Research articles

Oxygen evolution is one half of the overall water splitting reaction to produce hydrogen. Although this reaction is well studied, there remains debate over the particulars of the catalytic mechanism. Here, the authors investigate Co–Zn oxyhydroxide electrocatalysts, and suggest that the mechanism depends on the amount of Zn²⁺ they contain.

Accurately predicting battery lifetime is difficult, and a prediction often cannot be made unless a battery has already degraded significantly. Here the authors report a machine-learning method to predict battery life before the onset of capacity degradation with high accuracy.

Despite tremendous progress in the development of LiS batteries, their performance at the full-cell level is not as competitive as state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries. Here the authors report a full-cell architecture making use of a hybrid intercalation-conversion cathode, enabling both high volumetric and gravimetric energy densities.

Tight oil and gas extraction is costly and low prices lead to reduction in investments and eventually production. Here, studying the effects of price volatility on active rigs, researchers find the break-even price and show that firms use future and not spot prices to plan exploration and development investment.

At a societal level, the choice is not how or where wind turbines should be sited, but whether electricity should be generated by wind or another source. This study shows that those who live near wind turbines strongly prefer them to coal or solar energy projects sited a similar distance away.

Planning of electric power systems often does not consider the potential for, and possible effects of, conflict and socio-political strife. Here, using a case study of South Sudan, researchers develop and implement a framework for power system planning in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Reversible electrochemical cells can operate in both fuel cell and electrolysis modes to interconvert between chemical and electrical energy. Here, Duan et al. design a reversible protonic ceramic electrochemical cell that operates stably at 500–600 °C, with high Faradaic and round-trip efficiencies, by minimizing electronic leakage.

Driven by solar light, photoelectrocatalytic cells can convert CO₂ into energy carriers, but strategies to improve their performance are still required. Here the authors combine molecular and semiconductor p–n junctions that have complementary absorption in the visible light range to convert CO₂ to formate efficiently.

High-performance polymer electrolytes are highly sought after in the development of solid-state batteries. Lynden Archer and co-workers report an in situ polymerization of liquid electrolytes in a lithium battery for creating promising polymer electrolytes with high ionic conductivity and low interfacial resistance.

Effects from electrolytes on supercapacitor electrodes, especially pseudocapacitive materials, are important but often overlooked. Gogotsi and colleagues demonstrate strong influences from electrolyte solvents on charge-storage processes in a titanium carbide and identify a best-performing electrode/electrolyte couple for supercapacitors.

Maintaining a pH gradient across a fuel cell improves device efficiency and flexibility in device chemistry. Here the authors develop an efficient microscale bipolar interface for direct borohydride fuel cells, enabling sustained operations with a pH differential between the anolyte and the catholyte.

Hydrogen fuel, produced from renewable power, could be critical in the decarbonization of the electricity and transportation sectors. Here, a thorough economic analysis shows that hydrogen obtained from wind power is already cost competitive in niche applications and may become widely competitive in the foreseeable future.

Metal-based smart windows allow for light and heat transmission control but suffer from poor metal ion diffusion over large areas. Here, the authors demonstrate a 100 cm² window that is uniformly switchable from clear to black in 60 s by combining reversible metal electrodeposition with ion insertion.

The growing deployment of solar panels in urban areas requires tools to determine their optimal placement and electricity yield. Towards this end, this study presents a simplified model based on the sky view and sun coverage factors and validates it using real-world data from different systems in different climates.

Carrier recombination limits the power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells. Here the authors construct a planar p–n homojunction perovskite solar cell to promote the oriented transport of carriers and reduce recombination, thus enabling power conversion efficiency of 21.3%.

This Article presents a battery with protons as the charge carrier, as opposed to Li-ion batteries, which rely on the transport of Li-ions. Protons are conducted by means of the Grotthuss mechanism in a hydrated Prussian blue analogue electrode, offering potential for ultrafast rate and long-life batteries.

Blockchain-based distributed management of electricity systems is an important step towards making these systems more resilient. Although there are many implementations, here the researchers formalize a basic template for smart contracts that can be built upon for distributed electricity systems management.

Luminescent solar concentrators are promising for semi-transparent, building-integrated photovoltaic systems. Here the authors minimize the absorption losses by relying on fast energy transfer in multiphase perovskite nanoplatelets to achieve optical quantum efficiency of 26% on 100 cm² devices.

Compressed-air energy storage could be a useful inter-seasonal storage resource to support highly renewable power systems. This study presents a modelling approach to assess the potential for such storage in porous rocks and, applying it to the UK, finds availability of up to 96 TWh in offshore saline aquifers.

Despite its importance in lithium batteries, the mechanism of Li dendrite growth is not well understood. Here the authors study three representative solid electrolytes with neutron depth profiling and identify high electronic conductivity as the root cause for the dendrite issue.