Abstract
This review addresses the main contributions of anodic oxide films synthesized and designed to overcome the current limitations of practical applications in energy conversion and storage devices. We present some strategies adopted to improve the efficiency, stability, and overall performance of these sustainable technologies operating via photo, photoelectrochemical, and electrochemical processes. The facile and scalable synthesis with strict control of the properties combined with the low-cost, high surface area, chemical stability, and unidirectional orientation of these nanostructures make the anodized oxides attractive for these applications. Assuming different functionalities, TiO2-NT is the widely explored anodic oxide in dye-sensitized solar cells, PEC water-splitting systems, fuel cells, supercapacitors, and batteries. However, other nanostructured anodic films based on WO3, CuxO, ZnO, NiO, SnO, Fe2O3, ZrO2, Nb2O5, and Ta2O5 are also explored and act as the respective active layers in several devices. The use of AAO as a structural material to guide the synthesis is also reported. Although in the development stage, the proof-of-concept of these devices demonstrates the feasibility of using the anodic oxide as a component and opens up new perspectives for the industrial and commercial utilization of these technologies.
Highlights
This review compiles the recent advances (2015–2020) using anodic oxides as part of energy conversion and storage devices
This review focuses on applying the anodic oxides and their main contributions in improving the efficiency and performance of the devices for energy conversion and storage applications
Another approach applied for improving the stability of Cu2 O nanowires for water splitting was proposed by Shi et al [24], which embedded the anodized electrodes into glucose solution to form a C-coated Cu2 O photocathode after annealing
Summary
This review compiles the recent advances (2015–2020) using anodic oxides as part of energy conversion and storage devices. Considering devices that operate essentially via electrochemical processes, the most promising sustainable systems are the fuel cell (for energy conversion) and the supercapromising sustainable systems are the fuel cell (for energy conversion) and the supercapacitors and rechargeable batteries (for energy storage). Papers essentially describing synthetic routes, a material’s characterization, or the investigation of a material’s properties are not addressed in this review For such topics, we recommended the excellent review papers in the anodic oxide field [2,8,34,35,36,37,38,39,40]. We will describe the uses of anodic oxides in devices for energy conversion that operate via photo and photoelectrochemical processes: the PV and PEC systems. We will present the studies describing devices used for energy conversion and storage produced via electrochemical processes: the fuel cells, supercapacitors, and batteries
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