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A decrease in the cost of renewable energy is often attributed to technological learning. This study uses 18 years of data from 133 renewable energy projects in Germany, alongside practitioner interviews, to find that changing financing costs, not just technology, are responsible for a significant cost decrease.
Contaminants such as CO2 and H2S present in natural gas and biogas streams must be removed before use; existing strategies to do so can be rather complex. Here, the authors use a fluorinated porous metal–organic framework to remove CO2 and H2S from CH4-rich feeds in a single step, potentially simplifying the process.
Solid oxide fuel cells are most commercially viable when run at low temperatures, but this makes it challenging to achieve high performance with hydrocarbon fuels. Here the authors report a fuel cell running at 500 °C on nearly dry methane that incorporates a Ni–Ru–CeO2-based reforming catalyst, achieving high power densities and coking resistance.
Reducing the severity of the conditions required to synthesize ammonia would increase the viability of its use as a carbon-free energy carrier. Here the authors use metal imides to mediate ammonia production via a two-step chemical looping process that operates under mild conditions.
Porous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) can be used as sorbents in water-adsorption-driven chillers, but are currently limited in terms of stability and efficiency. Here the authors present a chemically and mechanically stable zirconium carboxylate MOF with a high coefficient of performance for refrigeration.
Materials design rules play a key role in enabling high performance in organic photovoltaics. Here the authors achieve 12.25% efficiency on 1 cm2 non-fullerene solar cells by tuning the side chains’ branching point and the fluorine substitutions in donor and acceptor materials.
Decentralized solar electricity is an important tool for expanding electricity access. Using data from sub-Saharan Africa, researchers identify a systematic scaling between reliability and cost. Future scenarios suggest these systems will compete with centralized grids on both cost and reliability.
Building energy efficiency can be important for CO2 emissions reduction, especially in rapidly developing nations such as China, where extensive new construction is expected to take place over the coming decades. Researchers show potential for high emissions reduction in buildings in China up to 2050 using a detailed scenario modelling exercise.
Thermal fluctuations inside batteries limit their performance and pose various safety hazards. Here, the authors develop a shape memory alloy-based thermal regulator that stabilizes battery temperature in both hot and cold extreme environments.
Integrating biofuel production with petrorefinery operations offers potential efficiency savings, but is technologically immature. Here, Deneyer et al. use a two-phase catalytic process that converts (hemi)cellulose into light naphtha, utilizing petro-derived solvent streams to deliver a fuel containing 10% bio-derived carbon.
A well-designed artificial solid-electrolyte interphase (ASEI) could help resolve multiple problems associated with the use of metallic Li anodes in batteries. Here, the authors develop a Langmuir–Blodgett method to produce an ASEI composed of functionalized graphene oxide with a compatible electrolyte formulation, which facilitates a stable cycling of Li metal batteries.
Decoupling resource use from energy production is critical for sustainable development. Here, researchers show a decoupling between water use and electricity generation growth in China, accompanied by changing spatial distribution of associated water stress.
To minimize recombination losses and therefore increase the conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells, researchers have relied on passivating contacts. Here, the authors demonstrate a hole-selective passivating contact that exploits the firing step currently employed in industrial manufacturing.
Ternary-blend organic photovoltaics enable solar cell performances exceeding binary blends due to the multiple light-harvesting materials, yet challenges remain in controlling their morphology. Now, Zhou et al. exploit hierarchical morphology to build all-small-molecule ternary-blend devices with high performance.
The cost of green electricity is unfairly distributed, with consumers paying more while industry actors are subsidized. Here, the authors find that reducing the inequity in cost burden by abolishing exemptions increases consumer acceptance of these costs.
Energy security is an important policy objective across Europe. Public concern about energy security varies across countries due to differences in national energy context and more general national indicators of economic and human well-being, over-and-above individual population characteristics.
Semi-artificial photosynthetic systems combine natural and synthetic features to overcome limitations of each approach to produce solar fuels. Sokol et al. integrate a dye-sensitized TiO2 photoanode with the natural machineries, photosystem II and hydrogenase, to split water without additional applied bias.
While the two individual half-reactions involved in visible-light-driven water splitting are well studied, producing H2 and O2 simultaneously on a single particle remains challenging. Here, the authors achieve this by decorating CdS nanorods with both Pt nanoparticles and molecular Ru complexes to catalyse the evolution of H2 and O2, respectively.
Protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) operate at lower temperatures than solid oxide fuel cells but suffer from lower performances, especially during scale-up. Here, the authors report a 25 cm2 PCFC based on a BaCe0.55Zr0.3Y0.15O3–δ electrolyte that displays a record-high power density of 20.8 W at 600 °C.
Realization of the full potential of Li–S batteries requires effective methods to treat problems associated with both sulfur cathodes and lithium anodes. Here, the authors report suppression of electrolyte depletion and dendrite formation in Li–S batteries by tuning the solvent/salt molar ratio in a diglyme electrolyte to favour quasi-solid state conversion.