Electrochemical metamaterials
- PDF / 667,789 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 101 Downloads / 205 Views
FEATURE ARTICLE
Electrochemical metamaterials Alexei A. Kornyshev 1 Received: 8 July 2020 / Revised: 8 July 2020 / Accepted: 8 July 2020 / Published online: 25 August 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
The role of electrochemistry in energy systems such as batteries, fuel cells, capacitors, solar cells and water desalination devices is commonly known to wide public. Many research groups worldwide are involved in a race to make those electrochemically based technologies more efficient, economically viable and environmentally friendly. A lot of progress has already been made, for example fully electric or hybrid cars are seen on our streets, experimental fuel cell buses, supercap-driven trams being recharged at each stop, construction cranes recuperating energy by charging supercaps when laying down their platforms before loading, solar panels in private households, installations for the production of fresh water from sea brine or even from human urine at the international space station—all became reality. For electrochemists, being involved in any part of that research and development make them feel good and needed, contributing to the fight against global warming and making impact to our way of life. Last but not least, it is the safest way to get their research funded. Much less widely understood is the key research in such areas as electrochemical kinetics and electrocatalysis, underpinning most of those mentioned technologies as well as metal treatment, corrosion science, production of gases by electrolysis, electrochemical synthesis, sensors and many other classical ‘mainstream’ branches of applied electrochemistry. Generally, the societal priorities of the XXI century in its 3rd decade and expectedly in the next few ones, which determine the priority areas for research funding, can be summarized as shown in a diagram:
* Alexei A. Kornyshev [email protected] 1
Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, Molecular Sciences Research Hub, White City Campus, London W12 0BZ, and Thomas Young Centre for Theory and Simulation of Materials, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Environment & climate
Public health
Energy
Food & water Sustainable agriculture Sustainable funconal materials
IT & AI
Advanced and sustainable manufacturing is not depicted here, as implicit. All of these subjects are deeply inter-related. Of course, nothing can be done without energy. Public health and well-being are affected by climate, by supply of food and water, which in turn affect and are affected by climate. The whole circle and development of the healthy relationship between its components are boosted by information technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as progress in new materials (although both, as we know, as well as other elements of this scheme if misused, may contribute to ‘pollution’). As described above, in ‘Energy’ the role of electrochemistry is more or less obvious, and it, of course, contributes to “Climate” through the production of clean energy. There are also othe
Data Loading...
