A recent study maps the limitations of today’s lithium-ion batteries and outlines several promising alternatives, including lithium-sulfur, lithium-metal, lithium-air, zinc-air, sodium-ion, and redox flow batteries. The authors argue that breakthroughs such as solid-state electrolytes, self-healing components, and flexible energy-storage architectures will be essential to meet future demands for greater safety, better performance, and stronger sustainability goals. They also emphasize the need for a chemistry-neutral battery roadmap beyond 2030, one in which artificial intelligence and advanced materials-discovery tools accelerate the shift toward safer, more reliable, and climate-neutral energy-storage technologies.

Next-generation sodium- and potassium-ion batteries offer resource-unconstrained, cost-effective, and sustainable energy storage systems. In a recent review, researchers from Japan redefine the electrode-electrolyte interphase (SEI and CEI) to improve battery stability and performance. By systematically analyzing these overlooked layers, the team demonstrates how controlling interfacial reactions can influence electrochemical performance and safety. Their findings could accelerate the development of the next-generation battery systems for grid storage, electric vehicles, and other energy applications.

That eating plenty of vegetables, wholegrains and legumes is beneficial for health is well known. More surprising, however, is that people who eat in a environmentally-friendly way also display nutritional values that are better than researchers had expected. This is shown in a new study from Lund University.

EPFL roboticists have shown that when a modular robot shares power, sensing, and communication resources among its individual units, it is significantly more resistant to failure than traditional robotic systems, where the breakdown of one element often means a loss of functionality.

Researchers at QuTech in Delft, The Netherlands, have developed a new chip architecture that could make it easier to test and scale up quantum processors based on semiconductor spin qubits. The platform, called QARPET (Qubit-Array Research Platform for Engineering and Testing) and reported in Nature Electronics, allows hundreds of qubits to be characterized within the same test-chip under the same operating conditions used in quantum computing experiments. "With such a complex, tightly packed quantum chip, things really starts to resemble the traditional semiconductor industry." states researcher Giordano Scappucci.