This article provides an overview of solution-based methods for the controllable synthesis of metal oxides and their applications for electrochemical energy storage. Typical solution synthesis strategies are summarized and the detailed chemical reactions are elaborated for several common nanostructured transition metal oxides and their composites. The merits and demerits of these synthesis meth...

We used anionic sulfate surfactants to assist the stabilization of graphene in aqueous solutions and facilitate the self-assembly of in situ grown nanocrystalline TiO2, rutile and anatase, with graphene. These nanostructured TiO2-graphene hybrid materials were used for investigation of Li-ion insertion properties. The hybrid materials showed significantly enhanced Li-ion insertion/extraction in...

Nonlocal spin transport in nanostructured devices with ferromagnetic injector (F1) and detector (F2) electrodes connected to a normal conductor (N) is studied. We reveal how the spin transport depends on interface resistance, electrode resistance, spin polarization and spin diffusion length, and obtain the conditions for efficient spin injection, spin accumulation and spin current in the device...

Silicon nanowire interconnects are dielectrophoretically assembled, reconfigured, and disassembled between gold electrodes in benzyl alcohol. Assembly of up to 55 μm long nanowires is demonstrated. Conductance enhancement is observed in the presence of single nanowires trapped between submerged electrodes. Phase inversion of electrode potentials allows the reversible reconfiguration of nanowire...

Highly n-doped silicon nanowires (SiNWs) with several lengths have been deposited via chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrate. These nanostructured silicon substrates have been used as electrodes to build symmetrical micro-ultracapacitors. These devices show a quasi-ideal capacitive behavior in organic electrolyte (1 M NEt4BF4 in propylene carbonate). Their capacitance increases with the...

The development of nanostructured nickel–zinc microbatteries utilizing the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is presented in this paper. The TMV is a high aspect ratio cylindrical plant virus which has been used to increase the active electrode area in MEMS-fabricated batteries. Genetically modifying the virus to display multiple metal binding sites allows for electroless nickel deposition and self-as...

Sodium (Na)-ion batteries (NIBs) have attracted significant interest as an alternative chemistry to lithium (Li)-ion batteries for large-scale stationary energy storage systems. Discovering high-performance anode materials is a great challenge for the commercial success of NIB technology. Transition metal oxides with tailored nanoarchitectures have been considered as promising anodes for NIBs d...

Nanostructured (100-x)% Pd -x % Ni (x = 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20) and (90 – y)%Pd-10%Ni-y%C (y = 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 10) composite films are obtained on glassy carbon electrodes and characterized by XRD, TEM, cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometric techniques for use as electrocatalysts towards methanol, ethanol, ethylene glycol and glycerol oxidations in 1 M KOH at 25°C. Results show that addition ...

Femtosecond Laser Surface Processing (FLSP) is a versatile technique for the fabrication of a wide variety of micro/nanostructured surfaces with tailored physical and chemical properties. Through control over processing conditions such as laser fluence, incident pulse count, polarization, and incident angle, the size and density of both micrometer and nanometer-scale surface features can be tai...

A fully automated portable analyzer for toxic metal ion detection based on a combination of a nanostructured electrochemical sensor and a sequential flow injection system has been developed in this work. The sensor was fabricated from a carbon paste electrode modified with acetamide phosphonic acid self-assembled monolayer on mesoporous silica (Ac-Phos SAMMS) which was embedded in a very small ...