Carbon for energy storage and conversion

The current research status of carbon material and the future development tendency in the energy storage and conversion fields are reviewed. Carbon demonstrates many excellent physical and chemical properties owing to its unique structures and morphology. It has been widely used in energy storage and conversion devices. Carbon is a key material of catalyst supports，bipolar plates and gas diffusion layers in fuel cells, transparent conductive films and as a core material to form the carbon-silicon or all carbon p-n heterojunctions in solar cells. Carbon is also a significantly important electrode material in lithium ion batteries and supercapacitors. Moreover, Carbon has wide applications in the fields of heat storage, gas storage, nuclear energy, wind energy, and so on. It is suggested that carbon might be developed to be nano-structured and ordered in composites so that its performance in energy storage and conversion can be improved by functionalization and controlled synthesis.