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P. 267

Polymer nanocomposite materials 9

in energy storage: Properties
and applications

S.K.S. Hossain, M.E. Hoque
King Faisal University, Al-Hofuf, Saudi Arabia

9.1 Introduction

In the last 20 years with the tremendous increase in the global population, the demand
for energy has increased exponentially to provide basic goods and services to whom
and where it is required. Energy supply, in its various forms, has been regarded as one
of the most important requirements for a sustainable economic, cultural, and social
development [1]. A strong relationship between energy usage and development
parameters has been proved to exist [2,3]. Therefore, it is natural that the energy
demand will be increase at a large rate in the coming years to fuel the technological
and social advancement. It will require enormous amount of investment in the infra-
structure development to be able to meet the energy demand at this volume to the far-
flung corners of the planet. Currently, around 80% of the energy production originates
from the combustion of coal, natural gas, and oil, collectively known as fossil fuel, and
although their share is on decline, in most of the scenarios, it is expected to remain
around 75% by 2030 [4–6]. Renewable sources of energy have shown immense prom-
ise as viable alternate to the fossil fuels to meet the increased demand of clean energy
due to the recent tight environment regulations and fast depleting natural fossil fuel
reserves [7,8]. Renewable sources of energy include solar energy, wind energy,
biofuels, and hydropower. They suffer from the drawback that they are unreliable
due to their intermittent nature [9]. Electric energy storage system (ESS) is one of
the most popular and reliable ways to store electric energy from the intermittent
renewable sources to ensure timely and reliable delivery of adequate amount of elec-
tric power for portable electronic devices, electric-powered vehicles, and other appli-
cations. Large ESS can supply energy in power systems for hours in remote areas as
well. Another advantage of ESS is that they can supply large amount of power in very
brief period of time in places such as defense installations. Electrochemical energy
storage systems (EESSs) include supercapacitors, different types of batteries, and fuel
cells [10]. Other energy storage systems such as pumped hydro storage, thermal
energy storage, compressed air energy storage, and flywheel energy storage constitute
nonelectrochemical storage systems [7,11,12]. The electrochemical storage systems
generally consist of the electrodes, electrolyte, and current collector. These compo-
nents are made up of carbon-based nanomaterials, conducting polymers, metal oxides,

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