Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Recycling spent batteries is crucial for a circular battery economy, yet knowledge of solid-state battery (SSB) recycling lags behind that of lithium-ion batteries. This study evaluates SSB recycling techniques, emphasizing the need for specific, energy-efficient methods tailored to distinct electrolytes.
Factors such as wealth might be expected to affect the transition to clean cooking, specifically the transition choices of uptake, primary use, and exclusive use of liquefied petroleum gas. Data from Ghana’s largest household energy survey show, however, that eleven out of thirteen factors considered do not have a significant or consistent role across these transition choices.
Ion solvation at solid–electrolyte interfaces is crucial in various components of energy conversion technologies, including water splitting electrocatalysts and bipolar membranes, but is poorly understood. Here the authors study ion solvation kinetics in these systems, highlighting the key role of interfacial capacitance in determining behaviour.
Copper catalysts hold promise for producing multi-carbon chemicals through electrochemical CO2 reduction, but improving performance is challenging due to the limited tunability of the copper surface. Now, research uses organic functionalization to modify the surface oxidation state of copper, yielding improved energy efficiency for ethylene production.
To date, organic-based redox flow batteries (RFBs) have relatively low open-circuit voltages (OCVs), limiting their commercial viability. Achieving higher OCVs with pH-decoupled RFBs faces challenges due to severe ion crossover, prompting new research that proposes an acid–base regeneration cell to address this limitation.
Understanding how power systems fail—and the nature of cascading failures—as a result of hurricanes is important to increase future resilience. Here the authors present a co-evolution approach to modelling wind-induced power line failures caused by hurricanes and assess the potential impact of line hardening on grids.
Surface reconstruction, chemo-mechanical degradation, and interfacial side reactions are major factors limiting the cyclability of Ni-rich cathodes. A strategy based on entropy-assisted epitaxial coating is now shown to effectively mitigate these issues, leading to improved battery performance and promising advances in electrochemical energy storage.
Layered Ni-rich oxide cathodes are susceptible to challenges with surface reconstruction and strain propagation, limiting their cyclability. The authors propose a solution involving oriented attachment-driven reactions, utilizing Wadsley–Roth nanocrystals and layered oxide to induce an epitaxial entropy-assisted coating, effectively addressing these issues.
deQuilettes et al. show that hexylammonium bromide forms an iodide-rich 2D structure and bromide gradient at the surface of 3D perovskite, both of which limit interfacial charge and energy losses in perovskite solar cells.
Achieving extremely fast charging while maintaining high energy density remains a challenge in the battery field. Here the authors conceptualize a porous current collector that successfully reduces the effective Li+ transport distance by half, quadrupling the diffusion-limited C-rate capability without compromising battery energy density.
Non-flammable electrolytes are essential for ensuring the safe operation of sodium-metal batteries; however, challenges arise in applications due to limited stability between the electrolytes and electrodes. Now, an electrolyte engineering approach using salts as a diluent is proposed to achieve both high interfacial stability and improved safety.
Manufacturing of perovskite solar cells under ambient conditions is desirable. Meng et al. show that dimethylammonium formate suppresses halide oxidation and deprotonation of organic cations, enabling air-processed inverted solar cells with 24.7% efficiency.
Injecting hydrogen into subsurface environments could provide seasonal energy storage, but understanding of technical feasibility is limited as large-scale demonstrations are scarce. Now, field tests show that hydrogen can be stored and microbially converted to methane in a depleted underground hydrocarbon reservoir.
The scarcity of raw materials and complex synthesis procedures have impeded the development of electrolytes for Mg and Ca metal batteries. Research now reports a facile synthesis of organoborate electrolytes through cation replacement reactions, offering highly reversible Mg or Ca electrochemistry.