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Mental accounting refers to the mental budgets people use to organize and track resource use. In this Perspective, the authors demonstrate how principles of mental accounting can be applied to energy behaviour and decision-making, and outline future research directions.
Zinc metal batteries (ZMBs) provide a promising alternative to lithium metal batteries but share the formidable challenges in reversibility. The authors discuss the key performance metrics of ZMBs and propose a protocol to assess the true reversibility of zinc metal anodes.
The increasing deployment of photovoltaic modules poses the challenge of waste management. Heath et al. review the status of end-of of-life management of silicon solar modules and recommend research and development priorities to facilitate material recovery and recycling of solar modules.
Coulombic efficiency (CE) has been frequently used to assess the cyclability of newly developed materials for lithium metal batteries. The authors argue that caution must be exercised during the assessment of CE, and propose a CE testing protocol for the development of lithium metal batteries.
Evaluating the impact of renewable energy innovation research funding is important to design more productive research and development programmes. Pless et al. discuss the key challenges in effective evaluation of research funding outcomes and identify solutions.
Energy use occurs in homes, workplaces and communities in which complex webs of social relations already exist. In this Perspective, the authors draw on recent qualitative research to propose a typology of social relations that shape how people engage with and use energy.
The development of high-nickel layered oxide cathodes represents an opportunity to realize the full potential of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. Manthiram and colleagues review the materials design strategies and discuss the challenges and solutions for low-cobalt, high-energy-density cathodes.
This Perspective suggests that the combined influence of trends toward increasing house size and decreasing household size have important implications for energy consumption per capita. This points to new avenues for research and policy related to lifestyle expectations and housing development.
Industrial hydrocarbon conversions often use catalysts with ill-defined active metal sites, which may hamper rational improvement. This Perspective explores how surface organometallic chemistry can allow the design of catalysts with more well-defined active sites for the production of energy carriers.
Reversible anion redox is widely accepted as the origin for the extra capacity of Li-excess cathode materials. Here, the authors analyse the literature and theorize that the oxidation of Mn beyond the +4 state could be responsible for the extra capacity of Li-excess Mn oxides.
Domestic heating systems vary widely in their configurations across different countries. Here, Gross and Hanna use case studies of Sweden and the United Kingdom to explore the central roles of policies and path dependence in shaping the technologies and infrastructures providing domestic space heating.
The photovoltaic reliability community is well-established and links researchers from academia and the industry. Here, Snaith and Hacke draw lessons from the development of international reliability standards for commercial technologies to inform future work on perovskite solar cells and modules.
The energy transition has been alternatively characterized as a gradual transformation, a technological disruption or a systemic change. This Perspective argues that the transition is entering a new phase where it has unique characteristics, and research and policy can no longer treat it as a gradual transformation or mere disruption.
Positive and negative impacts of energy transitions will not be evenly distributed. In this Perspective, the authors present a framework to map geographic variation in vulnerability from energy policies that can be built on in future work to support just policy-making.
In recent years, Middle Eastern and North African oil-exporting states have begun reforming their energy subsidies. This Perspective argues that a number of trends — both local and global — have offered political cover for the changes, and that the reforms challenge existing governance theory.
Battery safety is a key focus in the design of electrified vehicles. Here, the authors survey literature approaches for modelling and testing battery safety under abuse conditions, and propose a multi-physics modelling and testing framework for real applications.
Coal-generated electricity forms a significant contribution to global carbon emissions. This Perspective explores the factors behind Great Britain's recent rapid switch from coal power to natural gas, which brought a large decrease in emissions, and discusses savings potential for other coal-using nations.
Electrochemical storage is typically accompanied by simultaneous accommodation of ions and electrons. Here the authors discuss a concept of decoupling electron and ion storage and present their perspectives of constructing artificial mixed conductor electrodes to enhance storage ability.
The rise of prosumers has led to creation of virtual power plants and peer-to-peer trading to help manage a diverse and distributed array of energy sources. This Perspective proposes the federated power plant, which combines these concepts to meet some of their individual challenges and offer new value.
