Aerial image of workers installing solar panels on a home.
News collection

Energy and sustainability

Clean energy and sustainability are two of the most urgent challenges of our time, and they demand the development of solutions for a more sustainable future. A key step toward creating that future ­­– one that meets society’s energy needs without depleting limited resources or accelerating climate change – is being able to visualize, understand and tailor natural and industrial processes with atomic precision. That’s the primary goal of SLAC’s energy research.

Researchers at SLAC use an array of advanced tools to study complex energy-related questions, like how individual particles inside of batteries evolve and interact with each other over time.

SLAC’s research spans from improving solar cell performance to making the electric grid more resilient and building quantum materials for future energy technologies. Already, scientists at the lab have found new ways to split water molecules to generate clean hydrogen gas; use 3D printing to manufacture materials with less waste; and extend the range of electric-vehicle batteries while making them safer.

Going forward, researchers from academia and industry will continue to benefit from SLAC’s state-of-the-art, freely available resources, like its new superconducting X-ray free-electron laser and databases of catalyst properties, all of which are meant to bring a sustainable, clean energy future closer.

Materials, chemistry and energy sciences are central to many of today’s most critical technical challenges:

News

Research updates

A cellphone-sized device automatically adjusts a home's power use up or down to save the consumer money and increase the resiliency of the electric grid.

Aerial image of workers installing solar panels on a home.

Their work aims to bridge two approaches to driving the reaction – one powered by heat, the other by electricity – with the goal of discovering more efficient and sustainable ways to convert carbon dioxide into useful products.

A ball-and-stick illustration of a single nickel atom (green) bonded to nitrogen atoms (blue) on the surface of a carbon material. The arrangement allows the nickel atoms to catalyze two types of reactions involved in making fuel from CO2.

The latest advance from a research collaboration with industry could dramatically accelerate the development of sturdier batteries for fast-charging electric vehicles.

Studies of electrode nanoparticles for batteries.

A promising lead halide perovskite is great at converting sunlight to electricity, but it breaks down at room temperature. Now scientists have discovered how to stabilize it with pressure from a diamond anvil cell.

Lead halide material being squeezed in a diamond anvil cell.

These fleeting disruptions, seen for the first time in lead hybrid perovskites, may help explain why these materials are exceptionally good at turning sunlight into electrical current in solar cells.

An illustration shows polarons as bubbles of distortion in a perovskite lattice

A cellphone-sized device automatically adjusts a home's power use up or down to save the consumer money and increase the resiliency of the electric grid.

Aerial image of workers installing solar panels on a home.

Their work aims to bridge two approaches to driving the reaction – one powered by heat, the other by electricity – with the goal of discovering more efficient and sustainable ways to convert carbon dioxide into useful products.

A ball-and-stick illustration of a single nickel atom (green) bonded to nitrogen atoms (blue) on the surface of a carbon material. The arrangement allows the nickel atoms to catalyze two types of reactions involved in making fuel from CO2.

The latest advance from a research collaboration with industry could dramatically accelerate the development of sturdier batteries for fast-charging electric vehicles.

Studies of electrode nanoparticles for batteries.

A promising lead halide perovskite is great at converting sunlight to electricity, but it breaks down at room temperature. Now scientists have discovered how to stabilize it with pressure from a diamond anvil cell.

Lead halide material being squeezed in a diamond anvil cell.

These fleeting disruptions, seen for the first time in lead hybrid perovskites, may help explain why these materials are exceptionally good at turning sunlight into electrical current in solar cells.

An illustration shows polarons as bubbles of distortion in a perovskite lattice

Adding polymers and fireproofing to a battery’s current collectors makes it lighter, safer and about 20% more efficient.

Conceptual illustration of advantages of redesigned current collector.

In a new perspective, SLAC and University of Paderborn scientists argue that research at synchrotrons could help improve water-purifying materials in ways that might not otherwise be possible.

Cracked, dry earth landscape.

Replacing today’s expensive catalysts could bring down the cost of producing the gas for fuel, fertilizer and clean energy storage.

Grad student McKenzie Hubert watches electrolyzer at work

SUNCAT researchers discover a way to improve a key step in these conversions, and explore what it would take to turn the climate-changing gas into valuable products on an industrial scale.

Diagram of scheme for turning CO2 from smokestacks into products

A new twist on cryo-EM imaging reveals what’s going on inside MOFs, highly porous nanoparticles with big potential for storing fuel, separating gases and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Images of cryo-EM equipment, CO2 molecule in cage


SLAC in the news

Media mentions

Behind the scenes

Energy and sustainability at SLAC

People working on energy and sustainability across the lab

still frame public lecture may 2018
Video
The New Grid: 100% Clean Energy for All
Public lecture presented by Sila Kiliccote
Video
Science of SLAC | Batteries for the Future: What's Possible?
Lecture presented by Yi Cui
Public Lecture | A Blueprint for New Fuel Cell Catalysts
Video
A Blueprint for New Fuel Cell Catalysts
Public lecture presented by Daniel Friebel
Sustainability Research at SLAC
Where research happens

Our scientific facilities

Scientists from universities, laboratories and private companies around the world use our cutting-edge research facilities.

Use our facilities

SSRL

Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource provides extremely bright X-rays that scientists use in a wide range of research to probe matter on the scale of atoms and molecules. 

SSRL facility

LCLS

Linac Coherent Light Source is the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser allowing researchers to make stop-action movies of chemistry in action and explore proteins for new pharmaceuticals.

Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Undulator Hall

FACET-II

FACET-II provides high-energy electron beams for researching revolutionary particle accelerator technologies that could make future accelerators 100 to 1,000 times smaller and a lot more capable.

Selina Li, Sebastien Corde, and Philippe Hering in a FACET laser lab

Cryo-EM

The Stanford-SLAC Cryo-EM facility gives scientists unprecedented views of the inner workings of cells and of technologies like batteries and solar cells.



 

For questions or comments, contact the SLAC Office of Communications at communications@slac.stanford.edu.


SLAC is a vibrant multiprogram laboratory that explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by scientists around the globe. With research spanning particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, materials, chemistry, bio- and energy sciences and scientific computing, we help solve real-world problems and advance the interests of the nation.

SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.