Sustainable Energy & Fuels Blog

A collection highlighting the rising stars of energy research

Sustainable Energy & Fuels is proud to present our Emerging Investigators Series, highlighting the very best work from researchers in the early stages of their independent careers. The collection showcases research from early career energy scientists who are working to make energy technologies more sustainable, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 and the scope of Sustainable Energy & Fuels. Many congratulations to all the featured researchers on their important work so far in the field!

Read the collection

We hope you enjoy reading these articles. The collection is ongoing so if you meet our requirements and would like to contribute, please do get in touch.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Carsten Streb has joined the Sustainable Energy & Fuels Editorial Board as an Associate Editor.

Carsten Streb is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Ulm University and Group Leader at Helmholtz Institute Ulm as well as management board member of the Collaborative Research Center TRR 234 CataLight. He received his undergraduate degree from TU Kaiserslautern, undertook a PhD at the University of Glasgow before starting his independent career at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuernberg. Carsten is an inorganic supramolecular chemist with a broad interest in materials design for energy conversion and storage. His research is focused on developing chemical solutions to urgent global challenges. In this context, his group designs technologically relevant materials for solar energy conversion, (photo-)electrocatalysis and battery materials.

Read his recent work in Sustainable Energy & Fuels:

Polymeric carbon nitride coupled with a molecular thiomolybdate catalyst: exciton and charge dynamics in light-driven hydrogen evolution
Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2020,4, 6085-6095

Organic linkage controls the photophysical properties of covalent photosensitizer–polyoxometalate hydrogen evolution dyads
Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2020,4, 4688-4693

Sustainable Energy & Fuels are glad to support the 3rd International School on Hybrid, Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics, taking place in Chernogolovka, Russia and online from 22nd – 25th November 2021.

Register before the 20th November deadline

We are delighted to support the International Solar Fuels conference 2021, organized by the Royal Society of Chemistry in conjunction with the University of Grenoble and Uppsala University. This conference will take place online from the 26th – 29th July 2021.

The main conference will be preceded by the Young conference, which aims to give as many young researchers as possible the opportunity to present. This will also include keynote talks from mentoring experts, and careers advice from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The programme will explore all aspects of direct solar fuel production, combining biological, molecular and solid state approaches. The main themes include:

• Multi-electron/multi-proton catalysis (homogeneous, heterogeneous, enzymatic and bioinspired processes)
• Light-harvesting and light-driven processes
• Photoelectrochemistry
• Photobiological approaches
• Metabolic engineering
• Devices and demonstration: robustness, sustainability and upscale

Submit your oral abstract to the mainconference or the Young conference before 06 April 2021

Submit your poster abstract to the main conference or the Young conference by 7 June 2021

Find out more and register here

We are delighted to highlight the latest Sustainable Energy & Fuels themed issue on Organic Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage.

Guest Edited by Emilio Palomares (ICIQ and ICREA) and Juan Luis Delgado (Ikerbasque and Polymat), this issue showcases studies on the recent progress and challenges in the field of organic, inorganic and hybrid materials for energy conversion. This includes advances in photovoltaics, solar to fuels conversion, and catalysis for sustainable energy applications. You can read our Editorial introducing this issue here.

In addition to the Open Access articles in this issue, all articles are free to access until 28^th February.

Below is a small selection of some of the articles featured in the issue:

A low temperature aqueous formate fuel cell using cobalt hexacyanoferrate as a non-noble metal oxidation catalyst Lijuan Han, Jesús González-Cobos, Irene Sánchez-Molina, Stefano Giancola, Scott J. Folkman, S. Giménez, A. Vidal-Ferran and José Ramón Galán-Mascarós*

Proton trap effect on catechol–pyridine redox polymer nanoparticles as organic electrodes for lithium batteries

Antonela Gallastegui, Daniela Minudri, Nerea Casado, Nicolas Goujon, Fernando Ruipérez, Nagaraj Patil, Christophe Detrembleur, Rebeca Marcilla and David Mecerreyes*

Benzothiadiazole-based photosensitizers for efficient and stable dye-sensitized solar cells and 8.7% efficiency semi-transparent mini-modules Maxime Godfroy, Johan Liotier, Valid M. Mwalukuku, Damien Joly, Quentin Huaulmé, Lydia Cabau, Cyril Aumaitre, Yann Kervella, Stéphanie Narbey, Frédéric Oswald, Emilio Palomares, Carlos A. González Flores, Gerko Oskam and  Renaud Demadrille*

The Effect of bulky electron-donating thioether substituents on the performances of Phthalocyanine based Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Mine Ince*, Ren Kuboi, Tuncay Ince, Kuon Yoshimura, Daiki Motoyoshi, Masahiro Sonobe, Ryota Kudo, Shogo Mori*, Mutsumi Kimura* and Tomás Torres*

Molecularly engineered thienyl-triphenylamine substituted zinc phthalocyanine as dopant free hole transporting materials in perovskite solar cells Peng Huang, Adrián Hernández, Samrana Kazim, Javier Ortiz, Ángela Sastre-Santos* and Shahzada Ahmad*

Mechanisms of photoredox catalysts: the role of optical spectroscopy

Noufal Kandoth*,   Javier Pérez Hernández, Emilio Palomares and Julio Lloret-Fillol*

We hope that you enjoy reading the great research featured in this issue!Emilio Palomares and Juan Luis Delgado

We would like to highlight the Outstanding Reviewers for Sustainable Energy & Fuels in 2019, as selected by the editorial team, for their significant contribution to the journal. The reviewers have been chosen based on the number, timeliness and quality of the reports completed over the last 12 months.

We would like to say a big thank you to those individuals listed here as well as to all of the reviewers that have supported the journal. Each Outstanding Reviewer will receive a certificate to give recognition for their significant contribution.

Joel W. Ager III, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, ORCID: 0000-0001-9334-9751
Victor Ortiz-Martinez, University of Cartagena, ORCID: 0000-0002-9071-3009
Hajime Suzuki, Kyoto University, ORCID: 0000-0002-8891-2033
Sibo Wang, Nanyang Technological University, ORCID: 0000-0003-2656-9169
Zailai Xie, Fuzhou University, ORCID: 0000-0002-7694-7634

We would also like to thank the Sustainable Energy & Fuels board and the sustainable energy  community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

If you would like to become a reviewer for our journal, just email us with details of your research interests and an up-to-date CV or résumé.  You can find more details in our author and reviewer resource centre

The 2nd Asia-Pacific Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (AP-HOPV18) was held in Kitakyushu, Japan between 28-30 January 2018. Both Sustainable Energy & Fuels and Energy & Environmental Science, along with Materials Chemistry Frontiers and Journal of Materials Chemistry A supported the event by offering prizes for the best posters. These prizes were awarded to:

• Sustainable Energy & Fuel Award
  Hong Duc (David) Pham, Queensland University of Technology

“Novel Low Cost Triphenylamine Derivatives based Hole Transporting Organic Materials for Highly Efficient and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells”

• Materials Chemistry Frontiers Award
  Yuta Shirogane, Waseda University

“Perovskite Layer Formation with Polymer-Scaffold: Grain Structure Analysis and in-situ Conductive AFM Characterization”

• Journal of Materials Chemistry A Award
  Molang Cai, National Institute for Materials Science

“Electrical Potential Distribution for High Performance Perovskite Solar Cells”

• Energy & Environmental Science Award
  Zeguo Tang, The University of Tokyo

“Optical properties of organometal halide perovskite with different composition of A-site cations”

L-R: Juan Bisquert, Hiromitsu Urakami, Molang Cai (5th left), Hong Duc (David) Pham (6th left), Yuta Shirogane (far right).

Xinchen Wang, Fuzhou University, China

Professor Xinchen Wang is currently the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, and the Dean of the College of Chemistry in Fuzhou University. He obtained his BSc and MSc at Fuzhou University, and went to the Chinese University of Hong Kong to pursue his PhD. In 2006, he moved to Tokyo University as a JSPS post-Doctor, then he went to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, and was promoted to be a Group Leader 2008 until 2012. He started his Professorship in Fuzhou University at 2005. His research interests lie within catalysis and photocatalysis, where he has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and has gained an H-index of 79.

Submit your best sustainable energy and fuels catalysis research to Xinchen Wang now!