Electrochemistry of Molecular Systems for New Nanostructured Materials and Bioelectronic Devices

Nanomaterials have a tremendously increasing importance in our daily lives but their world is extremely wide. The main aim of this work is to implement the knowledge about these materials, focusing in particular on some of the nano allotropic forms of Carbon. This precise choice is consequence of their extreme versatility and promising properties for electronic, energetic and biological applications, which can be further improved with doping or functionalization. In the first part of my work I introduced nanotechnology and nanomaterials, highlighting their importance, recent developments and applications, trying to focus on the importance of electrochemistry in the study of such a field. Electrochemistry, in fact, through the investigation of fundamental electronic processes can exploit electrical and catalytic processes of nanomaterials and become an interface between nano and macroscopic world. The second chapter of this thesis is dedicated to the investigation of a new synthetic pathway for bottom up nano-Graphene production, using polyaromatic hydrocarbons precursors. The chemical and morphological analysis of the obtained deposits gives encouraging results about the proficient production of Carbon-base nano-assemblies. The third chapter is dedicated to the study and application of nanocarbons for energy production with particular attention to the incoming environmental problem. The objects of my study were Nitrogen-doped Graphene, as an alternative to metal catalysts for Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and a Bodipy chromophore coupled with a Fullerene, as an efficient system for photoelectrochemical conversion. The results obtained until now in the study of Carbon-based nanomaterials represent a good reason to further investigate their behaviour, properties and possible applications and I hope this thesis is a contribution to such a complex topic.