Showing Spotlights 9 - 16 of 194 in category All (newest first):
By mimicking a biological cell plasma membrane, i.e. the membrane that separates the interior of the cell from the outside environment, researchers have demonstrated that a 2D reduced graphene oxide membrane can regulate complex polysulfide chemistry in lithium-sulfur batteries. The efficiency of this separator in controlling the polysulfide chemistry and its sub-micron thickness allows to minimize the amount of electrolyte needed, which enables lightweight, high energy density batteries.
Dec 16th, 2022
Molecular energetic ferroelectric crystals are chemical energy materials with external stimuli-dependent energy release. Researchers now report the controlled chemical energy release from spatially programmed molecular energetic ferroelectric crystals. Such stimuli-controlled metamaterials (in this case, energetic ferroelectrics), could potentially provide a pathway towards the controlled release of chemical energy and its conversion to electric energy or thermal energy for use, for instance, in energy conversion systems, energetic materials, and thermal conductors.
Nov 21st, 2022
Rain can be considered as prolific a sustainable energy source like energy scavenging from solar or wind. Consequently, droplet-driven energy harvesting devices - which offer a simple structure with low-cost materials requirements - have received considerable attention from the global research community. A recent review comprehensively discusses various methods for harvesting water droplets with their future potential for different applications.
Aug 25th, 2022
One of the challenges of realizing smart dust concepts, as well as nano- and microrobotics in general, is a lack of equally small on-chip power sources for ubiquitous anytime anywhere operation. Now, researchers have created an on-chip micro-Swiss-roll battery by using a self-assembly process known as micro-origami. The batteries are 3 mm in length and about 178 micros in diameter and the self-assembly mechanism allows for the parallel fabrication of multiple micro-Swiss rolls on the wafer in a single run.
Aug 5th, 2022
The key to fabricate single-atom catalysts is the confinement of transition metal atoms in the precursor, which remains a critical challenge. Addressing this critical challenge, researchers recently proposed clicking confinement strategy as a new synthesis methodology towards the fabrication of single-atom catalysts. This strategy breaks the restrictions on molecular size or symmetry and significantly broadens the fabrication approaches. It also is of great specificity, ensuring the precise construction of single-atom sites with unique structures or distributions.
Mar 17th, 2022
BATTERY 2030+ is a large-scale cross-sectoral European research initiative bringing together the most important stakeholders in the field of battery R+D to create a strong battery research and innovation ecosystem community. A goal of the project is to develop a long-term roadmap for battery research in Europe. This roadmap suggests research actions towards breakthrough technologies to radically transform the way to discover, develop, and design ultra-high-performance, durable, safe, sustainable, and affordable batteries for use in real applications.
Feb 9th, 2022
Researchers developed a holistic approach, which predicts both Li-ion storage and supercapacitive properties and hence identifies various important electrode materials that are common to both devices, may pave the way for next-generation energy storage systems. By leveraging the big-data generated by the computational pipeline, the team trains crystal graph-based machine learning models and demonstrates how this data-driven model could be helpful for the rapid discovery of potential materials from other databases.
Jan 13th, 2022
EV manufacturing requires more energy and produces more emissions than manufacturing a conventional car because of batteries. There are many unanswered questions about the life-cycle greenhouse gas implications of electric vehicles, especially related to early estimates of battery production emissions. A new review addresses these questions and the advances in new battery chemistries, plus new insights into CO2 emissions from battery manufacturing.
Dec 1st, 2021
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