Page 589 - Polymer-based Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications

542 Polymer-based Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications

question of energy and environment relation and impact. The issues can be summa-
rized in four questions: (i) How to reduce the effect of pollution of the media in which
we live? (ii) How to optimize the use of natural and sustainable energy source without
causing damage to life on Earth? (iii) How to store the excess of produced energy to
avoid wastes? (iv) How to make possible energy savings for reducing the energy
consumption?
The work carried out by researchers for achieving these objectives aims at inves-
tigating materials and devices that can bring about solutions to the previously raised
questions. The investigations cover several fields for (i) finding of materials and
devices for each issue, (ii) finding of synthesis techniques to realize materials,
(iii) finding of characterization techniques of materials and devices to determine their
properties, and (iv) understanding physical and chemical processes occurring in mate-
rials and devices in order to use that knowledge to improve their quality and perfor-
mance. Scientists and researchers who work in the area of energy and environment are
advised to take effort from the following aspects:

(i) Seemingly, the results obtained from diverse aspects of materials and devices destined
for environment protection suggest that polymer composites with different nano-
structures and/or nanostructured organic or inorganic components used in devices. These
materials deserve the name of polymer-based nanostructured composites.
(ii) Despite very significant and promising progress realized today in the degradation of pol-
lutants by photocatalysis, in energy harvest by solar cells, in energy storage by batteries,
and in energy savings by light-emitting diodes, many challenges still need to be addressed
in the future to expect the world to move to a new area of green and friendly energy usage.
(iii) New organic and inorganic materials of better quality and performance are desirable for
making new structures with better conductivity and more controllable bandgap, to provide
highly stablecomposites. Furthermore,theyshould have equivalentorbettercharacteristics
than those materials that are toxic, rare, or expensive and are currently utilized for now.
(iv) New synthesis techniques are needed to allow the control of surface morphology of mate-
rials; the control of the uniformity of the nanoparticle distribution in polymer films, thus
avoiding their aggregation; and the lower energy consumption synthesis processes.
(v) For devices, new or improved designs would be necessary to be adapted to mass produc-
tion to provide lightweight and large surface devices and at low production cost.
(vi) It is important to gain a more detailed fundamental understanding of the physical and
chemical processes that govern the essential operations in devices. This knowledge
would be helpful to find solutions to solve problems concerning materials and devices
and make advances in materials science.

19.5 Conclusion

Because of their interesting functionalities and properties, polymer-based composites
are intensively investigated for material and device development for environmental
applications. Globally, inorganic materials are used as the main active components
in batteries and photocatalysts, while organic materials (including polymers) play a
major role in OPVs and OLEDs. It has been found in many applications that hybrid
polymer-based composites can improve significantly the device performance.