Sol-Gel Materials for Energy Storage

Nanostructured materials have attracted great interest for many different applications, due to their unusual or enhanced properties compared with bulk materials [9-12]. An example of enhanced property of nanomaterials producing ad-value is the ionic conductivity. Therefore, the investigation of the nanostructured solid conductors, also known as nanoionics, has recently become one of the hottest fields of research. These nanomaterials can be used for advanced energy conversion and storage applications, such as SOFCs. Various synthetic routes, such as thermal evaporation [13], wet chemical processes including coprecipitation [14], the modified sol-gel method [15], the hydrothermal process [11,16], mixing freeze-dried precursors [17], or the combustion [18], have already been developed to produce solid electrolytes composed from nanosized crystallites. 

---