Following a successful Royal Society Discussion Meeting on ‘Energy Materials for a Low Carbon Future’, a special themed issue has been published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, covering recent advances in solar cells, batteries and thermoelectrics.
The development of low carbon energy technologies is widely accepted as one of the most urgent challenges of our time, in order to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and deal with the emerging issue of air pollution. These important issues were the focus of the discussion meeting held in September 2018, organised by Professor Saiful Islam, Richard Catlow FRS (UCL), Jenny Nelson FRS (Imperial) and Peter Bruce FRS (Oxford).
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is one of the world's longest running science journals. The first issue appeared in March 1665 and since then has published papers by Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, William Herschel and many more celebrated names in science.
The Royal Society meeting and themed issue followed four annual ‘Energy Materials’ symposia at Bath that formed part of the £3.2 million EPSRC Programme Grant project led by Saiful Islam to develop new materials for the next generation of energy devices.
Professor Saiful Islam said: "The special themed issue illustrates that innovative materials science lies at the centre of breakthroughs that have already been made on low carbon energy technologies; an excellent example being the rechargeable lithium battery, which has helped power the revolution in portable electronics.
“One of my highlights of the Discussion meeting was the ‘flash’ poster session of 25 one-slide, one-minute talks on the posters that were being presented by PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. And all were on time!"
Professor Richard Catlow commented: “This special issue brings together world-renowned experts in the energy materials field with wide and complementary experience. The high quality papers illustrate the crucial role that innovative materials research plays in the development of low carbon energy technologies.”