Energy & fuel

How we make, store and harvest energy, from wind and water to nuclear fusion and bacteria that make electricity. Each topic lists only known properties from the cited papers.

• Artificial leaf (artificial photosynthesis)
  4 studies · Artificial leaves imitate photosynthesis, using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen or to turn CO2 into fuels.
• Bacterial nanowires (Geobacter)
  4 studies · Some bacteria, like Geobacter, grow conductive filaments that carry electrons outside the cell. They may lead to green electronics and power from humidity.
• Biofuels (algae, cellulosic, engineered microbes)
  5 studies · Fuels made by living things: oil from algae, ethanol from plant fibre, and fuels from engineered yeast and E. coli.
• Biophotovoltaics
  3 studies · Devices where photosynthetic microbes like cyanobacteria make electricity from light.
• Compressed air energy storage
  2 studies · Storing electricity by pumping air into underground caverns and releasing it later through turbines.
• Electric eel
  5 studies · Electric eels generate shocks of hundreds of volts with stacks of specialised cells.
• Electricity storage (supercapacitors, sodium-ion, solid-state, flow batteries)
  6 studies · Ways to store electricity beyond the standard lithium-ion battery.
• Hydrogen gas
  4 studies · Hydrogen is a clean fuel that can be made by algae and by splitting water. It is also studied as a medical antioxidant.
• Lithium (batteries)
  5 studies · Lithium is the lightest metal and the heart of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in phones, cars, and grid storage.
• Methane (biogas)
  2 studies · Microbes called methanogens turn waste into methane-rich biogas, a renewable fuel.
• Microbial fuel cells
  3 studies · Devices where bacteria eat organic matter and pass electrons to an electrode, producing electricity.
• Natural gas and methane hydrates
  3 studies · Natural gas is mostly methane. Under cold, high-pressure conditions it gets trapped in ice-like crystals called hydrates.
• Nuclear fission and fusion
  3 studies · Fission splits heavy atoms in today's nuclear plants; fusion joins light atoms, the way the Sun does.
• Oil (petroleum)
  2 studies · Crude oil formed from ancient organic matter. Microbes living deep underground have broken down much of it, and they are studied as a way to help recover oil.
• Osmotic (blue) energy
  2 studies · Electricity from mixing fresh and salt water, for example where rivers meet the sea.
• Perovskites
  5 studies · Perovskite is a mineral whose crystal arrangement has inspired a whole family of synthetic materials. Halide perovskites have produced cheap, highly efficient solar cells and LEDs, while perovskite oxides are used as catalysts.
• Steam and thermal power (geothermal, concentrated solar)
  3 studies · Heat from the Earth or focused sunlight, often used to make steam that drives turbines.
• Thermoelectrics
  3 studies · Solid materials that turn heat directly into electricity, or electricity into cooling, with no moving parts.
• Wind power
  4 studies · Wind turbines turn moving air into electricity. Their blades are huge composite structures, and some designs borrow from humpback whale flippers.