Feature Articles
Scientists have traditionally strived to create ways to achieve theoretical operational limits through conventional applications of scientific and engineering principles. Recently, however, a new breed of scientist is striving for something more ambitious: breaking these traditional limits altogether with unorthodox approaches to traditional problems. To promote such healthy rule-breaking, the Department of Energy began the Energy Frontier Research Centers in 2009 to accelerate such transformative technology. In this inaugural issue of the EFRC newsletter, we report on the progress occurring in a variety of the EFRCs, and feature groundbreaking work occurring in the pursuit of unique energy solutions.
At the Materials Science of Actinides Energy Frontier Research Center, scientists are uncovering mechanisms that produce novel actinide-based compounds with chemistries relevant to the nuclear fuel cycle and environmental remediation. As the demand for power generation increases, gaining efficiency through fuel reprocessing and the safe storage of used fuel are hot topics in the nuclear industry.
In the world of biomass and carbohydrate processing for biofuels and biochemicals, enzymes have long been the catalyst of choice despite their high cost. Now, researchers from the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation have discovered a new zeolite catalyst that is cheaper, more stable and can directly replace enzymes in the production of fructose. This research was led by Mark Davis at the California Institute of Technology and featured in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Photovoltaic materials generate electricity from solar illumination. The widespread use of PVs for solar energy generation is limited by the efficiency, stability and cost of the systems, a problem being taken on by Energy Frontier Research Centers. The maximum theoretical efficiency of a basic semiconductor solar cell (p-n junction) is defined by the Shockley-Queisser limit. One of the most promising new approaches can potentially produce solar cells with efficiencies exceeding the Shockley-Queisser limit.
Research Highlights
The performance of organic or carbon-based solar cells can be greatly improved by using a second solvent, or additive, during the processing of the organic materials, according to scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara working in the Center for Energy Efficient Materials. The team gained insight into what that additive does using highly specialized imaging techniques. Their research was published in Advanced Energy Materials.
A novel light-trapping scheme based on nanosphere coatings can boost the efficiency of thin-film solar cells, according to a research group at the Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion, an Energy Frontier Research Center. The work from the Atwater group at Caltech, which graced the cover of Advanced Materials, analyzes how incident light is concentrated in these beads and states under which conditions this light can be coupled into the active layer where it will be absorbed.
For the first time, atomic layer deposition was used to synthesize nanoparticle catalysts that contain two metals: ruthenium and platinum. ALD has already been commercialized by the semiconductor industry and is easily transferable to the energy production industry as a way to fabricate catalysts.
Viruses are typically associated with death and disease; so how are they advantageous for use in battery electrode materials? Researchers at the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center, were able to directly fabricate virus-based nickel current collectors. In this study, nanoporous silicon was deposited onto virus-based nickel current collectors for...
A 12-fold increase in the rate of water splitting was achieved using a transparent nanocrystalline electrode made of indium oxide doped with tin (ITO), instead of a conventional planar electrode. Catalysis was sustained for at least 8 hours, equivalent to ~800 turnovers, at a rate of ~0.027 s-1 and an impressive 95% oxygen yield. This work, conducted by the Solar Fuels and Next Generation Photovoltaics Energy Frontier Research Center in conjunction with the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalization...
Through careful theoretical research, scientists at the Center for Excitonics have harnessed decoherence, which bridges quantum mechanics and classical physics approaches to describing the world. This work demonstrates controlled transfer of excitons, tiny mobile concentrations of energy. This breakthrough has far-reaching applications, including artificial photosynthesis, a hot topic in the realm of renewable energy.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this newsletter are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views or position of the Department of Energy.