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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.
Metal halide perovskites offer the potential for high-efficiency, low-fabrication-cost solar cells. This study now explores their prospects if deployed in concentrator photovoltaics and finds they perform well up to a concentration of 53 Suns and retain good stability under 10 Suns for over 150 h.
Non-radiative recombination is a critical limiting factor for perovskite solar cell performance. Stolterfoht et al. visualize the various recombination pathways in planar pin cells with photoluminescence imaging and use it to design improved solar cells with 1 cm2 areas and ~20% efficiency.
One way to overcome the theoretical efficiency limit of silicon photovoltaics is to use them as the bottom cell in a tandem photovoltaic module. Here a model for tandem module efficiency and cost is presented, based on assumed sub-cell efficiencies and costs, and used to examine possible paths for different tandem markets.
Although Pt is highly active for electrocatalytic production of H2 from water, its cost limits its wide application. Here, the authors prepare a high-performing catalyst that is supported on graphitic tubes, containing Fe, Co and Cu, and requires only a small amount of Pt.
Voltage decay is a major problem in applications of high-energy Li- and Mn-rich layer-structured battery materials. Here, the authors report the evolution of redox couples as the origin of the voltage decay and discuss strategies to suppress the problem.