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Atomically dispersed platinum electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction promise minimized platinum usage, but catalytic activity and selectivity are often low due to unfavourable O2 adsorption. To circumvent this issue, Gao and colleagues load platinum onto α-Fe2O3, making a highly active and stable catalyst with dispersed Pt–Fe pair sites.
Thin Li foils are desirable for high-energy Li battery applications. Here, Cui and team devise a fabrication route for ultrathin (less than 20 μm) Li foils that show promise for improving existing anodes including silicon, graphite and metallic Li.
Methylammonium-free perovskite solar cells have achieved promising efficiency and thermal stability yet iodide migration limits their operational stability. Deng and colleagues show that an excess of formamidinium or caesium iodide precursor suppresses iodide vacancies preventing ion migration and eventually the generation of hole traps during device operation.
It is generally believed that fast Li-ion transport in batteries can only be achieved when the host material does not change much with the Li movement. Here the authors show that controlled and reversible changes in host structures upon cycling can actually be used to improve the battery kinetics.
Molecular design of acceptor and donor molecules has enabled major progress in organic photovoltaics. Li et al. show that branched alkyl chains in non-fullerene acceptors allow favourable morphology in the active layer, enabling a certified device efficiency of 17.9%.
An often-overlooked aspect of vehicle electrification is how often and why owners give up on electric vehicles. Using surveys of California electric vehicle owners, Hardman and Tal find discontinuance rates of 20% and 18% among plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicle owners, and examine the motivations behind discontinuance.
Dynamic windows can reduce a building’s energy demand, yet the control of light and heat transmission remains challenging. Strand et al. show that polymer inhibitors improve the morphology of metal films allowing a wide modulation of light and heat flow in windows based on reversible metal electrodeposition.
Precipitates that form in the cathode of continuous-flow CO2 electrolysers hamper their long-term operation, but the alkali metals they are formed from actually boost activity. Endrődi et al. mitigate this dichotomy by using pure water in the electrolyser and periodically infusing the cathode with alkaline cations.
Passivating contacts hold promise for silicon solar cells yet the simultaneous optimization of conductivity, defect passivation and optical transparency remains challenging. Now Köhler et al. devise a passivating contact based on a double layer of nanocrystalline silicon carbide that overcomes these trade-offs.
Zinc–air batteries are viewed as a sustainable storage technology, but their commercialization requires a genuine performance leap forwards from the laboratory scale. Here the authors report a cell-level design and demonstrate an ampere-hour pouch cell with exceptionally high energy density and cycle lifespan.
Front- and back-junction silicon photovoltaics dominate the market thanks to a lower manufacturing complexity compared with that of other device designs yet advances in efficiency remain elusive. Richter et al. now present an optimized design for the front and back junctions that leads to a 26.0%-efficient cell.
The operational stability of formamidinium lead triiodide solar cells varies with the fabrication method of the perovskite layer. Now Park et al. find that isopropylammonium stabilizes the perovskite structure and leads to solar cells with 2,000-h stability under constant illumination.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be hugely beneficial to Ethiopia, but has raised tensions with neighbouring countries that rely on flow from the Blue Nile. Sterl et al. present scenarios for dam operation coupled with solar and wind power generation that could mitigate some of these concerns.
Using metal anodes could in principle boost the energy density of batteries but their electrodeposition often negatively impacts battery performance. Here the authors propose an oxygen-mediated metal–substrate bonding strategy to regulate metal deposition and demonstrate highly reversible Al and Zn anodes.
The development of aqueous redox flow batteries (ARFBs) has been plagued by high material costs and poor operating stability. Here the authors report a membrane design to enable polysulfide-based ARFBs with minimal capacity decay over long cycles and durations as well as competitive cost-effectiveness.
Wind and solar energy must be complemented by a combination of energy storage and firm generating capacity. Here, Sepulveda et al. assess the economic value and system impact of a wide range of possible long-duration energy storage technologies, providing insights to guide innovation and policy.
Charging at high voltages in principle makes batteries energy dense, but this is often achieved at the cost of the cycling stability. Here the authors design a sulfonamide-based electrolyte to enable a Li metal battery with a state-of-the-art cathode at an ultra-high voltage of 4.7 V while maintaining cyclability.
Splitting water using suspensions of particulate carbon nitride-based photocatalysts may be a cheap way to produce hydrogen, but efficiencies have remained low. Now, Shen and colleagues use doped carbon nitride-based Z-scheme heterostructures to split water with a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 1.1% in the presence of metal-based co-catalysts.
Batteries keep degrading even when they are not in operation, but their calendar life is rarely studied in advanced batteries that are still in the development stage. Here the authors quantify the calendar ageing of Li metal anodes and report its underlying mechanisms.
A challenge with the use of metal anodes in batteries is their inability to sustain structural stability, especially at high currents. Here the authors examine electrochemomechanical properties of metal anodes and demonstrate an effective semi-solid electrode approach at practically relevant conditions.