Abstract
Increasing energy demand and depleting fossil fuel resources require exploration of sustainable energy resources and efficient storage of the generated energy. There have been numerous efforts to develop solar cells and batteries/capacitors for energy conversion and storage, respectively. Integration of energy conversion and storage components into a single device has been recently demonstrated as effective to increase the efficiency and reduce size/weight of the hybrid devices. Photo-rechargeable integrated energy storage devices are promising candidates for portable applications. As of now, efficiency of around 5% was obtained in a complete device with dye-sensitized solar cell and supercapacitor. Carbon nanostructures have already possessed a great place in the modern-day energy research mainly due to the immense possibility in realization of environmentally friendly, cost-effective, flexible devices that can efficiently convert and store energy. Application of various carbonaceous materials in integrated devices for efficient photo-energy conversion and storage are summarized in this chapter.
