Electrospinning-derived functional carbon-based materials for energy conversion and storage

The over-exploitation of fossil fuel energy has brought about serious environmental problems. It would be of great significance to construct efficient energy conversion and storage system to maximize utilize renewable energy, which contributes to reducing environmental hazards. For the past few years, in terms of electrocatalysis and energy storage, carbon fiber materials show great advantages due to its outstanding electrical conductivity, good flexibility and mechanical property. As a simple and low-cost technique, electrospinning can be employed to prepare various nanofibers. It is noted that the functional fiber materials with different special structure and composition can be obtained for energy conversion and storage by combining electrospinning with other post-processing. In this paper, the structural design, controllable synthesis and multifunctional applications of electrospinning-derived functional carbon-based materials (EFCMs) is reviewed. Firstly, we briefly introduce the history, basic principle and typical equipment of electrospinning. Then we discuss the strategies for preparing EFCMs with different structures and composition in detail. In addition, we show recently the application of advanced EFCMs in energy conversion and storage, such as nitrogen species reduction reaction, CO2 reduction reaction, oxygen reduction reaction, water-splitting, supercapacitors and ion batteries. In the end, we propose some perspectives on the future development direction of EFCMs.