Black phosphorus-based materials for energy storage and electrocatalytic applications

Since its successful isolation in 2014, two-dimensional black phosphorus (BP) has triggered considerable interest ffrom physicists, chemists and material scientists. Benefitting from the unique structural and physicochemical properties, BP has been explored in various applications including photoelectric, biological and electrochemical fields. Besides, BP also shows great potential as a promising electrode material and electrocatalyst in energy storage and electrocatalytic applications, and tremendous progress has been made in these electrochemical fields in recent years. Here, this review highlights the recent experimental and theoretical progress of BP-based electrodes and electrocatalysts. The latest recent advances of BP-based functional materials in energy storage applications including lithium-, magnesium- and sodium-ion batteries, lithium–sulfur batteries and supercapacitors, are presented in detail. Further, the emerging electrocatalytic applications of BP for hydrogen evolution reaction, oxygen evolution reaction and nitrogen reduction reaction are systematically reviewed with achievements and challenges. Finally, we offer brief personal comments on the existing challenges and prospective outlook on the basis of current research progress.