Clean energy

The world’s population is growing, meaning we need more and more energy to drive our cars, light and heat our homes, and power our high-tech gadgets. To produce this energy we mostly burn fossil fuels, but our supplies will start to run out in the next few decades. Fossil fuel energy also comes at a cost, producing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide which has been blamed for changes in the global climate.

We will need cleaner, sustainable ways to generate and store energy, and we will need them soon. Chemists are playing their part in helping to develop the clean energy technologies that could allow us to kick the fossil fuel habit, before we run out for good.

‘One single technology will not be the solution.’ says Professor Saiful Islam of the University of Bath, a chemist who is working on materials for the next generation of sustainable energy production and storage devices. ‘The performance of the devices relies on the materials,’ he says, so materials chemists can develop our understanding of how these materials work and in turn, help design better devices.