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Polymer electrolyte water electrolysis is a promising technology for clean hydrogen production, but high-performance catalysts that can withstand the harsh anodic conditions are lacking. Now, mass-selected iridium-tantalum oxides are shown to have high catalytic activity and stability towards the oxygen evolution reaction under such conditions.
Battery development needs both scientific and engineering breakthroughs. Starting from an atomic understanding of particle growth mechanisms, a remarkable upscaling of a sub-nanometer-sized silicon-based negative electrode — from coin-sized cells to battery packs of over 100 kWh — is now presented.
The advancement of perovskite photovoltaics has led to a large increase in the volume of published data, which is not always easy to find or reuse. Now, researchers have consistently formatted parameters related to fabrication and performance of over 42,000 solar cells and made them available for analysis in an open-access database.
The path to transition billions of people to clean cooking methods is fraught with controversy and unanswered questions. Focusing on the transition to liquefied petroleum gas, a new large-scale multi-country study offers important insights on what determinants of the transition require close attention and policy response.
The availability, facile handling and low toxicity of ethanol make direct ethanol fuel cells an attractive proposition, yet the performance of the catalysts they use is still limited. Now, the performance of palladium–nitrogen–carbon catalysts for the key reactions is improved by introduction of fluorine, which regulates the local environment of the active site.
Fuels synthesized using sunlight offer a sustainable solution for chemical energy storage, but inefficient utilization of the solar spectrum has limited their broader viability. This Review looks at how approaches that are complementary to one another can be employed to better exploit solar energy for sunlight-to-fuel conversion.
Without additional support policies, clean cooking could become unaffordable for about 470 million people by 2030 if a post-pandemic recovery is slow, and about 200 million people by 2030 under ambitious climate mitigation action. Acceleration of clean cooking transitions by tapping into pandemic recovery and climate funds to target the poorest people and regions globally is urgently needed.
Pacific Island Countries and Territories are seeking to improve their energy systems, which face challenges such as climate change. This Perspective discusses research priorities to support Pacific Island Countries and Territories in building energy resilience while drawing on their own unique strengths and existing community responses.
Curbing carbon emissions will require electrification of transport, but until now most of the innovations have been deployed in the car industry. In a recent article researchers focus on the electrification of another crucial sector, freight trains, but not with the traditional approach of overhead lines — rather with batteries.
Printing of large-area organic solar cells using green solvents often results in reduced crystallinity and uniformity of the photovoltaic film and consequently a significant performance loss. Now, a solid additive strategy is developed to control the film morphology at the nanoscale and tackle these limitations.
Highly selective CO2 reduction electrodes are essential for the viability of CO2 electrolysis as a carbon utilization technology. New research demonstrates a strategy to control the selectivity of CO2 conversion by coating the electrocatalyst with thin bilayers of ionomers to tune the electrode microenvironment.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to drastic adjustments in how people live and work, resulting in substantial reductions in energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. New research shows how energy and climate policy can capitalize on these changes to achieve long-term emission reduction.
Electrolytes are a major bottleneck in the development of solid-state batteries. Now, a molecularly engineered cellulose electrolyte is reported to have high ionic conductivity and excellent compatibility with electrodes, offering promise for high-performance solid-state batteries.
Irreversibility is one of the biggest obstacles in realizing practical Li-metal batteries. This Review surveys the trends in Coulombic efficiency (CE)—a reversibility indicator—reported for Li-metal batteries over the last five decades, abstracts key CE descriptors and analyses promising strategies to improve CE.
When thinking of career progression, community-building is often overlooked in academia. Derya Baran discusses how creating strong and cross-disciplinary relationships is pivotal to flourish in your career.
Creating a gender-inclusive environment is of the utmost importance in scientific research. Zakya Kafafi and Mónica Lira-Cantú talk about how their initiative, Women in Renewable Energy, promotes a stronger presence of female scientists at conferences and in the workplace.
The energy-saving impact of energy-efficient technologies can be diminished by rebound resulting from post-adoption behaviour. This Review examines how behavioural regularities affect energy-relevant decisions and associated rebound effects
When prices are adjusted for quality, electric vehicles stood their ground to petrol cars in the early twentieth century United States. If the electricity grid had developed twenty years earlier, they might have reached a 68–79% market share and CO2 emissions per car could have declined by 60%, a new study finds.
High-socioeconomic-status individuals have a disproportionate effect on greenhouse gas emissions as consumers and through four other key roles they play in society. This Perspective examines the effect and suggests how future research could seek to reduce the resulting energy and climate impact.
Understanding support for or opposition to energy developments — and how it varies with proximity — is important for effective planning. A new study using public comments on a regulatory review casts further light on the geography of discourse and how it might shape action on siting energy technology.
