Lithium-ion + sodium-ion + flow + solid-state batteries; thermoelectrics ZT; perovskite + silicon + tandem solar cells; PEM + SOFC fuel cells; hydrogen electrolysers; supercapacitors; thermal-management materials.
Energy Materials
Lithium-ion battery cathode
LiCoO2 (Goodenough 1980), LiFePO4 (Padhi 1997), NMC (Ohzuku 2001), NCA, LMR; energy density 100-300 Wh/kg; Goodenough-Whittingham-Yoshino…
Solid-state battery
Sulfide (Li10GeP2S12 LGPS), oxide (LLZO Li7La3Zr2O12), polymer electrolytes; Li-metal anode increases energy density above 400 Wh/kg;…
Sodium-ion battery
CATL 2021 commercial Na-ion; layered oxide / Prussian-blue / polyanionic cathodes; hard-carbon anode; lower energy density (about 160…
Flow battery (vanadium redox)
Skyllas-Kazacos 1985 all-vanadium flow battery; decoupled energy (electrolyte volume) and power (electrode area); 20+ years cycle life;…
Thermoelectric ZT figure of merit
ZT = S^2 sigma T / kappa where S=Seebeck, sigma=conductivity, kappa=thermal conductivity; Bi2Te3 (ZT about 1) commercial, SnSe (Zhao 2014…
Solar cell (perovskite)
MAPbI3 / FAPbI3 hybrid organic-inorganic; PCE 3.8 percent (2009 Miyasaka) to 26.1 percent (2024 NREL); cheap solution-process; stability +…
Solar cell (silicon)
Crystalline-Si dominates 95 percent of PV market; mono-Si > poly-Si > a-Si; PERC and TOPCon and HJT architectures; lab-record 26.7 percent…
Solar cell (tandem)
Stacking subcells with complementary bandgaps exceeds Shockley-Queisser single-junction limit; perovskite-on-Si tandem reached 33.9 percent…
Fuel cell (PEM)
Proton-Exchange-Membrane uses Nafion electrolyte; Pt catalyst on carbon support; Toyota Mirai automotive; 60-70 percent efficiency;…
Solid oxide fuel cell
YSZ (yttria-stabilized zirconia) electrolyte at 700-1000 C; Ni-YSZ anode + LSM cathode; high efficiency (60+ percent); fuel-flexibility (H2…
Hydrogen electrolyser
Alkaline + PEM + AEM + SOEC technologies; produces green-H2 from renewable electricity; about 50 kWh/kg-H2; EU + US targets 1 USD/kg-H2 by…
Supercapacitor
EDLC (electric double-layer) carbon-based plus pseudocapacitor (RuO2, MnO2); high power density (10 kW/kg) but lower energy (10 Wh/kg) than…
Li-anode + electrolyte interface (SEI)
Solid-Electrolyte Interphase forms on Li-anode in 1st cycle: ~10-100 nm Li2CO3 + LiF + organic-Li layer; cycling stability depends on SEI…
Redox flow battery (vanadium detail)
All-vanadium VO2+/VO2+ + V2+/V3+ redox couples; nominal-voltage 1.26 V; NaSICON / Nafion membrane; energy-density limited by V solubility…
Organic photovoltaic (OPV)
Bulk-heterojunction donor-acceptor blend: P3HT-PCBM (Kim 2007) -> non-fullerene-acceptor Y6 (Yuan 2019) achieves PCE 19% (2024); flexible /…
Perovskite LED (PeLED)
Tan 2014 / Cao 2018 metal-halide perovskite-LEDs: red 25% + green 28% + blue 15% EQE; FAPbI3 / CsPbBr3 emitters; ion-migration +…
Thermoelectric Seebeck (PF detail)
Power factor PF = S^2 sigma; high PF requires both high Seebeck S (low-doped semiconductors) + high conductivity sigma (high-doped);…
Photoelectrochemical water splitting
Fujishima-Honda 1972 TiO2 photoanode under UV; modern Si-based + III-V tandem reach 19% solar-to-hydrogen-efficiency (Khaselev-Turner…
Shockley-Queisser detailed-balance efficiency limit eta_max(E_g)
Shockley-Queisser limit (Shockley-Queisser 1961 *J Appl Phys* 32, 510) is the maximum power-conversion efficiency eta_max of a…