Tuning Nanomaterial Properties for Effective Utilization of Solar Energy

Energy is very important in our life. Materials are essential to the realization of energy generation, conversion and storage. My thesis research is directed at the development of new nanostructured materials for effectively harvesting solar energy. It involves primarily chemistry-based bottom-up approaches, which are particularly attractive for the nanostructure synthesis due to their scalability, low cost and controllability. In particular, the low temperature hydro(solvo)thermal technique coupled with morphology conserved transformation routes was adopted for preparing many of the nanomaterials in my work since it is a facile, low cost, and environmentally benign technique amenable to large-scale production.;The thesis is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 surveys the current literature and outlines motivation and scope of the work. Chapter 2 introduces experimanet techniques. Major findings of the study are discussed in Chapters 3 through 8, with conclusions and outlooks summarized in Chapter 9. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).