Materials for Energy: Better Cells, Better Grids

Energy transitions are ultimately materials transitions. Materials for Energy: Better Cells, Better Grids explores how advances in materials science quietly determine the performance, cost, and reliability of modern energy systems.
This book takes an application-driven lens. It examines how materials shape batteries, solar cells, power electronics, transmission systems, and grid infrastructure—often setting limits long before policy or software enters the picture. The focus is on how atomic-scale choices influence macroscopic outcomes like efficiency, lifetime, and safety.
Rather than treating energy technologies as black boxes, the book opens them up to reveal where materials enable breakthroughs and where they create bottlenecks. Readers learn why interfaces fail, why degradation matters more than peak performance, and how materials decisions ripple across the entire energy value chain.
This book explores:
• How materials define energy storage and conversion limits
• Why degradation and stability determine real-world impact
• How grids depend on materials as much as machines
• Where materials innovation lowers cost and risk
• Why energy progress begins at the materials level
This book is for energy technologists, materials scientists, and system designers who care about performance that lasts. If better energy systems start with better matter, this book shows where materials make the difference.