Introduction: Hierarchical Nanostructures for Energy Devices - Hierarchical Nanostructures for Energy Devices - page 5

and materials scientists in the design of energy-storing nanoarchitectures
that depart from the hegemony of periodicity and order with the promise
and demonstration of an even higher performance. 3
This topic will focus on recent developments in hierarchical nano-
structuring, especially for highly ecient energy device applications. Surface
is a primary concern in most energy devices. Maximizing eciency in energy
devices can be achieved by either new material development or functional
structuring. Hierarchical functional nanostructuring has rapidly gained
interest to achieve increases in surface areas and favourable electrical
properties. The energy devices covered in this topic are: (1) energy generation
devices (solar cells [DSSC, OPV], fuel cells, piezoelectric, thermoelectric,
water splitting and so on), (2) energy storage devices (secondary battery,
super capacitor, hydrogen storage), and (3) energy ecient electronics
(display, sensors, etc). The hierarchical nanostructuring includes highly
porous metal-organic frameworks, nanoparticle assembly with defined pore
size, and multiple generation highly branched nanowire trees. This topic is
composed of four major parts as follows:

d n 3 r 4 n g | 1

Part 1 (Chapters 1-3): Fundamentals—a general introduction to
hierarchical nanostructures, characteristics, synthesis methods, and
brief applications.
Part 2 (Chapters 4-8): Hierarchical nanostructures for high eciency
energy harvesting devices. Among the energy devices, this chapter will
focus on high eciency energy generation devices such as PV, fuel cells,
thermoelectric devices and piezoelectric devices.
Part 3 (Chapters 9): Hierarchical nanostructures for high eciency energy
storage devices. Among the energy devices, this chapter will focus on high
eciency energy storage devices such as supercapacitors and secondary
batteries. Mostly, anode and cathode structures will be discussed.
Part 4 (Chapter 10-13): Hierarchical nanostructures for high e ciency
energy consumption devices. Among the energy devices, this chapter
will focus on high eciency energy consumption devices such as field
emission devices, sensors and other applications.

.

These topics are currently among the major issues in society. Energy
related issues have increased since the recent energy crisis. However, the
widespread use of next generation green energy devices is still limited by
eciency and cost. Most of the energy related topics focus only on the
development of new materials. This topic will cover the fundamentals to
state-of-the-art functional hierarchical nanostructuring aspects.

References
1. Q. Zhang and G. Cao, Nano Today, 2011, 6, 91-109.
2. A. I. Hochbau and P. Yang, Chem. Rev., 2010, 110, 527-546.