Frontiers in Energy最新文献

{"title":"CO-assisted tandem system for the direct conversion of methane to methanol","authors":"Yuan Gao,&nbsp;Junhao Zhao,&nbsp;Yifei Yu,&nbsp;Yulian He","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1098-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1098-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The selective oxidation of methane (CH₄) to methanol (CH₃OH) requires efficient C–H activation while limiting product over-oxidation. Here a CO-assisted Pt/CeO₂–aqueous Cu tandem system is developed for selective CH₄ oxidation in aqueous media. CO adsorbs strongly on Pt and serves as both a surface regulator and a co-reactant in O₂ activation. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations predict a downward shift of 0.73 eV in the Pt d-band center on the model Pt(111) surface, indicating a modified adsorption environment. Isotope-labeling and sequential-reaction experiments identify gas-phase O₂ as the primary oxygen source incorporated into CH₃OH and support a CO-coupled O₂ activation process. Mobile aqueous Cu species are proposed to contribute to redox mediation, potentially limiting the accumulation of excess reactive oxygen and suppressing CH₃OH overoxidation. Under optimized conditions, the system achieves a CH₃OH yield rate of 14.38 mmol/(g_cat·h) with 100% CH₃OH selectivity among the detected liquidphase products. This work demonstrates a tandem strategy for independently regulating oxygen activation and product preservation during selective C–H oxidation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149339354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"System-level design and cost drivers for industrial water electrolysis anodes","authors":"Yong Feng,&nbsp;Haolin Li,&nbsp;Yuyu Wang,&nbsp;Hao Liu,&nbsp;Jianxin Kang,&nbsp;Lin Guo","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1094-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1094-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Green hydrogen production by water electrolysis still faces a major gap between excellent laboratory catalyst performance and practical industrial economics. Although significant progress has been made in oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts, improvements in intrinsic activity do not necessarily translate into meaningful cost reductions in real electrolyzer systems. In this review, the “Scale-up Paradox” is discussed from the perspective of the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH). Three key engineering challenges that determine industrial performance and cost are highlighted: manufacturing scalability and interfacial stability during electrode scale-up; gas-liquid mass transport limitations under high current densities; and chemical and mechanical degradation under dynamic start-stop operation driven by intermittent renewable electricity. The influence of different optimization strategies on LCOH is further analyzed from a techno-economic perspective. The analysis shows that improving mass transport and extending stack lifetime under dynamic operation can provide much larger economic benefits than simply reducing catalyst material costs. Based on these insights, key design considerations for next-generation industrial OER electrodes are outlined, with emphasis on dynamic durability, scalable manufacturing, efficient mass transport under high-current operation, non-destructive operando diagnostics, and <i>in situ</i> regeneration strategies for industrial electrolyzers. This review aims to establish a techno-economic framework for the development of economically viable gigawatt-scale water electrolysis systems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149338659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decoupled ion transport in polymer electrolytes","authors":"Qi Lai,&nbsp;Berkay Erdoğdu,&nbsp;Jixu Yang,&nbsp;Wei Wang,&nbsp;Quanquan Pang","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1093-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1093-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Polymer electrolytes are useful for batteries because they form flexible films and maintain good electrode contact. In most dry systems, however, ion motion still depends on the relaxation of the polymer host. In poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and related materials, Li⁺ moves by exchanging between coordination sites. As segmental relaxation slows near <i>T</i>_g, ion transport slows correspondingly. This coupling explains why high conductivity and high mechanical strength are difficult to obtain simultaneously in a dry polymer. Here decoupled ion transport is defined as a change in the rate-limiting step, rather than as a synonym for high conductivity. The evidence is assessed using Vogel–Tammann–Fulcher and Arrhenius temperature dependences, the Angell decoupling index, modified Walden analysis, conductivity at <i>T</i>_g, and the Haven ratio. Design routes are then organized around four variables: pathway connectivity, local hopping barriers, mechanical support, and mobile-ion selectivity. The strongest claims link local structure, relaxation, speciesspecific diffusion, and steady-state cell behavior. For batteries, the relevant question is not only the magnitude of <i>σ</i>, but also which species carries the current, where it moves, and whether that pathway remains intact in thin films and at interfaces.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11708-026-1093-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149338660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"2D/3D wrapping structure: Applications and challenges in perovskite solar cells","authors":"Haoxu Wang,&nbsp;Yan Li,&nbsp;Xiaolan Li,&nbsp;Weiwu Dang,&nbsp;Shanhong Li,&nbsp;Zechen Gu,&nbsp;Zhao Li,&nbsp;Meng He,&nbsp;Baofeng Zhao,&nbsp;Jialu Zheng,&nbsp;Yujing Dong","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1096-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1096-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although the efficiency of three-dimensional (3D) perovskite solar cells (PSCs) has exceeded 26%, their commercialization remains hindered by environmental instability. Two-dimensional (2D) perovskites, with excellent hydrophobicity and barrier properties, exhibit enhanced environmental stability; however, their quantum-well structure limits charge transport. By combining the advantages of both, researchers have proposed wrapping 2D materials around the surface of 3D films to form a 2D/3D wrapping structure, which synergistically enhances environmental tolerance without compromising the optoelectronic performance of 3D phase. Focusing on this distinctive 2D/3D wrapping structure, this review systematically presents conventional preparation methods for 2D capping layer; commonly used cations for 2D capping materials, along with cations worthy of exploration and the characteristics of high-performance cations; the excellent physical properties reported for 2D/3D wrapping structures, including defect passivation, energy-level alignment, crystallization optimization, and phase-structure stabilization; current research hotspots concerning 2D/3D wrapping structures, including suppression of ion migration, facilitation of charge-carrier transport, enhancement of oriented growth of 2D components, and applications in tandem solar cells; and future issues requiring attention, including the influence of the 2D material’s <i>n</i> value on the performance of the wrapping structure and physical mismatches induced by 2D cations. This review supports further optimization of 2D/3D wrapping structures, elucidates their physicochemical mechanisms during photovoltaic energy conversion, and provides a foundation for improving the stability and efficiency of PSCs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149176771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deep-learning-guided heterogeneous cathode structure engineering for enhanced kinetics in lithium-ion batteries","authors":"Shaoyu Wang,&nbsp;Xueshi Bai,&nbsp;Yingjun Lei,&nbsp;Junhao Pei,&nbsp;Liang Ma,&nbsp;Rui Long,&nbsp;Zhichun Liu,&nbsp;Wei Liu","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1091-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1091-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Due to their high energy density and long cycle life, lithium-ion batteries have become a preferred energy-storage solution for electronic devices, electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. In this study, a pseudo-two-dimensional (P2D) model of a half-cell with NCM622 as the cathode material was developed to investigate the effects of electrode thicknesses and heterogeneous porosity distribution on the kinetic performance of lithium-ion batteries. Discharge voltage–capacity curves were calculated under varying electrode thicknesses, discharge rates, and porosity distributions to elucidate their effects on discharge capacity. Based on the established database incorporating electrode thickness, discharge rate, heterogeneous porosity distribution, and discharge voltage–capacity curves, a conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN) was developed to predict discharge voltage–capacity curves. The optimal combinations of electrode thickness and porosity distribution that maximize the discharge capacity of NCM622 half-cells at different discharge rates were then determined using particle swarm optimization (PSO). Compared with the baseline porosity distribution at the same electrode thickness, the optimized heterogeneous porosity distribution increased the discharge capacity by 1.74%, 1.39%, 3.39%, and 1.66% at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 C, respectively, with the largest improvement observed at 2 C.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149190008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"World’s first successful exploratory deep-water experiment on CO2 hydrate solidification and storage","authors":"Shouwei Zhou,&nbsp;Junlong Zhu","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1089-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1089-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149338787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Advanced MOFs-based materials as platforms for carbon dioxide capture and simultaneous photocatalytic conversion","authors":"Sijie Lin,&nbsp;Cai Ning,&nbsp;Sijie Xiao,&nbsp;Wenjin Cheng,&nbsp;Zhongkai Xie,&nbsp;Weidong Shi","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1077-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1077-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As a key strategy for reducing CO₂ emissions, carbon capture and utilization (CCU) has gained increasing attention in the global pursuit of carbon neutrality and decarbonization. In particular, using a single material to achieve both efficient CO₂ capture and photocatalytic CO₂ conversion, thereby converting CO₂ into high-value-added products, represents an attractive strategy. Such an integrated design can not only simplify the process flow and reduce energy consumption and costs, but also minimize losses associated with intermediate steps through <i>in situ</i> conversion, significantly improving overall carbon utilization efficiency. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous crystalline materials that can not only serve as physical adsorbents for CO₂ capture but also enable chemisorption through the rational design and optimization of secondary building units, organic linkers, and pore environments. Additionally, by engineering their electronic structures to optimize band structures and charge transport pathways, MOFs can serve as highly promising photocatalysts. Considerable progress has been made in the application of MOFs for CO₂ capture and conversion. However, significant advances are still needed in the development of integrated MOFs-based systems that combine CO₂ capture, enrichment, and <i>in situ</i> photocatalytic conversion. To accelerate progress in this area, a detailed review of recent developments is particularly important. Therefore, this review summarizes recent advances in MOFs-based materials for CCU, with particular emphasis on strategies for enhancing both CO₂ capture and photocatalytic CO₂ conversion. Finally, it discusses the current challenges and future research directions for developing integrated MOFs-based CCU systems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149034668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Regulating reactive oxygen species balance at the WO3/BN interface for selective photooxidation of methane to methanol","authors":"Jie Qiu,&nbsp;Wang Yu,&nbsp;Kailiang Xu,&nbsp;Yuehan Cao,&nbsp;Yong He,&nbsp;Dan Cai,&nbsp;Ying Zhou","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1090-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1090-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Direct photocatalytic oxidation of methane to methanol under ambient pressure offers an attractive route for C₁ valorization, yet it remains challenged by the competing requirements of activating inert C–H bonds while preventing methanol overoxidation. Here, a WO₃/BN interface is reported that addresses this activity-selectivity trade-off by regulating the balance of reactive oxygen species. Interfacial coupling with BN promotes hole extraction from WO₃ and induces electron accumulation in the WO₃ domains, thereby preferentially enhancing ·OOH generation and increasing the ·OOH/·OH ratio. The elevated ·OOH/·OH ratio balances methane activation and methanol formation. Specifically,·OOH radicals facilitate C–H bond activation in methane, whereas ·OH radicals react with the resulting *CH₃ intermediates to form methanol. The optimized WO₃/BN-1:1 catalyst achieves a CH₃OH production rate of 741.6 µmol/(g·h), nearly twice that of pristine WO₃, with a CH₃OH selectivity of 77.2% under ambient-pressure conditions. This work provides insights into regulating reactive oxygen species through interface engineering for the selective photocatalytic conversion of methane.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149034656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Language models as QSPR predictors: Unleashing potential through in-context learning and instruction tuning","authors":"Chenyue Tao,&nbsp;Chengcheng Liu,&nbsp;Chenxuan Li,&nbsp;Bin Yang","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1076-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1076-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Quantitative structure–property relationship (QSPR) modeling is a fundamental approach for property-oriented fuel design because it establishes quantitative relationships between molecular structures and physicochemical properties. Conventional QSPR models generally rely on manually engineered molecular descriptors, are usually developed to predict a single property, and often cannot readily incorporate newly available data, limiting their scalability and long-term applicability. Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in text understanding and parsing knowledge in specialized fields such as chemistry. This study proposes FuelProp-LM, a QSPR framework based on instruction tuning and in-context learning that predicts multiple fuel properties with only the SMILES notation of a fuel molecule as input. Four open-source language models were fine-tuned using 100000 data entries obtained from the PubChem database. To enhance contextual reasoning, high-information prompts were constructed through MACCS molecular fingerprint similarity retrieval. The proposed framework was evaluated on 10 fuel physicochemical property datasets and compared with the widely-adopted LLM DeepSeek-V3.2 and existing QSPR approaches. FuelProp-LM consistently achieved competitive or superior predictive performance across downstream tasks. Quantitative analysis further revealed how instruction tuning and in-context learning improve molecular property prediction by enhancing chemically relevant attention patterns. The accuracy, generalizability, data scalability, and ease of use of this work demonstrate that FuelProp-LM can serve as a practical and flexible tool for fuel property prediction and play a significant role in future AI-assisted fuel design.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148927296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Artificial intelligence for plastic pyrolysis to produce fuels and chemicals: From reaction kinetics and reactor design to intelligent agent development","authors":"Gaoyang Li,&nbsp;Jie Huang,&nbsp;Xi Gao,&nbsp;Yin-Ning Zhou,&nbsp;Li-Tao Zhu","doi":"10.1007/s11708-026-1095-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11708-026-1095-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Given the escalating challenge of global plastic pollution, pyrolysis has emerged as an important technology for converting waste plastics into high-value chemicals and liquid fuels. However, due to complex reaction networks, variable feedstock compositions, and multiphase flow characteristics, traditional methods face significant bottlenecks in process optimization and mechanistic exploration. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers a novel perspective for overcoming these complexities with its inherent advantages in processing high-dimensional data involving nonlinear interactions among variables. Against this backdrop, this review comprehensively surveys and analyzes the latest progress and limitations of applying AI to plastic pyrolysis, focusing on the identification of pyrolysis kinetic parameters using intelligent optimization algorithms and AI methods, the prediction of plastic pyrolysis reaction outcomes using AI, the exploration of intrinsic relationships between key process features and product distribution, and pyrolysis mechanisms using interpretability tools, and reactor optimization combining physical models such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with AI-based surrogate models. Furthermore, emerging applications of natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) in automating the construction of standardized pyrolysis databases and knowledge graphs are explored. While summarizing technical advantages, current weaknesses such as data scarcity, insufficient model generalization, and the lack of physical information coupling are also analyzed and discussed. Finally, a conceptual architecture for an LLM-driven pyrolysis agent is proposed to integrate mechanism retrieval, process simulation, and experimental support. This review provides theoretical insights and future perspectives for intelligent process optimization and potential engineering applications of plastic pyrolysis for the conversion of waste plastics into fuels and chemicals.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Energy","volume":"20 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148928011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}