Abstract
A critical view on the outcome of research in nanomaterials for electrochemical energy storage devices (batteries and supercapacitors) is provided through selected examples. The nano- approach traces back to the early battery research and its benefits realized even before the nano- term was coined. It has enabled important progresses which have translated, for instance, in the possibility of using LiFePO4 as electrode material. On the other hand, the nano- approach has also been oversold at all levels and hence some examples are also shown on the detrimental side effects of the use of nano-materials which should be taken into account if steady progress is to be made that finally results in practical benefits in energy storage devices.
Highlights
Richard Feynman is considered the father of the nano-revolution, and his 1959 visionary statement « There’s plenty of room at the bottom » will remain forever
In 2011 the EU gave a definition for nanomaterials as “A natural, incidental or manufactured material containing particles, in an unbound state or as an aggregate or as an agglomerate and where, for 50% or more of the particles in the number size distribution, one or more external dimensions is in the size range 1 nm–100 nm.[1]
One could naively think that the application of nanomaterials in the energy storage field is unravelling novel cross cutting science which is going to revolutionize the figures of merit for battery and supercapacitor performance in the second millennium
Summary
Richard Feynman is considered the father of the nano-revolution, and his 1959 visionary statement « There’s plenty of room at the bottom » will remain forever. Size does matter: on one side progressive nanosizing brings about decreased ionic diffusion paths and better strain accommodation, on the other, there are negative sides of the story as the enhanced surface area results in lower packing density while enabling catalysis, promoting undesired side reactions Within this overall context, the aim of this paper is to give a realistic overview of the benefits of nanomaterials in the field of electrochemical energy storage while at the same time pointing out some the drawbacks through some selected examples as small does not systematically rhyme with better
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