Nanoporous Carbons for Soft and Flexible Energy Devices (eBook)

This book provides an interesting snapshot of new research within the fields of flexible and soft devices which use porous carbon-based materials. The increase in demand for soft and flexible electronics, electrochemical energy storage/conversion systems, piezoresistive pressure sensors has promoted the development of new strategies for the synthesis and integration of nanoporous carbon (NPC) into flexible and soft polymers and inorganic textures. The structural properties of such NPC materials combined with their mechanical, conductive and catalytic properties, show promising results for the technology they are designed for, which can be useful solutions in many other disciplines. An in-depth discussion of the use of NPC materials in different energy devices is provided in every chapter, while at the same time the knowledge of the reader on the various applications where these materials can be used will be broadened. This book sheds new light on nanoporous carbon-based materials and will be of great interest to graduate students and professionals working in this field.


Francesca Borghi is a Post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Physics at the University of Milano, and at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Nanostructured Materials and Interfaces. She graduated in Physics in 2011 from the University of Milano, and after that obtained her PhD in Physics in 2015 from the same university. Her main work deals with the characterization of the interfacial chemico-physical properties of nanostructured thin films, produced by low-energy clusters beam deposition in the gas phase. In particular, she uses atomic force microscopy for the characterization of the first stage of growth of thin films in the sub-monolayer regime (metallic oxides, carbon, gold) and for the study of the structural and functional properties of granular thin films (surface charge density, elastic and electrical properties). In this frame, she won a national fellowship (Centro Universitario Cattolico) supporting the development of micro- and nano-structured networks for the characterization of the in-vitro behavior of spatially confined neuronal cells. Her research activity focuses also on the study of the structural, mechanical and electrical properties of ionic liquids confined in porous matrices. She also developed a new approach for the characterization of the surface area and porosity of thin films by adsorption gas measurements.