Emerging opportunities for black phosphorus in energy applications

Abstract

As a rising star in the family of two-dimensional (2D) materials, black phosphorus (BP) has recently attracted tremendous attention all over the world and demonstrated great potential in energy applications owing to its direct and narrow bandgap, high carrier mobility and theoretical capacity, as well as anisotropic structure. However, some critical issues remain to be studied before scalable production of BP for applications, such as preparation methods and performance. To fully explore its penitential applications, investigations based on BP are maximally covering from its intrinsic properties to energy conversion and storage. In this review, the significant advances recently made for the mechanism and application of BP in solar cells, Li–/Ka-/Mg-/Na-ion and Li–S batteries, supercapacitors, nanogenerators, solar water splitting and oxygen evolution reaction/hydrogen evolution reaction are summarized and discussed. Benefiting from the solid research in this field, the possible improvements and constructive suggestions regarding BP for enhancing its energy applications are provided.