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The ever-growing global demand of energy together with the depletion of fossil fuels makes it critical to develop sustainable and renewable energy resources. Developing relevant energy storage systems (e.g. batteries and supercapacitors) is essential to utilizing sustainable and renewable energy resources. A supercapacitor is highly beneficial in storing renewable energy. For example, when light is not shining or wind is not blowing, the energy needs to be stored in devices like batteries and supercapacitors. Among the efforts of building efficient supercapacitors, electrode materials with rational nanostructured designs have offered major improvements in performance over the past several years. This review article is intended to examine recent progress in nanostructuring supercapacitor electrode materials, highlighting the fundamental understanding of the relationship between structural properties and electrochemical performances, as well as an outlook on the next generation of nanostructured supercapacitor electrodes design. REVIEW This journal isSupercapacitors have drawn considerable attention in recent years due to their high specific power, long cycle life, and ability to bridge the power/energy gap between conventional capacitors and batteries/fuel cells. Nanostructured electrode materials have demonstrated superior electrochemical properties in producing high-performance supercapacitors. In this review article, we describe the recent progress and advances in designing nanostructured supercapacitor electrode materials based on various dimensions ranging from zero to three. We highlight the effect of nanostructures on the properties of supercapacitors including specific capacitance, rate capability and cycle stability, which may serve as a guideline for the next generation of supercapacitor electrode design.

The present study demonstrates that the superhydrophobic behavior of the lotus leaf structure can be mimicked by creating a honeycomb-like polyelectrolyte multilayer surface overcoated with silica nanoparticles. Superhydrophobicity was achieved by coating this highly textured multilayer surface with a semifluorinated silane. The surface maintains its superhydrophobic character even after extended immersion in water. The key structural elements needed to create stable, superhydrophobic coatings from polyelectrolyte multilayers are discussed.