Storage of hydrogen and lithium in inorganic nanotubes and nanowires

Abstract

The search for cleaner and more efficient energy storage and conversion technologies has become an urgent task due to increasing environmental issues and limited energy resources. The aim of energy storage and conversion is to obtain energy with environmental benefit, high efficiency, and low cost (namely, maximum atomic and recycling economy). Progress has been made in the fields of hydrogen storage and rechargeable batteries. The emerging nanotechnology offers great opportunities to improve the performance of existing energy storage systems. Applying nanoscale materials to energy storage offers a higher capacity compared to the bulk counterparts due to the unique properties of nanomaterials such as high surface areas, large surface-to-volume atom ratio, and size-confinement effect. In particular, one- dimensional (1D) inorganic nanostructures like tubes and wires exhibit superior electrochemical characteristics because of the combined advantages of small size and 1D morphology. Hydrogen and lithium can be stored in different 1D nanostructures in various ways, including physical and/or chemical sorption, intercalation, and electrochemical reactions. This review highlights some of the latest progress with the studies of hydrogen and lithium storage in inorganic nanotubes and nanowires such as MoS2, WS2, TiS2, BN, TiO2, MnO2, V2O5, Fe2O3, Co3O4, NiO, and SnO2.