The global demand for the energy that sustains human-based activity drives extraction, production, and in-use processes that can compromise environmental quality.  Yet the global and local environment can only be sustained, cleaned, and preserved through the expenditure of energy.  A perpetual irony it may be, but thermodynamics demands that truism.  Are there environmentally green opportunities that can be realized by re-thinking and re-designing energy production and power generation from a nanoscopic perspective?1 Sol�gel-derived materials, such as aerogels, in which the porous network retains through-connectivity provide a means to investigate how electrochemical processes are influenced by (1) minimal solid-state diffusion lengths; (2) effective mass transport of ions and solvent to the nanoscale, networked (indeed, self-wired) electrode material; and (3) amplification of the surface (and surface-defect) character of the electrochemically active material.2 We describe how a redesign of electrochemical energy-storage systems on the nanoscale and in 3D can be realized on the macroscale and provide higher performance and added function to metal�air batteries, asymmetric electrochemical capacitors, and innately blended batt-caps. 1. D.R. Rolison, in Nanotechnology and the Environment, B. Karn, T. Masciangioli, W.-X. Zhang, V. Colvin, and A.P. Alivisatos (Eds.), ACS Symp. Ser., Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 2004  , 890, 324�330.2. D.R. Rolison, J.W. Long, J.C. Lytle, A.E. Fischer, C.P. Rhodes, T.M. McEvoy, M.E. Bourg, and A.M. Lubers, Chem. Soc. Rev. 2009  , 38, 226�252.� J.M.W. (Nova Research, Inc., Alexandria, VA) is a contract research scientist at the NRL; J.F.P. is an NRL�NRC postdoctoral associate; N.L.B., B.T.W., and N.W.K. are undergraduate STEP students at the NRL.

Energy and the environment:  Perpetual dilemma or nanotechnology-enabled opportunity?

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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