Energy-related nanomaterials

The triple “generation, conversion and storage of energy” are the fundamental building blocks toward realizing the general aim of an energy supply on demand as unrestricted as possible. Meanwhile, however, it has become clear that this general aim leads to conflicting feedback loops on the ecological environment. Growing awareness of such deteriorating feedbacks has triggered worldwide activities to search for technical approaches in order to at least reduce the negative environmental consequences of energy consumption. At this point, materials science plays a central role. In most cases, rather than looking for completely novel solutions related to the energy triple “generation, conversion and storage” materials science contributes to stepwise improvements of functional efficiencies, which are based on optimizing energy-related materials.