Materials, Devices and Systems for Sustainability

This book explores groundbreaking advancements in science and technology aimed at creating a sustainable future. It covers key innovations in renewable energy, clean hydrogen production, next-generation energy storage, carbon capture, and resilient infrastructure. The first section examines materials for a sustainable ecosystem, viz. solar energy harvesting and storage, including methods to improve perovskite solar cells, solar thermal-based ammonia cracking, challenges in commercializing solid-state electrolyte batteries, and S-scheme heterojunctions for efficient photocatalysis. Herein, the book also proposes a novel framework integrating mobile microgrids into power distribution networks to enhance resilience in the context of RE integration. It then shifts to devices and methods for achieving low-carbon industrial processes, discussing molten catalytic systems and CO₂ capture via engineered biochar. Beyond technology, the book then addresses India's renewable energy policies and the need for zero-carbon steel, exploring carbon capture solutions for the steel and cement industries, while also highlighting the necessity for energy transition modelling. With a blend of scientific insights and policy recommendations, this book serves as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and anyone interested in driving sustainable progress.

Deepika Jhajhria is a Research Establishment Officer in the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. She earned her Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 2019. Subsequently, she joined the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee as a postdoctoral research associate, working on a project focused on the fabrication of on-chip supercapacitor devices. Her research interests include thin films, electrochemical energy storage, and solid-state supercapacitors/batteries. Her work has led to seven first-authored publications, which have been cited nearly 132 times.

Laltu Chandra received a doctoral degree in 2005 from the University of Karlsruhe (now KIT), Germany. Subsequently (2005-2022), he worked as a visiting scientist at the IGCAR Kalpakkam, India, ANR post-doctoral fellow at the INP Grenoble, France, R & D consultant at the NRG Petten, The Netherlands, and as a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur and Varanasi in India. Currently, he is a Professor at the IIT Kanpur. His research interests include computational and experimental fluid flow and heat transfer for (a) designing solar thermal sub-systems/systems for heat treatment of metals and thermo-catalytic hydrogen generation, (b) development of Nusselt number correlations for heat transfer with nanofluids, (c) bubble dynamics in thermally stratified fliud layers, and (d) investigating the transport, deposition, and mitigation of dust on solar thermal sub-systems. The findings are reported in more than 95, peer-reviewed, international journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He is a member of the national-level committee for the implementation of hydrogen-related applications in India and one of the authors of the Hydrogen R & D roadmap for India.

Dr. Sudarshan Narayanan is an Assistant Professor in the department of Sustainable Energy Engineering. He earned his B. Tech in Engineering Physics from IIT Madras in 2009, followed by a Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA in 2014. Subsequently, he joined the Vacuum Coatings group at Vitro Architectural Glass (formerly PPG Glass) as an R&D Engineer working on developing sputter-deposited large-area low-emissivity and transparent conducting coatings for architectural glazings, building façades and automotive windshields. Later, he joined the University of Oxford in 2020 as a postdoctoral researcher working on enabling next-generation solid-state batteries. His current areas of interest include developing solid-state Li/Na-ion batteries for mobility and stationary storage, and exploring new materials for building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) applications. He has 20+ publications in international journals in the area of energy storage, advanced characterization, photovoltaics, and metal-polymer composites. He also holds 8 US patents (4 granted, 4 filed) in the domain of multilayer spectral selective coatings and transparent conductors.