magnetic properties of δ-MoN induced by the Mn dopant, with the goal of identifying the origin of magnetism and figuring out the magnetic coupling mechanism between the Mn dopants. Based on the density functional theory, one Mn atom doped at different Mo sites (2a and 6c in the International Tables) in the unit cell of δ-MoN was firstly studied. It was found that the Mn dopant located at the 2a or 6c site leads to significant spin splitting of the density of states, suggesting that the Mn doping induces magnetism in δ-MoN. The calculations were then extended to a 2 × 1 × 2 supercell, which contains two impurity Mn atoms. Detailed analysis reveals that the different couplings of the Mn–Mn pair cannot be simply attributed to the different Mn–Mn distances but are closely related to the electronic processes that take place in the segment (–N– or –N–Mo–N–) that connects two Mn dopants. The mechanisms responsible for the FM/AFM coupling of the Mn–Mn pairs are the superexchange and the p–d exchange mediated by the N atoms, and the d–d coupling between the host Mo atom and the Mn dopant. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposite Design for Energy-Related Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Construction of Electrostatic Self-Assembled 2D/2D CdIn₂S₄/g-C₃N₄ Heterojunctions for Efficient Visible-Light-Responsive Molecular Oxygen Activation

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Nanomaterials 2021, 11(9), 2342; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11092342 - 09 Sep 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1541

Abstract

Molecular oxygen activated by visible light to generate radicals with high oxidation ability exhibits great potential in environmental remediation The efficacy of molecular oxygen activation mainly depends on the separation and migration efficiency of the photoinduced charge carriers. In this work, 2D/2D CdIn₂S₄/g-C₃N₄ heterojunctions with different weight ratios were successfully fabricated by a simple electrostatic self-assembled route. The optimized sample with a weight ratio of 5:2 between CdIn₂S₄ and g-C₃N₄ showed the highest photocatalytic activity for tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) degradation, which also displayed good photostability. The enhancement of the photocatalytic performance could be ascribed to the 2D/2D heterostructure; this unique 2D/2D structure could promote the separation and migration of the photoinduced charge carriers, which was beneficial for molecular oxygen activation, leading to an enhancement in photocatalytic activity. This work may possibly provide a scalable way for molecular oxygen activation in photocatalysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposite Design for Energy-Related Applications)

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Review

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Open AccessReview

MXene-Based Ink Design for Printed Applications

Zahra Aghayar

Massoud Malaki

and

Yizhou Zhang

Nanomaterials 2022, 12(23), 4346; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12234346 - 06 Dec 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 988

Abstract

MXenes are a class of two-dimensional nanomaterials with a rich chemistry, hydrophilic surface and mechano-ceramic nature, and have been employed in a wide variety of applications ranging from medical and sensing devises to electronics, supercapacitors, electromagnetic shielding, and environmental applications, to name a few. To date, the main focus has mostly been paid to studying the chemical and physical properties of MXenes and MXene-based hybrids, while relatively less attention has been paid to the optimal application forms of these materials. It has been frequently observed that MXenes show great potential as inks when dispersed in solution. The present paper aims to comprehensively review the recent knowledge about the properties, applications and future horizon of inks based on 2D MXene sheets. In terms of the layout of the current paper, 2D MXenes have briefly been presented and followed by introducing the formulation of MXene inks, the process of turning MAX to MXene, and ink compositions and preparations. The chemical, tribological and rheological properties have been deeply discussed with an eye to the recent developments of the MXene inks in energy, health and sensing applications. The review ends with a summary of research pitfalls, challenges, and future directions in this area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposite Design for Energy-Related Applications)

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Open AccessReview

Recent Progress in the Design, Characterisation and Application of LaAlO₃- and LaGaO₃-Based Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrolytes

Elena Filonova

and

Dmitry Medvedev

Nanomaterials 2022, 12(12), 1991; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12121991 - 09 Jun 2022

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2195

Abstract

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are efficient electrochemical devices that allow for the direct conversion of fuels (their chemical energy) into electricity. Although conventional SOFCs based on YSZ electrolytes are widely used from laboratory to commercial scales, the development of alternative ion-conducting electrolytes is of great importance for improving SOFC performance at reduced operation temperatures. The review summarizes the basic information on two representative families of oxygen-conducting electrolytes: doped lanthanum aluminates (LaAlO₃) and lanthanum gallates (LaGaO₃). Their preparation features, chemical stability, thermal behaviour and transport properties are thoroughly analyzed in terms of their connection with the target functional parameters of related SOFCs. The data presented here will serve as a starting point for further studies of La-based perovskites, including in the fields of solid state ionics, electrochemistry and applied energy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanocomposite Design for Energy-Related Applications)

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