ABSTRACT

During the next decades, the world’s energy system may radically change with higher energy consumption by cleaner and more efcient methods. Fundamental and applied research about materials and processes, involved in each stage of the energy-generating chain (storage, distribution, and use), will be pivotal in facing this global challenge in a cleaner, safer, more efcient, and economical way. As continuously being pursued, integration in size and maximization in performance will dominate the development trend of the next generation of power sources, which can be motivated and provoked by the emerging of new-energy materials and technologies. Graphene, a new two-dimensional member of the carbon family, possesses extraordinary properties, including the highest electron conductivity and mechanical strength as well as high hydrogen storage, etc., among all current materials and it is highly expected to be a promising potential energy material to improve the performances of various power sources. Since its successful availability by mechanical exfoliation in the lab in 2004, great progress has been made in the energy eld with graphene as an active material. In this chapter, the state-of-theart developments in graphene’s applications for clean energy systems including lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells especially within 1-2 years are summarized and reviewed. Furthermore, the corresponding prospects in the future are also outlined.