Sol-gel niobium pentoxide: A promising material for electrochromic coatings, batteries, nanocrystalline solar cells and catalysis

In the last decade the sol-gel process became a promising method to synthes ize materials in form of coatings, nanoscale powders and porous systems. Th e technique has been mainly used at laboratory scale and has brought intere sting contributions for the development of new nanomaterials. Nevertheless, several products or devices made with such a process already exist and new ones should be available in the market in the near future. This paper brie fly reviews the state of the art in the development of electrochromic (EC) coatings and devices, batteries, nanocrystalline solar cells and in the fie ld of catalysis achieved during the last decade using sol-gel derived pure and doped niobium pentoxide. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights rese rved.