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.
