Sustainable Energy & Fuels Blog

We are delighted to introduce our newest Associate Editor for Sustainable Energy & Fuels, Professor Fuxiang Zhang.

Fuxiang Zhang received his PhD degree from Nankai University, China in 2004, and became a full professor of physical chemistry at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013. Prior to this appointment he worked as a postdoc at Pierre and Marie Curie University and the University of Tokyo. As leader of a research group focused on materials and catalysis for solar hydrogen production and storage at DICP, Fuxiang is now working with his colleagues for solar-to-chemical conversion involving photocatalysis for overall water splitting, electrocatalysis, precise synthesis of materials and in situ characterization as well as understanding of catalytic reaction mechanisms. His team has assembled a series of powder-suspended systems for visible-light-driven overall water splitting to produce hydrogen with high quantum efficiency, and have published ~200 peer-reviewed papers in the fields of material science and heterogeneous photo/electrocatalysis.

As well as his role with Sustainable Energy & Fuels, Fuxiang is an Associate Editor for Journal of Energy Chemistry, and an Editorial Board member for journals such as National Science Review, Science China Chemistry and eScience. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2020.

Please join us in welcoming Professor Zhang to his new role with Sustainable Energy & Fuels!

Our latest Sustainable Energy & Fuels themed collection, Next-generation battery technologies beyond Lithium, is now open for submissions.

This Sustainable Energy & Fuels themed collection, guest edited by Chunmei Ban (University of Colorado Boulder, USA), Guillermo Alvarez Ferrero (Humboldt University, Germany), Marta Sevilla (Instituto Nacional del Carbón – CSIC, Spain) and Feixiang Wu (Central South University, China) will highlight alternatives to lithium-based battery designs and technologies

Lithium-ion based batteries are an essential part of the world’s energy infrastructure, however lithium-based energy storage systems have challenges in terms of safety, global demand for lithium, energy intensive production and ease of recycling. This collection aims to highlight alternative materials, electrolytes and technologies to develop the next generation of non-lithium batteries

Topics in scope for this collection include, but are not limited to, alternative alkali and alkali-earth metal batteries (including metal-ion, metal-air and sulfur-based systems), all solid-state batteries, multivalent batteries, and other technologies for non-lithium ion energy storage (e.g., redox flow batteries or dual-ion batteries). We especially value studies that prioritize sustainability as a central focus and encourage life cycle assessment studies.

The deadline for submissions is 30th April 2025.

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service and the Editorial Office informed by email. Please add the themed collection code “SEBeyond24” when prompted at submission. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check the suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and the inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed. Please also note that all submissions will be subject to initial assessment and rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of Sustainable Energy & Fuels. All manuscripts will be subject to the journal’s usual peer-review process. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online and they will be published in a regular issue of Sustainable Energy & Fuels.

Authors are welcome to submit original research as a Communication article or Full Paper or contribute a Review or Perspective article. If you have any questions about the collection, please do get in touch with the Editorial Office.

We are delighted to announce that Wenming Yang (National University of Singapore) has joined the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Advisory Board!

Wenming has been an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore since 2017. His research interests include internal combustion engines fuelled by biofuels and blend fuels, development of advanced platform for boilers with high efficiency and low emissions, incinerators and micro power generators, as well as similar areas.

For more information about Sustainable Energy & Fuels and our Board Members click here

We are delighted to open our latest Sustainable Energy & Fuels themed collection titled ‘Metal-Free Photo/Electrocatalysts for Sustainable Energy Solutions‘ to submissions. Guest edited by Menny Shalom (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel), Sebastian Sprick (University of Strathclyde, UK) and Xinchen Wang (Fuzhou University, China), it will showcase metal-free photo- and electrocatalytic materials for sustainable energy applications.

Photo- and electrocatalysis are promising research areas for sustainable energy applications and chemicals production. Metal-free photo- and electrocatalysts for energy conversion potentially offer a low-cost and efficient solution. These materials include carbon nitrides, boron carbon nitrides, triazine-based frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, conjugated materials as well as composites and biohybrid systems. This collection aims to highlight the unique properties of metal-free photo- and electrocatalysts and their important energy applications such as photocatalytic water splitting, carbon dioxide reduction, hydrogen peroxide production and organic transformation reactions.

The deadline for submissions is 20th December 2024.

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service and the Editorial Office informed by email. Please add the themed collection code “SEMFree23” when prompted at submission. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check the suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and the inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed. Please also note that all submissions will be subject to initial assessment and rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of Sustainable Energy & Fuels. All manuscripts will be subject to the journal’s usual peer-review process. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online and they will be published in a regular issue of Sustainable Energy & Fuels.

Authors are welcome to submit original research as a Communication article or Full Paper or contribute a Review or Perspective article. If you have any questions about the collection, please do get in touch with the Editorial Office.

We are delighted to introduce the newest members of the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Editorial Board, Professor Carol Sze Ki Lin and Professor Wooyul Kim.

Carol Sze Ke Lin, new Editorial Board Member

Carol Lin is currently a Professor at the School of Energy and Environment at City University of Hong Kong (CityU). She received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Materials Engineering with 1st class honours from The University of Auckland, New Zealand. She was awarded her PhD in 2008 in Chemical Engineering at The University of Manchester, England. After one year as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University in Belgium, she returned to Hong Kong and joined the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) as a Visiting Assistant Professor.  In July 2011, she began her academic career in School of Energy and Environment at CityU.

Her research interests lie in technological advancement and development of circular waste-based biorefinery for sustainable production of chemicals, materials and fuels, that contributes to reduction of environmental burden of waste disposal and enhancement of resource efficiency. Her research covers the following areas: (i) Biosynthesis of high value-added products and organic pollutant removal via microalgae-based biorefinery; (ii) Development of Yarrowia lipolytica yeast as a promising host; (iii) Novel bioprocess for recycling textile waste for sustainable production of high value-added products; (iv) Biosurfactants production from industrial food waste feedstocks; (v) Identification of microplastics in municipal solid waste landfill leachates.

Carol is a recipient of a number of innovation awards, including two Gold Medals in Geneva Invention Exhibition (2018, 2024), Gold Medal with Jury’s Commendation in Geneva Invention Exhibition (2016), and the President’s Awards (2017). She was awarded the Milliporesigma Green Chemistry Education Challenge Awards 2024 by Beyond Benign, Inc. in Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA. She has also been selected for the High-end Foreign Experts Program in Tongji University, Shanghai, China 2023-2024.

Wooyul Kim, new Editorial Board Member

Wooyul Kim received his PhD from POSTECH in 2012. During his PhD, he also conducted research at Osaka University as a visiting researcher in 2009, 2010, and 2012. Following that, he spent over 3 years (2012-2015) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a Postdoctoral Fellow. From 2016 to 2022, he joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Sookmyung Women’s University as an Assistant and Associate Professor. Since 2022, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Energy Engineering at KENTECH.

Recently, his research has primarily focused on revealing both structural identity of the key intermediates and their cites in the catalytic cycle (i.e., their kinetic relevancy) to overcome the kinetic barriers for photo (or electro) catalysis. Based on these accomplishments, he has received several prestigious awards, including the 2023 KENTECH Award for Research Excellence, the 2022 Energy & Fuels Rising Stars recognition, the 2021 Journal of Materials Chemistry A Emerging Investigators honor, and the 2020 EES Lectureship Award, among others.

Please join us in welcoming them both to the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Editorial Board!

A collection showcasing the latest developments towards hybrid ion capacitors

Sustainable Energy & Fuels is pleased to present our Hybrid Ion Capacitors themed collection. Guest edited by Marta Sevilla (Instituto Nacional del Carbón – CSIC, Spain), Vanchiappan Aravindan (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, India), Martin Oschatz (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany) and Konstantin Schutjajew (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany), Sustainable Energy & Fuels is proud to highlight the latest developments in this area.

Hybrid ion capacitors are considered a promising next-generation charge-storage device owing to their combined features of both rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors, i.e., high energy and high-power capability. These devices stand out by their tunable performance characteristics and a broad range of possibly applicable materials. Many congratulations to all the featured researchers!

Read the collection

The Guest Editors introduce this collection in their Editorial titled “Shaping the future of hybrid ion capacitors”.

Read the introductory editorial

All of the articles in the collection are free to access until the end of January 2024. We hope you enjoy reading this collection and look forward to seeing how this field progresses! Please continue to submit your impactful work to Sustainable Energy & Fuels.

We are delighted to introduce the newest member of the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Editorial Board, Dr Tharamani C. Nagaiah.

Thara is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar, India. She holds a PhD degree from Bangalore University and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and an AvH Postdoctoral Fellowship at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include the design and development of new materials with a focus on energy conversion/storage and biosensing applications, and in-depth fundamental analysis of the newly designed electrocatalysts by various electrochemical, spectroscopic, microscopic, and scanning probe techniques.

She is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships such as the Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, Germany, and the Ramanujan Fellowship by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry admitted through the “Leaders in the field” scheme and an elected Fellow of the Indian Chemical Society. She is a recipient of the CRSI-Bronze Medal 2023 from the Chemical Research Society of India and the Silver Medal of CRS 2023 from the Society Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha, as well as the ECSI National Metrohm Award 2023 from the Electrochemical Society of India and the A.V. Rama Rao prize for Women 2024 from the Chemical Research Society of India.

Please join us in welcoming Thara to the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Editorial Board!

A collection highlighting excellent energy research being carried out by the global biorefining community.

Sustainable Energy & Fuels is pleased to present our Biorefining themed collection. Guest Edited by George W. Huber (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Muxina Konarova (University of Queensland, Australia), Jason Y. C. Lim (A*STAR, NUS, Singapore), and Karen Wilson (Griffith University, Australia) this collection spans, but is not limited to, biomass/waste pre-treatment, bio-derived materials, bio-derived chemicals, and advanced biofuels research. Many congratulations to all the featured researchers on their important work so far in the field!

Read the collection

The Guest Editors introduce this collection in their Editorial titled “Harnessing the power of biorefining: paving the way for sustainable fuels and chemicals”.

Read the introductory editorial

All of the articles in the collection are free to access until the end of September 2023. We hope you enjoy reading this collection and look forward to seeing how this field progresses! Please continue to submit your exciting work on Biorefining to Sustainable Energy & Fuels.

Our latest themed collection highlighting Solar Fuels and Chemicals: Photocatalytic Water Splitting and CO2 Reduction is guest edited by Profs. Ryu Abe (Kyoto University), Kazunari Domen (The University of Tokyo), Osamu Ishitani (Tokyo Institute of Technology) and Yun Hau Ng (City University of Hong Kong).

This collection aims to showcase the recent advances in the field of photocatalytic water splitting and CO2 reduction, with a focus on solar-driven production of clean fuels and chemicals. The wide range of topics covered include semiconductor materials chemistry, photoelectrochemistry, nanotechnology, co-catalysts with high selectivity, molecular catalyst chemistry, spectroscopy, theoretical study and system design for practical applications. All manuscripts must also fall within the scope of the journal, and meet the journal’s usual quality criteria as outlined on our webpage.

For more information on the collection, which closes for submissions on the 30^th November 2023, see our open call for papers.

All articles included in the collection will be made free to access for one month after publication and benefit from promotion via our social media channels.

When you publish with Sustainable Energy & Fuels, you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – with a medium time to first decision for peer reviewed manuscripts of 28 days
• Benefit from Open Access publishing options
• Be confident of the global energy audience for your work

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

If you’re interested in contributing to this themed collection, submit your research today and please add the themed collection code “SEWATER23” when prompted at submission. If you have any questions about the collection, please do get in touch with the Editorial Office.

Our themed collection highlighting Hybrid, Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics Stability is guest edited by Profs. Francesca Brunetti, Vida Engmann, Morten Madsen and David M. Tanenbaum.

This collection will showcase recent progress and challenges in the field of stability for hybrid, organic and perovskite photovoltaics. The scope of the collection is broad, and we welcome all submissions on photovoltaics stability which provide insights regarding future directions towards more stable and sustainable technologies. All manuscripts must also fall within the scope of the journal and meet the journal’s usual quality criteria as outlined on our webpage.

For more information on the collection, see our open call for papers. The deadline for submissions has now been extended to the 30^th of September 2023.

All articles included in the collection will be made free to access for one month after publication and benefit from promotion via our social media channels.

When you publish with Sustainable Energy & Fuels, you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – with a medium time to first decision for peer reviewed manuscripts of 28 days
• Benefit from Open Access publishing options
• Be confident of the global energy audience for your work when publishing in the RSC’s energy journal family which includes Energy & Environmental Science and EES Catalysis.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

If you’re interested, submit your research today, mentioning that the work is a contribution to the Hybrid, Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics Stability collection when submitting your manuscript.