• Energy Research

The latest progress of carbon-based materials for multivalent-ion hybrid capacitors (MIHCs) is reviewed. The energy storage mechanisms, electrochemical behaviors, material design strategies, and future research prospects are discussed.

AbstractIncorporating appropriate plasmonic nanostructures into photovoltaic (PV) systems is of great utility for enhancing photon absorption and thus improving device performance. Herein, the successful integration of plasmonic gold nanostars (AuNSs) into mesoporous TiO2 photoelectrodes for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) is reported. The PSCs fabricated with TiO2‐AuNSs photoelectrodes exhibited a device efficiency of up to 17.72 %, whereas the control cells without AuNSs showed a maximum efficiency of 15.19 %. We attribute the origin of increased device performance to enhanced light absorption and suppressed charge recombination.

The proposed cathode, achieved by a cost-effective and scalable coating process, highlights the potential of simultaneously promoting surface reactivity while ensuring bulk stability for efficient high mass loading cathodes in zinc-ion batteries.

The payback period is a critical indicator when adopting energy storage systems. When developing optimization strategies for emerging energy storage technologies such as aqueous zinc-ion batteries, their economic feasibility should be considered.

In recent decades, metal halide perovskites have attracted much attention after showing great potential in photovoltaic (PV) applications. With the rapid progress of perovskites, various thin-film ...

Abstract Battery technologies based in multivalent charge carriers with ideally two or three electrons transferred per ion exchanged between the electrodes have large promises in raw performance numbers, most often expressed as high energy density, and are also ideally based on raw materials that are widely abundant and less expensive. Yet, these are still globally in their infancy, with some concepts (e.g. Mg metal) being more technologically mature. The challenges to address are derived on one side from the highly polarizing nature of multivalent ions when compared to single valent concepts such as Li+ or Na+ present in Li-ion or Na-ion batteries, and on the other, from the difficulties in achieving efficient metal plating/stripping (which remains the holy grail for lithium). Nonetheless, research performed to date has given some fruits and a clearer view of the challenges ahead. These include technological topics (production of thin and ductile metal foil anodes) but also chemical aspects (electrolytes with high conductivity enabling efficient plating/stripping) or high-capacity cathodes with suitable kinetics (better inorganic hosts for intercalation of such highly polarizable multivalent ions). This roadmap provides an extensive review by experts in the different technologies, which exhibit similarities but also striking differences, of the current state of the art in 2023 and the research directions and strategies currently underway to develop multivalent batteries. The aim is to provide an opinion with respect to the current challenges, potential bottlenecks, and also emerging opportunities for their practical deployment.

AbstractA metal‐free photoanode nanojunction architecture, composed of B‐doped carbon nitride nanolayer and bulk carbon nitride, was fabricated by a one‐step approach. This type of nanojunction (s‐BCN) overcomes a few intrinsic drawbacks of carbon nitride film (severe bulk charge recombination and slow charge transfer). The top layer of the nanojunction has a depth of ca. 100 nm and the bottom layer is ca. 900 nm. The nanojunction photoanode results into a 10‐fold higher photocurrent than bulk graphitic carbon nitride (G‐CN) photoanode, with a record photocurrent density of 103.2 μA cm−2 at 1.23 V vs. RHE under one sun irradiation and an extremely high incident photon‐to‐current efficiency (IPCE) of ca. 10 % at 400 nm. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, Mott–Schottky plots, and intensity‐modulated photocurrent spectroscopy show that such enhancement is mainly due to the mitigated deep trap states, a more than 10 times faster charge transfer rate and nearly three times higher conductivity due to the nanojunction architecture.