Sustainable development of nanomaterials for energy and environmental protection applications

The scientific and technical problems of energy use and environmental conserva-tion are currently facing challenges as a worldwide concern for human society's growth. Most of the energy consumed these days comes from fossil fuels. These fossil fuels are running out of energy, so there is a big quest for alternative energy sources, mainly green energy, which can be environmentally sustainable. Energy production and conservation are key challenges and can be accomplished by fuel cells, supercapacitors, and batteries. Furthermore, industrial and agricultural activities also lead to severe water contamination, aggravating ecological balance and human health. These contaminants must be carefully treated and converted into harmless materials before releasing into water. A practical solution for clean-ing industrial waste is a procedure like the advanced oxidation method assisted by a photocatalyst. More specifically, the production of better-performing materials that can increase supercapacitors' working performance, fuel cells, and photoca-talysis are necessary to resolve energy and environmental concerns. In all these applications, nanomaterials' production is enormous because the nanomaterials used in modern science and technologies are peculiar characteristics. This book chapter deals with various nanomaterials used to solve the energy field (hydrogen evolution reaction and supercapacitors) and environmental-related problems (photocatalysis) are discussed in detail.