Synthesis of Metal Oxides for Energy and Environmental Application

Abstract

The tremendous increase in population and rapid development has created serious threats like energy crisis and environmental degradation. The rising price of oil (petrol, diesel etc.) is threatening world's economies and also on the other hand, the pollution caused by burning of these fossil fuels are causing climate change which is a major source of environmental concern. There is an immediate need for the development of environmental friendly energy conversion and energy storage devices. With enhanced understanding and ability to control and manipulate nano-synthesis on a large scale, emphasis is now being laid upon novel applications of such materials. The most investigated of nanosystems are semiconductor noble metals, quantum dots and functional metal oxides. During the past few decades the work on metal oxides has witnessed considerable upsurge in the elds such as solar energy conversion, energy storage, water splitting, catalysis, photocatalysis etc. In this work we have attempted to bring focus of e cient metal oxides to explore newer application domains in the eld of energy and environment. These metal oxides can solve the problem of energy crisis as they can be e ciently exploited in fabrication better performing eco-friendly energy conversion and energy storage devices. This forms the brief introduction to the thesis and is presented in Chapter 1. A brief overview of the experimental techniques used for the synthesis of transition metal oxides is presented in Chapter 2 along with a general outline of the instruments and methods used for the characterization of these nanomaterials. Chapter 3 is dedicated to Mesoporous Single Crystal (msc) TiO2 for lithium ion battery (LIB). It comprises of the introduction of msc TiO2 and battery, theory of LIB, synthesis of msc TiO2, preparation of electrodes for LIB application, Characterization result and discussion on synthesized msc TiO2, electrochemical measurements to analyze the lithium storage Capability of msc TiO2 in LIB including half cell studies of Li/MSC TiO2 as well as full cell studies of LiMn2O4/MSC TiO2. Chapter 4 is about optimizing solar e ciency of three important kinds of solar cell i.e. dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) and solid state solar cells using Zinc Stannate, Zn2SnO4 (ZTO) as an anodic material. Basically, it contains synthesis of Zinc Stannate nanostructures, fabrication of Zn2SnO4 based all three solar cell devices, Zinc Stannate characterization result and discussion as well as J-V characteristic curves of Zn2SnO4 based all three solar cells for Performance evaluation.