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Carbon Neutrality Through Green Innovations—the Role of the Renewable Energy: 4th Edition

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "C: Energy Economics and Policy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 October 2025 | Viewed by 1366

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Economic Sciences, Petroleum-Gas University of Ploieşti Romania, 100680 Ploieşti, Romania
Interests: energy transition; international finance; sustainable development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor

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Guest Editor
Department of Political Science, University Rome Tre, 00146 Rome, Italy
Interests: energy policy; energy economics; climate change; machine learning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Economic development and environmental sustainability play essential roles in the energy field. Demand for energy has risen in many nations as a result of increasing industrialization, agricultural modernization, urbanization, and globalization and better transportation. However, promoting economic growth, without harming the climate, is a requirement for sustainable development.

Carbon neutrality means having a balance between emitting and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. It is critical for achieving the global climate change targets. The European Union recently reaffirmed its commitment to become the world’s first climate-neutral region by 2050, but there are also many other large economies such as the UK, Japan, or South Korea that aim for this goal. Carbon neutrality has become an important part of the corporate and public climate mitigation policies, but the details for this process need further research.

Some significant directions on the path for achieving carbon neutrality are represented by green innovations that rely on a higher renewable energy production and consumption. Fossil fuel energy sources remain the primary energy sources worldwide, although renewables’ contributions significantly increased. Green innovation refers to innovation related to green products and processes, leading to fossil fuel energy decreases, pollution management, waste recycling, product design and environmental management (Chen et al., 2006).

This Special Issue aims to investigate how carbon neutrality can be achieved by the economies that aim for this goal, what benefits are gained from this energy transition, how can green innovation be accelerated and what the adverse outcomes are that may arise during this process.

Prof. Dr. Mirela Panait
Prof. Dr. Magdalena Radulescu
Dr. Joanna Rosak-Szyrocka
Dr. Cosimo Magazzino
Dr. Daniel Balsalobre-Lorente
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • carbon neutrality
  • climate change
  • carbon footprint
  • carbon reduction
  • sustainable development
  • renewable energy clean technologies
  • green innovations
  • energy efficiency improvements
  • ESG issues
  • CSR and non-financial performance
  • energy poverty
  • energy transition
  • nuclear energy

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

22 pages, 2482 KiB  
Review
Research on the Characteristics of Electrolytes in Integrated Carbon Capture and Utilization Systems: The Key to Promoting the Development of Green and Low-Carbon Technologies
by Guoqing You, Yunzhi Li, Lihan Dong, Yichun Li and Yu Zhang
Energies 2025, 18(12), 3039; https://doi.org/10.3390/en18123039 - 8 Jun 2025
Abstract
The core challenge of integrated carbon capture and utilization (ICCU) technology lies in developing electrolytes that combine efficient carbon dioxide (CO2) capture with electrocatalytic conversion capabilities. This review analyzes the structure–performance relationship between electrolyte properties and CO2 electrochemical reduction (eCO [...] Read more.
The core challenge of integrated carbon capture and utilization (ICCU) technology lies in developing electrolytes that combine efficient carbon dioxide (CO2) capture with electrocatalytic conversion capabilities. This review analyzes the structure–performance relationship between electrolyte properties and CO2 electrochemical reduction (eCO2RR), revealing the key regulatory mechanisms. Research shows that the performance of bicarbonate electrolytes heavily depends on the cation type, where Cs+ can achieve over 90% CO selectivity by suppressing the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and stabilizing reaction intermediates, though its strong corrosiveness limits practical applications. Although amine absorbents excel in carbon capture (efficiency > 90%), they tend to undergo competitive adsorption during electrocatalysis, making formic acid the primary product (FE = 15%); modifying electrodes with ionomers can enhance their activity by 1.15 times. Ionic liquids (ILs) demonstrate unique advantages due to their tunability: imidazolium-based ILs improve formate selectivity to 85% via carboxylate intermediate formation, while amino-functionalized task-specific ILs (TSILs) achieve a 1:1 stoichiometric CO2 absorption ratio. Recent breakthroughs reveal that ternary IL hybrid electrolytes can achieve nearly 100% CO Faradaic efficiency (FE) through microenvironment modulation, while L-histidine additives boost CH4 selectivity by 23% via interface modification. Notably, constructing a “bulk acidic–interfacial neutral” pH gradient system addresses carbonate deposition issues in traditional alkaline conditions, increasing C2+ product efficiency to 50%. Studies also highlight that cation–anion synergy (e.g., K+/I) significantly enhances C-C coupling through electrostatic interactions, achieving 97% C2+ selectivity on Ag electrodes. These findings provide new insights for ICCU electrolyte design, with future research focusing on machine learning-assisted material optimization and reactor engineering to advance industrial applications. Full article
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