A review on the synthesis of transition metal nitride nanostructures and their energy related applications

Transition metal nitrides (TMN) have recently grabbed immensely appealing as ideal active materials in energy storage and catalysis fields on account of their remarkable electrical conductivity, excellent chemical stability, wide band gap and tunable morphology. Both pure TMN and TMN-based materials have been extensively studied concerned with their preparation approaches, nanostructures, and favored performance in various applications. However, the processes towards synthesis of TMN are numerous and complex. Choosing appropriate method to obtain target TMN with desired structure is crucial, which further affects its practical application performance. Herein, this review offers a timely and comprehensive summary of the synthetic ways to TMN and their application in energy related domains. The synthesis section is categorized into in-situ and ex-situ based on where the N element in TMN origins from. Then, overviews on the energy related applications including energy storage, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis are discussed. In the end, the problems to be solved and the development trend of the synthesis and application of transition metal nitrides are prospected.