The discovery and development of novel materials in the field of energy are essential to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Bringing recent technological innovations in automation, robotics and computer science together with current approaches in chemistry, materials synthesis and characterization will act as a catalyst for revolutionizing traditional research and development in both industry and academia. This Perspective provides a vision for an integrated artificial intelligence approach towards autonomous materials discovery, which, in our opinion, will emerge within the next 5 to 10 years. The approach we discuss requires the integration of the following tools, which have already seen substantial development to date: high-throughput virtual screening, automated synthesis planning, automated laboratories and machine learning algorithms. In addition to reducing the time to deployment of new materials by an order of magnitude, this integrated approach is expected to lower the cost associated with the initial discovery. Thus, the price of the final products (for example, solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles) will also decrease. This in turn will enable industries and governments to meet more ambitious targets in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at a faster pace. The discovery and development of advanced materials are imperative for the clean energy sector. We envision that a closed-loop approach, which combines high-throughput computation, artificial intelligence and advanced robotics, will sizeably reduce the time to deployment and the costs associated with materials development.

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Accelerating the discovery of materials for clean energy in the era of smart automation

A novel cable-type flexible supercapacitor with excellent performance is fabricated using 3D polypyrrole(PPy)-MnO2 -CNT-cotton thread multi-grade nanostructure-based electrodes. The multiple supercapacitors with a high areal capacitance 1.49 F cm(-2) at a scan rate of 1 mV s(-1) connected in series and in parallel can successfully drive a LED segment display. Such an excellent performance is attributed to the cumulative effect of conducting single-walled carbon nanotubes on cotton thread, active mesoporous flower-like MnO2 nanoplates, and PPy conductive wrapping layer improving the conductivity, and acting as pseudocapacitance material simultaneously.

Cable-type supercapacitors of three-dimensional cotton thread based multi-grade nanostructures for wearable energy storage

In most areas where weight reduction is crucial, carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRPs) are an excellent choice. Carbon fiber, besides its structural role, can be applied for several secondary functions as well, based on its electrical properties; for example, it can be used for crosslinking, welding, as a sensor and it can also facilitate self-healing. By merging these functions, a multifunctional part or structure can be created. In this article, we review multifunctional application examples of reinforcing carbon fiber. The focus is on utilization: which additional function and what physical layout can be used with CFRP. In a summarizing table (Table 1), we classified the presented examples according to their secondary function, the material used and the physical layout. With the combination of different functions, important materials can be created for the energy and transportation industry, for autonomous vehicles and for Industry 4.0.

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André Duarte B.L. Ferreira

Papers

Multifunctional Material Systems: A state-of-the-art review