Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage

The global energy crisis has been considered as one of biggest challenges threatening the sustainable development of our humanity today due to the imminent shortage of traditional fossil fuels and current fear of global warming, which drives scientists and engineers to develop highly efficient renewable energy conversion and storage systems. This has inspired exciting recent advances in a number of promising technologies including rechargeable batteries, solar cells and water splitting. It is important to make greater effort in the design and engineering of novel materials for renewable energy conversion and storage. To design more efficient and sustainable renewable energy conversion and storage devices, it is critically important for us not only to understand the principle energy conversion and storage mechanisms of various devices, but also to carefully uncover the structure–performance relationship for novel energy-related materials. Based on the new understanding, we should be able to apply rational methodologies for fine control of the structural characteristics of energy-related materials, and manufacturing process of devices for improving the efficiency and stability of renewable energy conversion and storage systems. This special issue contains 13 Reviews, 11 Progress Reports and 2 Research News, which provide a comprehensive overview on the most updated research developments in renewable energy conversion and storage areas, including the work conducted by a good cohort of top researchers from a large number of institutions including Boston College, Technische University Dresden, Lulea University of Technology, Monash University, University of Adelaide, University of Wollongong, Nanyang Technological University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, City University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Institute of Physics-CAS, Institute of Chemistry-CAS, Chuangchun Institute of Applied Chemistry-CAS, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology-CAS, the National Center for Nanoscience & Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Nanjing University, Beihang University, Shandong University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. These articles cover a broad range of innovative synthesis of advanced nanomaterials and their applications in renewable energy conversion and storage systems such as lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, solar cells, water splitting, photocatalysis and electrocatalysis. The breakthrough of synthetic methodologies and structural design for novel nanomaterial has provided tremendous opportunities to tune their functionalities in energy conversion and storage systems. It is important not only to develop standard and reliable methods for evaluating device efficiency, but also to establish theoretical models to guide rational design of innovative materials and new generation devices. We are optimistic that sustained and dedicated research effort in such a promising area will provide transformative approaches to produce advanced energy materials and highly sustainable renewable energy conversion and storage devices, and to address the grand energy crisis challenge we are now facing. We are honored to serve as the guest editors of this special issue, and wish to thank all the authors and referees for their excellent contribution and unyielding supports. Meanwhile, our appreciation goes to the Advanced Energy Materials editorial team for their enthusiastic dedication and professional editing. Contributions from our colleagues at Institute of Process Engineering-CAS and other cooperated institutes and universities are also sincerely appreciated. Rose Amal is a Scientia Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney, and an ARC Laureate Fellow. She was the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials (2010–2013). Her current research focuses on designing nanomaterials for solar and chemical energy conversion applications (including photocatalysis for water and air purification, water splitting, low temperature catalytic reactions) and engineering systems for solar induced processes, using the sun's energy as a clean fuel source. She is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE), a Fellow of Australian Academy of Science (FAA), Fellow of IChemE, and Honorary Fellow of Engineers Australia. Huijun Zhao is a Professor and the Direct of the Centre for Clean Environment and Energy at Griffith University, Australia. He is also the Director of the Centre for Environmental and Energy Nanomaterials. He has expertise in energy and environmental materials, water source control and management system, field-based sensing technologies and aquatic environmental quality assessment. One of his current pursuits is to explore new means to unlock the catalytic powers of nonprecious materials as high performance catalysts for important catalysis reactions. Dan Wang graduated from Jilin University in 1994. He entered a master's degree program at his alma mater in the same year. He obtained his Ph.D. from Yamanashi University in Japan in 2001. He conducted his post-doctoral research at Kochi University, Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth and Kyoto University, successively. He served as professor of the Institute of Process Engineering, CAS in February 2004, and joint professor of Griffith University in August 2014. In recent years, he mainly focused on the design and controllable synthesis of functional inorganic materials with hollow or porous structures, and their applications in solar cells, Li-ion batteries, photocatalyst, drug release, biosensor and gas sensors, etc. Lianzhou Wang is currently a Professor and Australian Research Council Future Fellow in School of Chemical Engineering and Director of Nanomaterials Centre, the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. He received his Ph.D. degree from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Before joining UQ in 2004, he has worked at two national institutes (NIMS and AIST) of Japan for five years. Wang's research interests focus on the design and development of semiconductor nanomaterials for renewable energy conversion and storage applications including photocatalysis and new types of rechargeable batteries.