Carbon based Nanostructured Materials

Carbon is a building block of organic chemistry, and biological tissues as well. These are the realm of chemistry and life sciences. Diamond has long been the prototype hard carbon-based material. In recent years mankind has learned to obtain new allotropes of carbon for new engineered materials, such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, graphene and a wide variety of derivatives, with a full fledge of new perspectives for applications. Our group is exploring them under several aspects, notably as candidate materials for batteries and for hydrogen storage. These two latter topics are crucial for future greener energy policies.