Materials for electrification of everything: Moving toward sustainability

Abstract

Society is at a unique tipping point in a move from conventional fossil fuel based technologies to renewable sourced electrified technologies which can enable creating a carbon neutral or carbon negative energy economy. Many of the key approaches to achieving this transition in the critical areas of transportation, buildings and manufacturing depend on new materials and new approaches to rapidly increase electrification. This article reviews the overall energy landscape and highlights specific areas where new materials are critical to enabling transitions in energy storage, hydrogen utilization, transportation, buildings and the chemical industry and the articles on these topics that follow. How these transitions can be best integrated and the global societal impact of these transitions is also discussed. The development of new materials is instrumental in accelerating the move to a cleaner electrified society. The “electrification of everything” is increasingly important if we are to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and materials will play a critical role realizing this goal.