(Invited) Electrochemical Nanowire Devices for Energy Storage

Nanowires have attracted increasing interests due to the one-dimensional nanomaterials can offer a range of unique advantages in many energy related fields. For previous lithium battery application, bulk materials made of nanowires were usually used as the electrodes. Although the electrochemical properties could be improved, the fast capacity fading is still one of the key issues and the intrinsic reasons are not clear until now. To understand intrinsic reason of capacity fading, we designed the single nanowire electrochemical devices for in situ probing the direct relationship between electrical transport, structure, and electrochemical properties of the single nanowire electrode. Our results show that conductivity of the nanowire electrode decreased during the electrochemical reaction, which limits the cycle life of the devices. Based on this conclusion, a series of hierarchical structures nanowires have been obtained, including hierarchical MnMoO₄/CoMoO₄ heterostructured nanowires and hierarchical mesoporous La_0.5Sr_0.5CoO_2.91 nanowires which show enhanced performance in Li-air batteries and supercapacitors.¹ In our present work, a series of novel nanowire architecture have been designed and synthesized, including kinked hierarchical nanowires, hierarchical heterostructured nanowires and hierarchical scrolled nanowires which shows great electrochemical and biological probe performances.^2-4 It is expected that our research may extend effective and helpful methods in directions that will solve the challenge of property degradation in energy storage and open new applications.⁵

References

[1] L. Mai, et al., Nat. Commun., 2011, 2: 381.

[2] L. Mai, et al., Nat. Commun., 2013, 4: 2923.

[3] Q. Qing, et al., Nat. Nanotechnol., 2014, 9, 142.

[4] Y. Zhao, et al., Nat. Commun., 2014, 2014, 5: 4565

[5] L. Mai, et al., Chem. Rev., 2014, 114, 11828.