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1. Nanomaterials for Energy Storage Systems—A Review

   https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30040883  

   Mohammed, Habeeb; Mia, Md Farouq; Wiggins, Jasmine; Desai, Salil (February 2025, Molecules)

   The ever-increasing global energy demand necessitates the development of efficient, sustainable, and high-performance energy storage systems. Nanotechnology, through the manipulation of materials at the nanoscale, offers significant potential for enhancing the performance of energy storage devices due to unique properties such as increased surface area and improved conductivity. This review paper investigates the crucial role of nanotechnology in advancing energy storage technologies, with a specific focus on capacitors and batteries, including lithium-ion, sodium–sulfur, and redox flow. We explore the diverse applications of nanomaterials in batteries, encompassing electrode materials (e.g., carbon nanotubes, metal oxides), electrolytes, and separators. To address challenges like interfacial side reactions, advanced nanostructured materials are being developed. We also delve into various manufacturing methods for nanomaterials, including top–down (e.g., ball milling), bottom–up (e.g., chemical vapor deposition), and hybrid approaches, highlighting their scalability considerations. While challenges such as cost-effectiveness and environmental concerns persist, the outlook for nanotechnology in energy storage remains promising, with emerging trends including solid-state batteries and the integration of nanomaterials with artificial intelligence for optimized energy storage. 

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2. Molecularly Imprinted Plasmonic Sensors as Nano-Transducers: An Effective Approach for Environmental Monitoring Applications

   https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors11030203  

   Ayivi, Raphael D.; Adesanmi, Bukola O.; McLamore, Eric S.; Wei, Jianjun; Obare, Sherine O. (March 2023, Chemosensors)

   Molecularly imprinted plasmonic nanosensors are robust devices capable of selective target interaction, and in some cases reaction catalysis. Recent advances in control of nanoscale structure have opened the door for development of a wide range of chemosensors for environmental monitoring. The soaring rate of environmental pollution through human activities and its negative impact on the ecosystem demands an urgent interest in developing rapid and efficient techniques that can easily be deployed for in-field assessment and environmental monitoring purposes. Organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) play a significant role for agricultural use; however, they also present environmental threats to human health due to their chemical toxicity. Plasmonic sensors are thus vital analytical detection tools that have been explored for many environmental applications and OPP detection due to their excellent properties such as high sensitivity, selectivity, and rapid recognition capability. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have also significantly been recognized as a highly efficient, low-cost, and sensitive synthetic sensing technique that has been adopted for environmental monitoring of a wide array of environmental contaminants, specifically for very small molecule detection. In this review, the general concept of MIPs and their synthesis, a summary of OPPs and environmental pollution, plasmonic sensing with MIPs, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) MIP sensors, and nanomaterial-based sensors for environmental monitoring applications and OPP detection have been elucidated according to the recent literature. In addition, a conclusion and future perspectives section at the end summarizes the scope of molecularly imprinted plasmonic sensors for environmental applications. 

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3. Recent progress of quantum dots for energy storage applications

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s43979-022-00002-y  

   Xu, Quan; Niu, Yingchun; Li, Jiapeng; Yang, Ziji; Gao, Jiajia; Ding, Lan; Ni, Huiqin; Zhu, Peide; Liu, Yinping; Tang, Yaoyao; et al (December 2022, Carbon Neutrality)

   Abstract The environmental problems of global warming and fossil fuel depletion are increasingly severe, and the demand for energy conversion and storage is increasing. Ecological issues such as global warming and fossil fuel depletion are increasingly stringent, increasing energy conversion and storage needs. The rapid development of clean energy, such as solar energy, wind energy and hydrogen energy, is expected to be the key to solve the energy problem. Several excellent literature works have highlighted quantum dots in supercapacitors, lithium-sulfur batteries, and photocatalytic hydrogen production. Here, we outline the latest achievements of quantum dots and their composites materials in those energy storage applications. Moreover, we rationally analyze the shortcomings of quantum dots in energy storage and conversion, and predict the future development trend, challenges, and opportunities of quantum dots research. 

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4. Life Cycle Impact of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticle Synthesis through Physical, Chemical, and Biological Routes

   https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06800  

   Wu, Fan; Zhou, Zheng; Hicks, Andrea (April 2019, Environmental science and technology)

   The sustainable manufacturing of nanoparticles (NPs) has become critical to reduce life cycle energy use and the associated environmental impact. With the ever-growing production volume, titanium dioxide (TiO2) NPs have been produced through various synthesis routes with differing input materials and reactions, which result in differential reactivity, crystallinity, surface areas, and size distributions. In this study, life cycle assessment is used to analyze and compare the environmental impact of TiO2 NPs produced via seven routes covering physical, chemical, and biological syntheses. The synthesis routes are chosen to represent mainstream NP manufacturing and future trends. Mass-, surface area-, and photocatalytic reactivity-based functional units are selected to evaluate the environmental impact and reflect the corresponding changes. The results show that impact associated with the upstream production of different precursors are dominant for the chemical route. Compared to the chemical route, the physical route requires substantial quantities of supporting gas and high-energy inputs to maintain high temperature; therefore, a higher environmental burden is generated. A high environmental burden is also modeled for the biological route due to the required bacterial culture media. This present study aims to identify the most efficient synthesis route for TiO2 NP production, lower the potential environmental impact, and improve green synthesis and sustainability. 

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5. Renewable energy storage via efficient reversible hydrogenation of piperidine captured CO ₂

   https://doi.org/10.1039/C8GC00954F  

   Lu, Mi; Zhang, Jianghao; Yao, Yao; Sun, Junming; Wang, Yong; Lin, Hongfei (January 2018, Green Chemistry)

   The storage of renewable energy is the major hurdle during the transition of fossil resources to renewables. A possible solution is to convert renewable electricity to chemical energy carriers such as hydrogen for storage. Herein, a highly efficient formate-piperidine-adduct (FPA) based hydrogen storage system was developed. This system has shown rapid reaction kinetics of both hydrogenation of piperidine-captured CO 2 and dehydrogenation of the FPA over a carbon-supported palladium nano-catalyst under mild operating conditions. Moreover, the FPA solution based hydrogen storage system is advantageous owing to the generation of high-purity hydrogen, which is free of carbon monoxide and ammonia. In situ ATR-FTIR characterization was performed in order to provide insight into the reaction mechanisms involved. By integrating this breakthrough hydrogen storage system with renewable hydrogen and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), in-demand cost-effective rechargeable hydrogen batteries could be realized for renewable energy storage. 

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