What is nanostructured materials for next-generation energy storage and conversion?

Nanostructured Materials for Next-Generation Energy Storage and Conversion: Photovoltaic and Solar Energy, is volume 4 of a 4-volume series on sustainable energy. Photovoltaic and Solar Energy while being a comprehensive reference work, is written with minimal jargon related to various aspects of solar energy and energy policies.

What are photothermal conversions of solar energy?

Then, the state-of-the-art progress for photothermal conversions of solar energy is introduced in detail, mainly including photothermal water evaporation and desalination, photothermal catalysis, photothermal electric power generation, photothermal bacterial killing, photothermal sensors, and photothermal deicing.

Can plasmonic metal nanostructures be used for solar energy conversion?

Due to their fantastic optical properties, plasmonic metal nanostructures show excellent capabilities for sunlight harvesting and solar energy conversion. It is well known that the solar spectrum irradiates a very broad range from 200 nm to 2.5 μm at sea level.

Why are nanometal materials important?

Nanometal materials play very important roles in solar-to-chemical energy conversion due to their unique catalytic and optical characteristics. They have found wide applications from semiconductor photocatalysis to rapidly growing surface plasmon-mediated heterogeneous catalysis.

What are the advantages of photothermal conversion of solar energy?

Among all the solar energy conversion technologies, photothermal conversion of solar energy exhibits unique advantages when applied for water purification, desalination, high-temperature heterogeneous catalysis, anti-bacterial treatments, and deicing.

Are metallic plasmonic nanoparticles a promising candidate for solar energy conversion?

Nanoparticles and nanostructures have a large cross section of absorption which allows the interaction with the light on a large scale, thus, metallic plasmonic nanoparticles with a strongly LSPR effect are promising candidates for solar energy conversion by the photothermal process.