Overview of Nanostructured Carbon-based Catalysts Recent Advances and Perspectives

Recently, nanotechnologies have become the next frontier for material science. The unstoppable rising of nanomaterials induced further advancements in many technological productions reaching new astonishing performances. Among all nanomaterials, carbon-based ones have played the main role due to the unreachable performances of carbon nanotubes and graphene. Neat materials have led the way to new classes of compounds with ad-hoc tailored surfaces through chemical and physical processes targeting catalytic and electrochemical applications. Combination of outstanding properties of nanostructured carbon with surface tailoring represents a groundbreaking event for catalysis. This chapter overviews the most relevant achievements in the field of catalysis performed using carbon nanosized or nanostructured materials for plenty of applications demonstrating the trustworthiness of nanostructured carbon.