Energy has always been the cornerstone of the country's sustainable economic and social development. However, the huge demand for energy supplies that are as unrestricted as possible has led to conflicting feedback loops in the ecological environment. The world is calling for reducing the negative impact of energy consumption on the environment, including energy-saving, power generation, harvesting, conversion, and storage.
Nanomaterials and nanostructures provide unique mechanical, electrical, and optical properties and play an important role in the latest developments in energy-related applications. For example, nanoparticles can be used in a variety of applications for energy storage and adsorption materials, including gas capture and storage, photovoltaics, batteries, fuel cells, and catalysts. New applications are constantly being developed, and Alfa Chemistry provides customers with materials to promote the development of these applications.
Figure.1 Nanomaterials for energy storage applications. (Pomerantseva E, et al. 2019)
Nanomaterials for Energy Storage
Compared with traditional battery and supercapacitor materials, nanomaterials provide greatly improved ion transport and electronic conductivity, which can also occupy all available intercalation sites in the particle volume, thereby achieving high specific capacity and fast ion diffusion. These characteristics enable electrodes based on nanomaterials to withstand high currents, providing a promising solution for high-energy and high-power energy storage.
There are many aspects to the success of nanomaterials in energy storage applications. The development of new high-performance materials, such as redox-active transition metal carbides (MXenes), whose electrical conductivity exceeds that of carbon and other traditional electrode materials by at least an order of magnitude, opens the door to the design of current collectors. The combination of nanomaterials in hybrid structures, such as carbon-silicon and carbon-sulfur, and the development of multifunctional nanostructure methods, overcome the challenges associated with large volume changes typical of alloying and transforming materials.
Figure.2 Overview of 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D nanomaterials. (Pomerantseva E, et al. 2019)
Today, Alfa Chemistry possesses a large library of nanoparticles and nanostructured materials with a variety of compositions, electrochemical properties, and morphologies ranging from 0D nanoparticles and quantum dots to 1D nanowires, nanotubes, and nanobelts, to 2D nanoflakes and nanosheets), and to 3D porous networks.
What We Offer You?
Our nanomaterials for energy storage include but are not limited to the following:
Carbon Nanomaterials
The nanostructured allotrope forms of carbon have been intensively studied because of their unique hybrid properties and sensitivity to disturbances during synthesis, allowing fine control of material properties. In the past 10 years, Alfa Chemistry has extensively studied the use of nano-structured allotrope forms of carbon and derivatives for energy generation and storage, and can provide you with high-quality products with multiple specifications, such as fullerenes, carbon nanotube and graphene.
Metal Organic Frame
Metal oxides are used in energy storage applications, such as fuel cells and batteries. MOF can absorb gas and other materials. The small particle size and higher specific surface area allow for milder processing conditions, such as lower sintering temperatures, which helps reduce energy requirements and related costs in downstream processing.
- Coordination compounds composed of metal ions or clusters connected by rigid organic linking molecules to form a 2D or 3D porous structure
- Surface area usually exceeds 2000 m2/g
- Void space can be used to absorb/store gases such as H2, CO2, SO2 and N2
- For gas capture/storage, gas separation, adsorbent, catalysis, water purification
Cerium Oxide Nano-dispersion
- Particle size<10 nm (via TEM)
- Standard 10 wt% CeO2 can be used in water
- Used in fuel cells, fuel additives, water splitting, catalysis
Nickel Nanodispersion
- Non-oxidizing material
- High crystallinity
- A cost-effective alternative to precious metals
- Standard 25 wt% Ni is soluble in water or ethanol
- Electrode materials, magnetic fluids, and catalysts for fuel cells/batteries, automotive catalytic converters
Reference
- Pomerantseva E, et al. (2019). “Energy Storage: The Future Enabled by Nanomaterials.” Science. 366(6468): 8285.
