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Hydrogenation of nanostructured semiconductors for energy conversion and storage

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  • Materials Science
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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Nanostructured semiconductors have been researched intensively for energy conversion and storage applications in recent decades. Despite of tremendous findings and achievements, the performance of the devices resulted from the nanomaterials in terms of energy conversion efficiency and storage capacity needs further improvement to become economically viable for subsequent commercialization. Hydrogenation is a simple, efficient, and cost-effective way for tailoring the electronic and morphological properties of the nanostructured materials. This work reviews a series of hydrogenated nanostructured materials was produced by the hydrogenation of a wide range of nanomaterials. These materials with improved inherent conductivity and changed characteristic lattice structure possess much enhanced performance for energy conversion application, e.g., photoelectrocatalytic production of hydrogen, and energy storage applications, e.g., lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors. The hydrogenation mechanisms as well as resultant properties responsible for the efficiency improvement are explored in details. This work provides guidance for researchers to use the hydrogenation technology to design functional materials.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the ARC Discovery Grants from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21328301).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Clean Environment and Energy, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Gold Coast, QLD, 4222, Australia

    Jingxia Qiu, Jacob Dawood & Shanqing Zhang

  2. Griffith School of Environment, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, 4222, Australia

    Jingxia Qiu, Jacob Dawood & Shanqing Zhang

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  1. Jingxia Qiu
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  2. Jacob Dawood
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  3. Shanqing Zhang
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Correspondence to Shanqing Zhang.

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SPECIAL ISSUE: Advanced Materials for Clean Energy

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Qiu, J., Dawood, J. & Zhang, S. Hydrogenation of nanostructured semiconductors for energy conversion and storage. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 2144–2161 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0186-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0186-9

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