Topic: Sustainable Advanced Battery Materials and Next-Generation Energy Storage for Low-Carbon Transitions

Achieving global carbon neutrality goals requires transformative advances in energy materials and energy-storage technologies to enable the large-scale integration of renewable energy and accelerate electrification across transportation, industry, and other sectors. As renewable energy deployment continues to expand, next-generation energy-storage systems are essential for improving grid flexibility, resilience, and energy security. However, their rapid development and large-scale deployment also pose significant sustainability challenges, including resource consumption, critical material supply, manufacturing emissions, and end-of-life management. Addressing these challenges requires not only technological innovation in energy materials and storage systems, but also a comprehensive understanding of their carbon footprints and environmental impacts throughout their life cycle.

This Special Topic focuses on sustainable energy materials and energy-storage technologies for low-carbon transitions, covering advanced materials, next-generation storage systems, sustainable manufacturing, life-cycle assessment, artificial intelligence applications, and carbon footprint evaluation. It also highlights the integration of energy storage with renewable energy systems and smart grids, as well as sustainable pathways for large-scale deployment. Through these efforts, this Special Topic aims to advance sustainable, resilient, and low-carbon energy systems by providing new scientific insights and technological solutions.

The related topics of this Special Topic include but are not limited to:

● Sustainable energy materials design, development, and low-carbon synthesis;

● Next-generation electrochemical energy-storage technologies and devices;

● Emerging energy-storage systems and hybrid storage technologies;

● Sustainable manufacturing, process optimization, and scale-up of energy-storage technologies;

● Life-cycle sustainability management and circular-economy strategies for energy-storage systems;

● Artificial intelligence and data-driven approaches for energy materials and storage systems;

● Carbon footprint assessment and life-cycle environmental evaluation of energy technologies;

● Renewable energy integration and sustainable deployment pathways for energy-storage systems.