Understanding the role of advanced materials for energy infrastructure and transmission

Abstract

The era of fossil fuels may be coming to an end. Our decades-old reliance on fossil fuels has degraded the environment. As a result, governments are shifting to renewable energy technologies. Renewable resources are considered to be sufficiently plentiful and the costs of producing energy per unit are lower; further economy of scale is making them affordable. The present energy mix consists of conventional thermal power plants that operate on fossil fuels, natural gas and renewable energy infrastructures. However, efficiencies of these energy facilities remain insufficient except for hydroelectricity. The lower performance results in inadequate energy production for huge populations and urbanization; thus, due to such reasons, scientists and researchers have adopted a new approach to deal with the efficiency issue. The new system is based on new techniques and study and development of new advanced materials used in the energy infrastructures. Some materials like graphene have been used for energy harvesting and storage in different energy technologies and facilities. Such materials are being studied and considered for various energy applications like energy storage, energy harvest, etc. To preserve our environment and solve the issues regarding efficiencies and energy storage systems, there is an urgent need to develop new materials to alleviate our efficient energy production and storage problem. This paper explores the various materials which have been introduced in multiple energy technologies as well as other energy-related applications.