Energy & Environmental Science has been highlighted in Thomson Reuters Science Watch as a Rising Star in the field of Environment & Ecology. EES has an Impact Factor of 9.45 making it the the #1 ranked journal in its field.
Read the Science Watch interview with EES Managing Editor Philip Earis.
You can also access the first issue of EES in 2012 for free to get a taste of the great articles they’re talking about.
This month sees the following articles in EES that are in the top ten most accessed in February:
Recent advances in solution-processed interfacial materials for efficient and stable polymer solar cells
Hin-Lap Yip and Alex K.-Y. Jen
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 5994-6011
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE02806A
Na-ion batteries, recent advances and present challenges to become low cost energy storage systems
Verónica Palomares, Paula Serras, Irune Villaluenga, Karina B. Hueso, Javier Carretero-González and Teófilo Rojo
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 5884-5901
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE02781J
Challenges in the development of advanced Li-ion batteries: A review
Vinodkumar Etacheri, Rotem Marom, Ran Elazari, Gregory Salitra and Doron Aurbach
Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, 4, 3243-3262
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01598B
Optimization of photoelectrochemical water splitting performance on hierarchical TiO2 nanotubes array
Zhonghai Zhang and Peng Wang
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 6506-6512
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE03461A
Catalysts Made of Earth-Abundant Elements (Co, Ni, Fe) for Water Splitting: Recent Progress and Future Challenges
Pingwu Du and Richard Eisenberg
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 6012-6021
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE03250C
Recent Advances in Hybrid Photocatalysts for Solar Fuel Production
Phong D. Tran, Lydia H. Wong, James Barber and Joachim S. C. Loo
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 5902-5918
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE02849B
Energy and Environmental Nanotechnology in Conductive Paper and Textile
Liangbing Hu and Yi Cui
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 6423-6435
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE02414D
How should you measure your excitonic solar cells?
Henry J. Snaith
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 6513-6520
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE03429H
Graphene Based New Energy Materials
Yiqing Sun, Qiong Wu and Gaoquan Shi
Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, 4, 1113-1132
DOI: 10.1039/C0EE00683A
High-Performance Flexible Lithium-Ion Electrodes Based on Robust Network Architecture
Xilai Jia, Zheng Chen, Arnold Suwarnasarn, Lynn Rice, Xiaolei Wang, Hiesang Sohn, Qiang Zhang, Benjamin M. Wu, Fei Wei and Yunfeng Lu
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE03110H
Why not take a look at the articles today and blog your thoughts and comments below
Fancy submitting an article to EES? Then why not submit to us today!
Héctor Abruña and coworkers at Cornell University report a computational method for screening potential candidate organic molecules for their energy storage properties. Organic materials are relatively cheap to produce and also lighter than the inorganic oxides most commonly used for energy storage at present.
The team discovered that certain combinations of functional groups consistently produced materials with better performance.
Read the full details of this exciting article today:
Tailored redox functionality of small organics for pseudocapacitive electrodes
Stephen E. Burkhardt, Michael A. Lowe, Sean Conte, Weidong Zhou, Hualei Qian, Gabriel G. Rodríguez-Calero, Jie Gao, Richard G. Hennig and Héctor D. Abruña
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21255B
First it was the snails, now it’s the turn of the clams to be plugged in and used as living batteries. The same group of scientists from the US and Israel, led by Evgeny Katz, has now implanted biofuel cells into clams and integrated them into batteries.
The researchers implanted the battery’s electrodes in the clam through holes cut into their shells. To produce power, enzymes on the electrodes catalyse the oxidation of glucose, which the clams produce when they metabolise food.
Katz’s team even set up the clams in series and parallel and tested their power outputs, comparing the two arrangements. Three clams set up in series produced a measly 5.2μW; three clams in parallel generated a massive 37μW.
They hooked up the clams to a capacitor to collect the energy for an hour and then discharged it through an electrical motor and managed to make the motor rotate a quarter of a full turn. The team says this is the first step on the long journey to bioelectronic self-powered cyborgs for potential military and homeland security applications. Self-powered cybernetic organisms? Now I can’t get the image of a Terminator clam brandishing an Uzi 9mm out of my head!
Hasta la vista, baby!
Living Battery – Biofuel Cells Operating In Vivo in Clams
Alon Szczupak, Jan Halamek, Lenka Halámková, Vera Bocharova, Lital Alfonta and Evgeny Katz
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21626D
Read the original article at Chemistry World
Jeffrey Grossman and coworkers communication on 3D solar energy harvesting has been highlighted in ScienceDaily. The MIT researchers modelled and built three-dimensional photovoltaic arrays which are able to provide more energy, more consistently throughout a day. The work was also highlighted in our recent blog article.
Read this HOT communication in full today:
Solar energy generation in three dimensions
Marco Bernardi, Nicola Ferralis, Jin H. Wan, Rachelle Villalon and Jeffrey C. Grossman
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21170J
US researchers have come up with an explanation for their recent results that show that introducing piezoelectric semiconductor nanowires into solar cells improves their efficiency.
Piezoelectricity is the charge created when certain materials are placed under stress, where compressing or stretching the substance generates electricity. Piezoelectric materials have been used as sensors in cars, as energy scavengers and also as ignition sources in electric lighters. Researchers across the world are working on improving the efficiency of photovoltaic devices, but until recently hadn’t thought of harnessing piezo-potential to do so.
Schematic and energy band diagram of (a) a general nanowire piezoelectric solar cell fabricated using a p-n junction structure. Schematics and energy band diagram of the piezoelectric solar cells under (b) compressive strain and (c) tensile strain, where the polarity and magnitude of the piezopotential can effectively control the carrier generation, separation and transport characteristics. The colour code represents the distribution of the piezopotential at the n-type semiconductor
Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…
Read the Communication from EES:
Piezo-phototronics effect on nano/microwire solar cells
Yan Zhang , Ya Yang and Zhong Lin Wang
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE00057A
Researchers based in Australia have found a way to convert more of the energy from the sun into useful energy, without massively increasing the cost of the process.
Currently photons with energy below a certain threshold are not picked up by most solar cells, but by combining two photons to make a single photon of higher energy (upconversion) more of the incoming radiation can be utilized.
Schmidt, Lips and co-workers describe a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cell backed by a layer of palladium porphyrin capable of upconverting photons, which are then able to be radiated back into the a-Si:H layer and converted to useful energy.
Read this HOT paper in full today:
Improving the light-harvesting of amorphous silicon solar cells with photochemical upconversion
Yuen Yap Cheng, Burkhard Fückel, Rowan W. MacQueen, Tony Khoury, Raphaël G. C. R. Clady, Tim F. Schulze, N. J. Ekins-Daukes, Maxwell J. Crossley, Bernd Stannowski, Klaus Lips and Timothy W. Schmidt
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21136J
Scientists in Korea say that silica (SiO2; quartz) could be a cheap anode for lithium ion batteries.
Silica was benign and would not react with lithium because of its stability as an oxide, but the team has shown that by using mechanical milling, the oxide is reduced and the silica forms nanosized silicon embedded in amorphous silica using bulk crystalline quartz powders.
When they applied the material as an anode in lithium ion batteries, they found that the milled silica exhibited a reversible capacity ~800mAhg-1 over 200 cycles.
‘HOT’ EES Communication:
Quartz (SiO2): a new energy storage anode material for Li-ion batteries
Won-Seok Chang, Cheol-Min Park, Jae-Hun Kim, Young-Ugk Kim, Goojin Jeong and Hun-Joon Sohn
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE00003B
US scientists have made solar panels that work in three dimensions to use the sun’s energy throughout the day.
The panels gave up to 20 times more energy output compared to flat solar panels and there’s no need for expensive, cumbersome tracking systems in which flat solar panels rotate to point at the sun.
Read this ‘HOT’ Communication:
Solar energy generation in three dimensions
Marco Bernardi, Nicola Ferralis, Jin H. Wan, Rachelle Villalon and Jeffrey C. Grossman
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21170J
Cost is a major drawback in the current silicon wafer technology used for photovoltaic cells. In this HOT communication Charles Teplin and co-workers report a proof-of concept solar cell using a thin film of crystal silicon grown on an inexpensive CaF2 “seed” layer.
Read the full details of this exciting Communication:
Biaxially-textured photovoltaic film crystal silicon on ion beam assisted deposition CaF2 seed layers on glass
James R. Groves , Joel B. Li , Bruce M. Clemens , Vincenzo LaSalvia , Falah Hasoon , Howard M. Branz and Charles W. Teplin
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21097E
