Volume 5 Issue 7, July 2020

Online conferences are increasingly popular within scientific communities due to the travel restrictions faced by many countries. Although a relatively new phenomenon for many of us, lessons from recent meetings provide useful reflections on the format’s opportunities and challenges compared to conventional in-person meetings.

Photocatalytic conversion of methane to ethane suffers from low yields due to poor selectivity and quantum efficiency. Now, ethane is produced by a photochemical looping strategy using a nanocomposite of titanium dioxide, phosphotungstic acid and silver cations, with selectivity of 90% and quantum efficiency of 3.5% at 362 nm.

The normal operation of Li metal batteries is limited to near room temperature and moderate current rates. Now, a self-assembled electrochemically active monolayer is shown to enable the stable operation of Li metal batteries below –15 ^oC and at a fast-charging time of 45 minutes.

The electrolyte is the weak link when it comes to intrinsic issues of Li metal batteries such as instability of the Li metal interface. Now, a liquid electrolyte consisting of one molecular-designed solvent and one common salt is formulated leading to exceptional high-performance batteries.

China has the world’s most ambitious plan to expand nuclear power production to boost its economic growth. Now research shows that a concerted effort to control news framing may be playing an essential role in cultivating public acceptance of nuclear risk, helping to ensure sustained development of the nuclear power industry.

The increasing deployment of photovoltaic modules poses the challenge of waste management. Heath et al. review the status of end-of of-life management of silicon solar modules and recommend research and development priorities to facilitate material recovery and recycling of solar modules.

Activating methane at ambient temperature is challenging due to its stability, but could ultimately give access to a variety of other fuels and chemicals. Here, the authors present a photochemical looping strategy based on silver chemistry that converts methane to ethane under illumination at room temperature.

Use of electric vehicles in ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft is rising but their impact on environment and emissions remains difficult to assess. Using data from more than 100,000 rides, Alan Jenn shows the substantial emission reduction potential of electric vehicle use in ride-hailing in California.

The realization of the full potential of Li metal batteries requires high-performance electrolytes. Here Z. Bao and colleagues develop low-concentration electrolytes with a single-solvent and single-salt formulation, offering promise for high-energy and long-cycling batteries.

In addition to high energy, batteries need to possess high power and to be able to operate in all climates. Here, the authors present an electrochemically active monolayer-coated current collector that is used to produce high-performance Li metal batteries under low-temperature and high-rate-charging conditions.

Autonomous driving is being implemented in electric vehicles, but its energy impact is unclear. Here the authors build physics models to analyse the energy demand of autonomous electric vehicles and suggest that the influences of automation on vehicle range and battery longevity are small.