Recent Progress on Carbon Dots Preparation and Electrochemical Energy Application

As a typical zero-dimensional carbon material, carbon dots (CDs)with particle size smaller than 10 nm are composed by sp(2)/sp(3) hybridization of carbon atoms. Owing to their unique physicochemical structures, CDs have many features, such as rich edge sites and accessibility for functional modification, which endow themselves wide applications in electrocatalysis and energy storage/conversion. Based on this, it is of great significance to reveal the formation mechanism of CDs and clarify the structure-property relationship,which is helpful in guiding the synthesis of CDs and then obtain excellent catalytic performance. Therefore, based on the introduction of preparation and regulation strategies of CDs, this paper analyzes the activity origin of CDs-based catalytic materials by combining with theoretical investigations and more importantly, reviews the recent progress of CDs applications in electro-chemistry and discusses the opportunities and challenges for the future development of functional CDs materials.