Archive for the ‘Hot Article’ Category

HOT Articles in EES

The following HOT articles have been highlighted by the reviewers of the articles as being particularly interesting or significant pieces of research. These are all free to access until 28th February 2015. The order they appear in the list has no meaning or ranking.


Microbial electrochemistry and technology: terminology and classification
Uwe Schröder, Falk Harnisch and Largus T. Angenent  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03359K, Perspective


A silole copolymer containing a ladder-type heptacylic arene and naphthobisoxadiazole moieties for highly efficient polymer solar cells
Zhiyun Zhang, Francis Lin, Hsieh-Chih Chen, Hung-Chin Wu, Chin-Lung Chung, Chien Lu, Shih-Hung Liu, Shih-Huang Tung, Wen-Chang Chen, Ken-Tsung Wong and Pi-Tai Chou  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03642E, Communication

C4EE03642E GA


Material descriptors for predicting thermoelectric performance
Jun Yan, Prashun Gorai, Brenden Ortiz, Sam Miller, Scott A. Barnett, Thomas Mason, Vladan Stevanović and Eric S. Toberer  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03157A, Paper


Understanding the rate-dependent J–V hysteresis, slow time component, and aging in CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite solar cells: the role of a compensated electric field
W. Tress, N. Marinova, T. Moehl, S. M. Zakeeruddin, Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin and M. Grätzel  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03664F, Paper


Polyoxometalate-functionalized nanocarbon materials for energy conversion, energy storage and sensor systems
Yuanchun Ji, Lujiang Huang, Jun Hu, Carsten Streb and Yu-Fei Song  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03749A, Review Article

C4EE03749A GA


Power-to-What? – Environmental assessment of energy storage systems
André Sternberg and André Bardow  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03051F, Analysis


Flexible graphene devices related to energy conversion and storage
Xiluan Wang and Gaoquan Shi  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03685A, Review Article


Light management in thin film silicon solar cells
F.-J. Haug and C. Ballif  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03346A, Review Article


1,2,4-Triazolium perfluorobutanesulfonate as an archetypal pure protic organic ionic plastic crystal electrolyte for all-solid-state fuel cells
Jiangshui Luo, Annemette H. Jensen, Neil R. Brooks, Jeroen Sniekers, Martin Knipper, David Aili, Qingfeng Li, Bram Vanroy, Michael Wübbenhorst, Feng Yan, Luc Van Meervelt, Zhigang Shao, Jianhua Fang, Zheng-Hong Luo, Dirk E. De Vos, Koen Binnemans and Jan Fransaer  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02280G, Paper


The materials genome in action: identifying the performance limits for methane storage
Cory M. Simon, Jihan Kim, Diego A. Gomez-Gualdron, Jeffrey S. Camp, Yongchul G. Chung, Richard L. Martin, Rocio Mercado, Michael W. Deem, Dan Gunter, Maciej Haranczyk, David S. Sholl, Randall Q. Snurr and Berend Smit  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03515A, Perspective


Bioelectrodes modified with chitosan for long-term energy supply from the body
S. El Ichi, A. Zebda, J.-P. Alcaraz, A. Laaroussi, F. Boucher, J. Boutonnat, N. Reverdy-Bruas, D. Chaussy, M. N. Belgacem, P. Cinquin and D. K. Martin  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03430A, Paper


β-cyclodextrin enhanced triboelectrification for self-powered phenol detection and electrochemical degradation
Zhaoling Li, Jun Chen, Jin Yang, Yuanjie Su, Xing Fan, Ying Wu, Chongwen Yu and Zhong Lin Wang  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03596H, Communication

Cooperative kinetics of depolarization in CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite solar cells
Luca Bertoluzzi, Rafael S. Sanchez, Linfeng Liu, Jin-Wook Lee, Elena Mas-Marza, Hongwei Han, Nam-Gyu Park, Ivan Mora-Sero and Juan Bisquert  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03171G, Communication
C4EE03171G GA

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HOT Articles in EES

The following HOT articles have been highlighted by the reviewers of the articles as being particularly interesting or significant pieces of research. These are all free to access until 31st January 2015. The order they appear in the list has no meaning or ranking.

Automated vehicles and electrification of transport
Gregory James
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02229G, Opinion

C4EE02229G GA

Band engineering of high performance p-type FeNbSb based half-Heusler thermoelectric materials for figure of merit zT > 1
Chenguang Fu, Tiejun Zhu, Yintu Liu, Hanhui Xie and Xinbing Zhao  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03042G, Communication

C4EE03042G GA

Mechanistic insights into solar water oxidation by cobalt-phosphate-modified α-Fe2O3 photoanodes
Gerard M. Carroll, Diane K. Zhong and Daniel R. Gamelin  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02869D, Paper

C4EE02869D GA

Theory, practice and prospects of X-ray and neutron scattering for lignocellulosic biomass characterization: towards understanding biomass pretreatment
Gang Cheng, Xin Zhang, Blake Simmons and Seema Singh  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03147D, Review Article

C4EE03147D GA

Peanut shell hybrid sodium ion capacitor with extreme energy–power rivals lithium ion capacitors
Jia Ding, Huanlei Wang, Zhi Li, Kai Cui, Dimitre Karpuzov, Xuehai Tan, Alireza Kohandehghan and David Mitlin  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02986K, Paper

C4EE02986K GA

Adipic acid production from lignin
Derek R. Vardon, Mary Ann Franden, Christopher W. Johnson, Eric M. Karp, Michael T. Guarnieri, Jeffrey G. Linger, Michael J. Salm, Timothy J. Strathmann and Gregg T. Beckham  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03230F, Paper

C4EE03230F GA

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Biodiesel byproduct rejuvenated into plastic feedstock

A significant amount of glycerol (bottom layer) is leftover when making biodiesel (top layer) © Bo Cheng/ETH Zurich

A sustainable method to synthesise platform chemical lactic acid from waste glycerol, a byproduct of biodiesel production, has emerged from research in Switzerland.

Collaboration between the advanced catalysis engineering and the safety and environmental technology groups at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, headed by Javier Pérez-Ramírez and Konrad Hungerbuehler, respectively, gave way to the new cascade process. Glycerol is first oxidised to give dihydroxyacetone through an established enzymatic process. Dihydroxyacetone is then isomerised over a tin-containing zeolite catalyst, which was designed by ETH Zurich team, to give lactic acid.

Interested to know more?

Take a look at the full Chemistry World article by Geri Kitley online now.

For further information also see the original research article:

Environmental and economic assessment of lactic acid production from glycerol using cascade bio- and chemocatalysis
Merten Morales, Pierre Y. Dapsens, Isabella Giovinazzo, Julia Witte, Cecilia Mondelli, Stavros Papadokonstantakis, Konrad Hungerbühler and Javier Pérez-Ramírez
Energ. Environ. Sci., 2015, DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03352C

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From nutshell to supercapattery

Scientists in Canada have created a hybrid sodium ion capacitor (NIC) from peanut shells in a pioneering study bridging the gap between conventional ion batteries and supercapacitors.

Interested to know more?

Take a look at the full Chemistry World article by Dannielle Whittaker online now.

For further details there’s also the original research paper:

Peanut shell hybrid sodium ion capacitor with extreme energy–power rivals lithium ion capacitors
Jia Ding, Huanlei Wang, Zhi Li, Kai Cui, Dimitre Karpuzov, Xuehai Tan, Alireza Kohandehghan and David Mitlin 
Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02986K

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HOT articles in EES

These articles are available free for a limited time:

Combining experimental and theoretical methods to learn about the reactivity of gas-processing metalloenzymes
Claudio Greco, Vincent Fourmond, Carole Baffert, Po-hung Wang, Sébastien Dementin, Patrick Bertrand, Maurizio Bruschi, Jochen Blumberger, Luca de Gioia and Christophe Léger  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01848F, Review Article

C4EE01848F GA

Measuring thermoelectric transport properties of materials
Kasper A. Borup, Johannes de Boor, Heng Wang, Fivos Drymiotis, Franck Gascoin, Xun Shi, Lidong Chen, Mikhail I. Fedorov, Eckhard Müller, Bo B. Iversen and G. Jeffrey Snyder  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01320D, Review Article

Pt–Ru catalyzed hydrogen oxidation in alkaline media: oxophilic effect or electronic effect?
Ying Wang, Gongwei Wang, Guangwei Li, Bing Huang, Jing Pan, Qiong Liu, Juanjuan Han, Li Xiao, Juntao Lu and Lin Zhuang  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02564D, Communication

A general framework for the assessment of solar fuel technologies
Jeffrey A. Herron, Jiyong Kim, Aniruddha A. Upadhye, George W. Huber and Christos T. Maravelias  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01958J, Analysis

C4EE01958J GA

Nickel oxide encapsulated nitrogen-rich carbon hollow spheres with multiporosity for high-performance pseudocapacitors having extremely robust cycle life
Se Yun Kim, Hyung Mo Jeong, Jun Ho Kwon, Il Woo Ock, Won Hyuk Suh, Galen D. Stucky and Jeung Ku Kang  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02897J, Communication

Shale gas-to-syngas chemical looping process for stable shale gas conversion to high purity syngas with a H2:CO ratio of 2:1
Siwei Luo, Liang Zeng, Dikai Xu, Mandar Kathe, Elena Chung, Niranjani Deshpande, Lang Qin, Ankita Majumder, Tien-Lin Hsieh, Andrew Tong, Zhenchao Sun and Liang-Shih Fan  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02892A, Paper

Evaluating different classes of porous materials for carbon capture
Johanna M. Huck, Li-Chiang Lin, Adam H. Berger, Mahdi Niknam Shahrak, Richard L. Martin, Abhoyjit S. Bhown, Maciej Haranczyk, Karsten Reuter and Berend Smit  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE02636E, Paper

Stabilization of Si microwire arrays for solar-driven H2O oxidation to O2(g) in 1.0 M KOH(aq) using conformal coatings of amorphous TiO2
Matthew R. Shaner, Shu Hu, Ke Sun and Nathan S. Lewis  
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03012E, Communication

C4EE03012E GA

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Sawdust cellulose offers alkane pipeline

A new way for converting cellulose into liquid straight-chain alkanes may provide a viable alternative route to chemicals traditionally sourced from crude oil. With the demand for fossil-derived chemicals and fuels ever-increasing, making chemical building blocks using cellulose from the vast amounts of cheap, waste non-food plant biomass produced worldwide in combination with existing oil refinery infrastructure, could be an invaluable bridge to sustainable chemicals and fuels.

Read the full news article on the work from Bert Sels et al. online at Chemistry World.

The original research article is also free to access for a limited time – download it here:

Direct catalytic conversion of cellulose to liquid straight-chain alkanes
Beau Op de Beeck, Michiel Dusselier, Jan Geboers, Jensen Holsbeek, Eline Morré, Steffen Oswald, Lars Giebeler and Bert F. Sels
Energy. Environ. Sci., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01523A

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3D printing cuts fuel cell component costs

By using 3D printing researchers in the UK have cut the cost of manufacturing devices that produce hydrogen fuel by splitting water. The 3D printed plastic components developed by Lee Cronin and co-workers at the University of Glasgow, UK, allow for the construction of light weight and low-cost electrolysers that could make the currently expensive devices available to a wider audience. Hardware hackers in the scientific community are also encouraged to use the new manufacturing approach in open source developments.

Interested to find out more? For the full article visit Chemistry World.

Read the original article in Energy and Environmental Science – free to access until August 15th!

3D Printed Flow Plates for the Electrolysis of Water: an Economic and Adaptable Approach to Device Manufacture

Lee Cronin, Greig Chisholm, Philip Kitson, Niall Kirkaldy and Leanne Bloor

Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, Accepted Manuscript

DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01426J, Paper
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Solar cells: Tiny balls of fire – EES article featured in The Economist

A recent article in EES on how to increase the light-absorbing capability of a photoelectrochemical cell by arranging spheres of tungsten oxide has been selected as one of the three science articles featured in this week’s issue of The Economist. The article is written by Florent Boudoire and co-workers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, where the group’s research efforts are concentrated on high performance ceramic materials for energy and the environment.

The Economist offers authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science, technology and the connections between them.

Read the full article on the website now!

Also check out the original research article which has been made free to access for a limited period of time! –

Florent Boudoire et al., Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/C4EE00380B

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Harvesting electricity from seawater

A new type of blue energy harvesting device may offer a practical method of continuous coastal electricity generation.

In 2011, Stanford researchers described a new form of energy harvesting device coined as a “mixing entropy battery” in Nano Letters1. Their device capitalized on the chemical energy available in a system where an ion concentration gradient is present; in this case where low salinity wastewater or river water was mixed with ~0.6 M NaCl rich seawater. It is estimated that during this mixing process, there is a free energy reduction of 2.2 kJ per liter of freshwater.

Extractable Energy Per Cycle

Extractable energy depends on charging time

Using two electrodes, one Na+ selective the other Cl selective, a charging state exists when the battery is exposed to low salinity water, where ions in the electrodes are removed via a concentration gradient. Next, sea water replaces the low salinity water and the potential between the electrodes increases. This is followed by a discharge state where ions from the higher concentration solution reincorporate into their ion selective electrode . This charge/discharge cycle produces extractable energy per cycle as described in the figure shown.

In the present work, the same group investigates replacing the cathode material with a higher capacity material, Na4Mn9O18, as opposed to the previously reported Na2M5O10. An overall improvement was observed when researchers simulated batteries hooked up in a series, by passing the same effluent wastewater 12 times through the same cell. In doing so, the cumulative energy produced was 0.44 kWh/m3 of wastewater, compared to the theoretical maximum of 0.65 kWh/m3. This denotes an overall efficiency of 68%. Future considerations include reducing the number of batteries required in series, as well as eliminating the use of silver as a Cl selective electrode, for environmental concerns.

1.) Nano Lett., 2011, 11, 1810–1813

Interested? Read the full advance article in Energy and Environmental Science here:

Performance of a mixing entropy battery alternately flushed with wastewater effluent and seawater for recovery of salinity-gradient energy

Meng Ye, Mauro Pasta, Xing Xie, Yi Cui, and Craig S. Criddle
Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01034E

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Designing next-generation activated carbons for advanced energy storage applications

Activated carbons for energy storage

Activated carbons for energy storage

In this interesting and informative article, M. Sevilla and R. Mokaya review state-of-the-art synthesis methods for the preparation of activated carbons and their application in energy storage systems. Specifically, the authors detail recent developments in the control of properties such as pore size distribution, surface area and structural and chemical characteristics – and how such properties relate to performance in hydrogen storage and supercapacitors.

Activated carbons have a number of desirable features that make them attractive for use in advanced energy-storage systems. As well as being relatively light-weight, low-cost and chemically inert, they also have very large surface areas (> 1000 m2/g) and high micropore volumes in which to interact with other species. This makes activated carbons particularly useful as supercapacitor electrodes and hydrogen storage materials – where performance is strongly related to surface area and pore characteristics.

In this review, recent developments in the fabrication of activated carbons are discussed, focusing particularly on methods which allow the control of features, such as pore size distribution, surface area and physical and chemical characteristics such as texture, morphology and heteroatom-doping. The relationship between these properties and the performance of these materials as supercapacitor electrodes and their use in hydrogen storage is also looked at in detail, providing a guide for the direction of future research in this very active field.

Interested? Read the full article here:

Energy storage applications of activated carbons: supercapacitors and hydrogen storage

Marta Sevilla and Roberts Mokaya

Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, 7, 1250–1280

DOI: 10.1039/C3EE43525C

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