Materials for energy and catalysis articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    Alternative solid electrolytes with enhanced thermal and chemical stability are key for advancing lithium batteries. A soft solid electrolyte with improved stability and ionic conductivity, overcoming several limitations of conventional materials, is now reported.

    • Prabhat Prakash
    • , Birane Fall
    •  & Michael J. Zdilla

  • News & Views |

    A second-harmonic generation approach enables the direct measurement of the potential of zero charge at electrochemical interfaces.

    • Jan Rossmeisl

  • Research Briefing |

    Spectroscopic and structural measurements often give conflicting results about the role of disorder in determining the properties of energy materials. A hybrid neutron scattering technique is used to measure atomic correlations in time and space for cubic GeTe, revealing that anisotropic elastic interactions mimic disorder but the time-averaged structure is crystalline.

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    Cubic materials such as GeTe have low lattice thermal conductivity, thought to arise from a non-cubic local structural transition. Here, using a variable-shutter pair distribution function method, the average structure is shown to be crystalline but with anisotropic dynamics at higher temperatures.

    • Simon A. J. Kimber
    • , Jiayong Zhang
    •  & Simon J. L. Billinge

  • Article |

    The electric field created at an electrode–electrolyte interface can polarize the electrode’s surface and nearby molecules. Although its effect can be countered by an applied potential, quantifying the value of this potential is difficult. An optical method for determining the potential of zero charge at an electrochemical interface is now presented.

    • Pengtao Xu
    • , Alexander D. von Rueden
    •  & Jin Suntivich

  • Article |

    High-Ni-content layered cathodes are promising for lithium-ion batteries, but investigating their delithiation-induced phase boundaries is challenging. Intralayer transition motifs at complex phase boundaries in these high-Ni electrodes are now resolved using deep-learning-aided super-resolution electron microscopy.

    • Chunyang Wang
    • , Xuelong Wang
    •  & Huolin L. Xin

  • News & Views |

    Carbonization of crosslinked polyimides with kinked structures leads to carbon molecular sieves with bimodal free volumes, enabling both a high molecular-sieving ability and gas permeability.

    • Leiqing Hu
    •  & Haiqing Lin

  • Article |

    The stability of halide perovskite solar cells, determined by film morphology, is paramount to their commercialization. Here, the authors introduce a high-temperature DMSO-free method that enables better control of the grain size, texturing, orientation and crystallinity to achieve improved device operational stability.

    • David P. McMeekin
    • , Philippe Holzhey
    •  & Henry J. Snaith

  • Meeting Report |

    About 700 scientists from 45 countries gathered in Dresden for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to share their latest findings on metal–organic frameworks and open frameworks compounds.

    • Veronique Van Speybroeck
    •  & Guillaume Maurin

  • News & Views |

    As metal–organic frameworks move towards practical application, data for an expanded range of physical properties are needed. Molecular-level modelling and data science can play an important role.

    • Randall Q. Snurr

  • News & Views |

    Spectral shifts in transient photoluminescence measurements performed with a confocal microscope allow tracking of charge carrier mobilities in polycrystalline halide perovskites.

    • Thomas Kirchartz

  • Article |

    A discrepancy exists between the low diffusion coefficients and near-unity charge collection efficiencies achieved in practical halide perovskite solar cells. Here, the authors explain this through the discovery of strong heterogeneity in vertical charge diffusivities in a 3D perovskite film.

    • Changsoon Cho
    • , Sascha Feldmann
    •  & Neil C. Greenham

  • News & Views |

    Engineering inter-triplet exchange coupling allows spin mixing between singlet and quintet manifolds in triplet–triplet pair states in metal–organic frameworks, demonstrating increased room-temperature triplet-fusion rates under relatively small applied magnetic fields.

    • Naitik A. Panjwani
    •  & Jan Behrends

  • Article |

    Iridium-based electrocatalysts are traditional anode catalysts for proton exchange membrane water electrolysis but suffer from high cost and low reserves. An alternative, nickel-stabilized ruthenium dioxide catalyst with high activity and durability in acidic oxygen evolution reaction for water electrolysis is reported.

    • Zhen-Yu Wu
    • , Feng-Yang Chen
    •  & Haotian Wang

  • Article |

    Heat capacity of nanoporous materials is important for processes such as carbon capture, as this can affect process design energy requirements. Here, a machine learning approach for heat capacity prediction, trained on density functional theory simulations, is presented and experimentally verified.

    • Seyed Mohamad Moosavi
    • , Balázs Álmos Novotny
    •  & Berend Smit

  • Article |

    Understanding and mitigating filament formation, short-circuit and solid electrolyte fracture is necessary for advanced all-solid-state batteries. The effect of polymorphism on the grain-level chemo-mechanical behaviour of dense and polycrystalline garnet solid electrolytes is now investigated.

    • Marm B. Dixit
    • , Bairav S. Vishugopi
    •  & Kelsey B. Hatzell

  • Comment |

    Metal–organic frameworks, porous coordination network materials constructed with metal ions and organic molecules, have grown over the past 20 years into an innovative chemistry that has contributed to solutions for the problems faced by humanity in the environment, resources, energy and health.

    • Satoshi Horike
    •  & Susumu Kitagawa

  • Comment |

    Organic semiconductors based on molecular or polymeric π-conjugated systems are now used at scale in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays and show real promise in thin-film photovoltaics and transistor structures. Here, we address recent progress in understanding and performance for OLEDs and for organic photovoltaics.

    • Akshay Rao
    • , Alexander James Gillett
    •  & Richard Henry Friend

  • Comment |

    Materials and surface sciences have been the driving force in the development of modern-day lithium-ion batteries. This Comment explores this journey while contemplating future challenges, such as interface engineering, sustainability and the importance of obtaining high-quality extensive datasets for enhancing data-driven research.

    • Jean-Marie Tarascon

  • Comment |

    Twentieth-century utopian visions of a space-age future have been eclipsed by dystopian fears of climate change and environmental degradation. Avoiding such grim forecasts depends on materials innovation and our ability to predict and plan not only their behaviour but also their sustainable manufacture, use and recyclability.

    • Philip Ball

  • Article |

    Understanding the ion intercalation and degradation mechanisms occurring during realistic battery operation is crucial to developing high-rate battery electrodes. Operando optical scattering microscopy is now used to study single-particle kinetic state-of-charge heterogeneities and cracking in high-rate Li-ion anode materials.

    • Alice J. Merryweather
    • , Quentin Jacquet
    •  & Clare P. Grey

  • Article |

    Solid-state ionic conduction is a key enabler of electrochemical energy storage and conversion. A quantitative framework for ionic conduction between atomistic and macroscopic timescales in β- and β″-aluminas is now proposed for ‘atoms-to-device’ multiscale modelling and optimization.

    • Andrey D. Poletayev
    • , James A. Dawson
    •  & Aaron M. Lindenberg

  • Article |

    The partial oxidation of CH4 to CH3OH is challenging to perform in artificial systems due to ready over-oxidation to CO and CO2. Here by confining mono-iron hydroxyl sites in a metal–organic framework, photo-oxidation of CH4 to CH3OH is achieved with high selectivity and time yield.

    • Bing An
    • , Zhe Li
    •  & Martin Schröder

  • Letter |

    Photoelectrochemical devices are used for direct solar fuel production, but the stability of light absorbers can hamper their commercial prospects. Integrating a BiOI light absorber into a robust oxide-based architecture with a graphite paste conductive encapsulant results in photocathodes with long-term H2 evolution activity.

    • Virgil Andrei
    • , Robert A. Jagt
    •  & Erwin Reisner

  • News & Views |

    Atomically dispersed catalysts show great promise, but their design is challenging. A library of catalysts spanning 37 elements was created to uncover unified principles for catalyst design.

    • Ziyi Chen
    • , David Morris
    •  & Peng Zhang

  • News & Views |

    Double-shelled hollow spheres comprising of different catalytic materials are shown to enhance the efficiency of catalytic processes for the selective conversion of hydrogen and carbon monoxide to gasoline.

    • Michael Claeys

  • News & Views |

    A composite membrane that contains porous organic cages is shown to be dynamic, with pore aperture diameter controlled by solvent allowing for graded molecular sieving.

    • Jeffrey R. McCutcheon
    • , Mayur Ostwal
    •  & Mi Zhang

  • Article |

    Superionic lithium conductivity has only been observed in a few classes of materials, mostly in thiophosphates but rarely in oxides. Corner-sharing connectivity in an oxide crystal structure framework is now shown to promote superionic conductivity.

    • KyuJung Jun
    • , Yingzhi Sun
    •  & Gerbrand Ceder

  • Article |

    Wiring photosynthetic biomachineries to electrodes is promising for sustainable bio-electricity and fuel generation, but designing such interfaces is challenging. Aerosol jet printing is now used to generate hierarchical pillar array electrodes using indium tin oxide nanoparticles for high-performance semi-artificial photosynthesis.

    • Xiaolong Chen
    • , Joshua M. Lawrence
    •  & Jenny Z. Zhang

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Materials for energy and catalysis across other nature.com journals