Carbon dots (CDs), an emerging class of carbon materials, hold a promising future in a broad variety of engineering fields owing to their high diversity in structure, composition and properties. Recently, their potential applications have spanned from bio-imaging, fluorescent probing and catalysis, to energy storage fields, in particular as materials in the key components of electrochemical energy storage devices. The state-of-the-art research work has revealed that CD-based or modified electrodes exhibit profound improvement in all key functions, such as coulombic efficiency, cycling life, enlarging capacity, etc., in comparison to traditional electrodes. The improvement in all these properties can be realized by introducing a small quantity of CDs to the traditional electrode systems. A comparative optimization in this regard, however, requires incorporation of more carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene or other carbon-based materials, indicating that CD-incorporated electrode materials would maintain their energy density more efficiently. This review will summarize the progress to date in the design and preparation of CD-incorporated energy storage devices, including supercapacitors, Li/Na/K-ion batteries, Li–S batteries, metal–air batteries and flow batteries, and elaborate on the influence of these unique structures and rich properties of CDs on the electrochemical performance of the resulting electrodes and devices. Consequently, the specific functions and the novel working mechanisms of CD-modified electrodes for energy storage units will be discussed, aiming at providing new insights for guidance for design and manufacturing of the next generation of electrode materials for high-performance energy storage.

中文翻译：

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由碳点构成的新一代储能电极材料

碳点（CD）是一类新兴的碳材料，由于其结构，组成和特性的高度多样性，在各种工程领域中都具有广阔的前景。近来，它们的潜在应用已经从生物成像，荧光探测和催化到能量存储领域，特别是作为电化学能量存储设备关键组件中的材料。最新的研究工作表明，基于CD的电极或修饰的电极在所有关键功能（例如库仑效率，循环寿命，增大容量等）方面都表现出了深远的改善。，与传统电极相比。通过向传统的电极系统中引入少量的CD，可以实现所有这些特性的改善。然而，在这方面的比较优化要求并入更多的碳纳米管（CNT）或石墨烯或其他碳基材料，这表明并入CD的电极材料将更有效地保持其能量密度。这篇综述将总结迄今为止结合CD的储能设备（包括超级电容器，Li / Na / K离子电池，Li–S电池，金属空气电池和液流电池）在设计和制备方面的进展，并详细说明这些独特的结构和CD的丰富特性对所得电极和器件的电化学性能的影响。所以，