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Lithium, as a Li-ion battery constituent, is pivotal for the transition to clean energy. Western Australia (WA) has become a global leader in hard-rock lithium mining, realising 10-fold growth from 2010 to 2024 and with royalty receipts to the WA government surpassing $1 billion AUD. Given the sector’s economic significance, we analyse key performance metrics including resource/reserve build, production growth, cumulative capital deployed, capital intensity, and development timelines for the new-generation lithium mines. Several enabling factors supported the rapid build-out of capacity. These include an efficient mine permitting process to manage environmental impacts and competing land use issues, a stable royalty regime, energy and logistics infrastructure, availability of a skilled workforce, and mining services capability. Contrary to the standard industry narrative that new mineral projects are constrained by legislative delay, the new lithium projects achieved development timelines of 7 years or less from first resource to production. This has broader implications for critical mineral projects where success is likely to depend less on strategic classification and more on project quality, financing, and regional capability. Full article

Lithium–sulfur (Li-S) batteries are widely regarded as one of the most promising candidates for next-generation electrochemical energy storage, owing to their very high theoretical energy density and reliance on abundant, low-cost elements. However, the practical deployment of Li-S technology remains severely constrained by the polysulfide shuttle effect, originating from the dissolution, migration and parasitic redox cycling of lithium polysulfide intermediates, which leads to rapid capacity fading, low coulombic efficiency and incompatibility with industrial carbonate-based electrolytes. Recent reports on the formation and stabilization of γ-sulfur, a rare monoclinic allotrope, within porous carbon matrices have identified a prospective direction in sulfur electrochemistry, theoretically enabling polysulfide-free cycling and improved stability, also in conventional carbonate electrolytes. These findings challenge the long-held assumption that polysulfide formation is unavoidable in sulfur cathodes and suggest that control over sulfur allotropy and nanoconfinement, as well as carbon–sulfur chemistry, may unlock previously inaccessible performance and integration windows for metal–sulfur batteries, including most technologically advanced Li-S batteries. Based on recent studies, this Perspective article critically evaluates the evidence for γ-sulfur stabilization in carbon hosts, discusses the interplay between pore geometry, carbon surface chemistry and sulfur speciation, and finally identifies key knowledge gaps. Full article

Electric motorcycles are central to Sub-Saharan Africa’s transition to electric mobility, yet manufacturers in the region typically rely on costly and time-consuming physical prototyping to optimise powertrains built from imported components. This paper presents a validated full-powertrain digital twin of the Roam Air, an electric motorcycle assembled in Nairobi, Kenya, developed in MATLAB/Simulink as four interconnected subsystems: the battery, the controller, the motor, and the vehicle dynamics. The battery is modelled as a Thévenin equivalent circuit whose parameters were experimentally derived at the pack level through Hybrid Pulse Power Characterisation tests, and the controller replicates the motorcycle’s field-oriented control with a maximum torque per ampere strategy, including its battery current and voltage limiting behaviour. The motorcycle’s regenerative braking characteristics, drag coefficient, and rolling resistance coefficient were experimentally obtained through braking, coasting, and coast-down tests. The digital twin ingests rider inputs and environmental information, and it predicts the motor’s speed and the battery’s power. Validation against six measured drive cycles in Stellenbosch, South Africa, demonstrates high correlation between predicted and measured profiles, with Pearson’s r values of 0.905–0.981 for battery power and 0.912–0.996 for motor speed, and energy consumption predicted to within 2.71% for five of the six trips. The presented modelling and characterisation framework offers manufacturers a transferable, computationally efficient alternative to iterative physical prototyping for powertrain optimisation. Full article

Distributed-drive electric vehicles (DDEVs) enable independent wheel-torque control, providing flexibility to improve energy efficiency and vehicle stability. However, tire–road adhesion, motor and battery capabilities, and actuator availability constrain these objectives, which may conflict under low-adhesion conditions, high-power acceleration, emergency braking, and combined longitudinal–lateral maneuvers. This paper provides a structured review of coordinated torque-allocation strategies for balancing energy efficiency and stability in DDEVs. Existing research is examined in terms of regenerative braking, tire-slip energy-loss reduction, and stability control under longitudinal, yaw, and combined conditions. Control approaches are classified as rule-based, stability-region-based, mode-switching, multi-objective optimization and predictive control, state-adaptive dynamic-priority coordination, and learning-based safety-hybrid methods. These approaches differ in real-time performance, constraint handling, adaptability, interpretability, and engineering maturity. A hierarchical hybrid architecture integrating rule-based supervision, state assessment, constraint-aware optimization, and learning-based enhancement appears more suitable for practical deployment than a single algorithm or fixed-weighting scheme. Key challenges include dynamic stability-boundary estimation, safety-assured coordination, multi-actuator fault tolerance, real-time implementation, and standardized vehicle-level validation. This review provides guidance for coordinated control-system development and future research on DDEVs. Full article

Viscous fingering is a canonical nonlinear interfacial instability that arises when a less viscous fluid displaces a more viscous one under an adverse viscosity contrast. Despite extensive investigations into the effects of fluid properties, operating conditions, and rheology, systems involving a shear-thickening displaced phase remain largely unexplored. Here, three-dimensional numerical simulations of immiscible air–fluid displacement in a Hele–Shaw cell are performed to elucidate how interfacial tension, air-inlet velocity, and gap-depth gradient regulate instability evolution. Increasing interfacial tension strengthens the Laplace-pressure barrier, suppresses shear-induced necking and pinch-off, and preserves finger topology; however, it intensifies flow diversion and delays the advancement of the central finger. Increasing the inlet velocity markedly amplifies the local interfacial shear rate and triggers pronounced shear thickening. The resulting viscous-resistance barrier redistributes momentum toward paths of least hydraulic resistance, directly promoting tip splitting and severe topological breakup. Even a small gap-depth gradient reorganizes the local hydraulic resistance and pressure field. Positive and negative gradients induce resistance-reduction and throttling effects, respectively, generating pronounced pressure shielding that governs asymmetric momentum transfer and preferential flow-path selection. These findings identify the capillary, rheological, and geometric mechanisms controlling viscous fingering during the air-driven displacement of shear-thickening fluids. Because such instabilities compromise the integrity of geological-fracture seals and the operating efficiency of semi-solid flow batteries, this study provides a mechanistic basis for stabilizing immiscible displacement and optimizing industrial fluid-transport systems. Full article

The limitations of conventional inorganic electrodes call for organic alternatives for advanced energy storage. Metal–covalent organic frameworks (MCOFs) integrate the metal active sites of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with the high chemical stability imparted by strong covalent bonds in covalent organic frameworks (COFs) while retaining the high specific surface area and tunable porosity of both material classes. Among these, MCOFs constructed from porphyrin and phthalocyanine building units have emerged as a research hotspot in electrochemical energy storage owing to their inherent 18π-conjugated macrocyclic electronic systems, well-defined M–N₄ coordination sites, and potential bipolar charge storage characteristics. This review systematically summarizes recent advances in this class of materials. First, from the perspective of metal center introduction timing, three core synthetic strategies—pre-metallation, simultaneous metallation, and post-metallation—are categorized and evaluated in terms of coordination precision, synthetic efficiency, and scalability potential. Second, the regulatory effects of two-dimensional layered and three-dimensional interpenetrated structures on charge transport pathways and structural stability are elucidated. Subsequently, the applications of porphyrin/phthalocyanine-based MCOFs in lithium-based batteries, zinc-based batteries, sodium/potassium-ion batteries, and supercapacitors are reviewed in detail, with emphasis on the key roles of metal active sites in catalytic conversion, chemical anchoring/confinement, interface stabilization, and pseudocapacitive contribution. Finally, future directions to address key performance and mechanistic bottlenecks are discussed. This review aims to provide a systematic reference for the rational design and energy storage applications of high-performance porphyrin/phthalocyanine-based MCOFs. Full article

A polyurea-coated carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminated structure is designed to enhance the impact resistance of lithium-ion batteries against ground impact. This paper presents a numerical simulation to investigate the influence of a polyurea-coated CFRP battery pack bottom plate on mitigating battery damage under ground impact conditions. A novel three-dimensional finite element model of the polyurea-coated CFRP laminate, incorporating a hyper-viscoelastic material model for the polyurea coating and an orthotropic model for the CFRP, is established to analyze the impact response and damage behavior of the laminate. The simulated impact peak force, energy absorption, and maximum crack length of the polyurea-coated CFRP laminate are all within 5% of the experimental results. Based on this validated three-dimensional model, a new battery pack simulation model is developed. The battery module model innovatively adopts a hybrid approach that combines homogenized battery module models and detailed battery module models, enabling accurate simulation of localized cell damage and failure during collisions while significantly improving computational efficiency. The punching process after perforation of the polyurea-coated CFRP laminate, the subsequent crack propagation of the plate, and the local deformation modes of individual cells are clearly predicted by the global model. Battery shortening is recorded as an important indicator of internal short circuits and potential thermal runaway. A parametric study is carried out, and several underlying rules are revealed: the front coating method leads to a greater reduction in battery damage, and the stiffness–toughness interplay between the polyurea coating and the carbon fiber composite is identified as a critical factor governing battery damage. This study provides important insights for the design of protective structures for battery packs against ground impact. Full article

Escalating energy costs and peak power demand charges pose significant challenges to the manufacturing sector. In response, industries are increasingly adopting on-site renewable energy sources and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs). However, maximizing their economic benefit requires sophisticated control strategies that integrate energy management with production operations. This paper proposes and evaluates an integrated and adaptive rule-based coordination framework for BESS and machine-level switch-off policies in a production environment. Using discrete-event simulation, we model a four-machine manufacturing flow line powered by the grid and an on-site solar PV plant. We compare six distinct control policies, ranging from a benchmark case without storage to progressively more integrated context-aware strategies that incorporate price-aware BESS charging, dynamic peak-shaving, and adaptive machine switch-offs. The results demonstrate that integrated policies yield substantial economic benefits. The most advanced policy dynamically coordinates BESS dispatch with machine-level switch-off decisions based on electricity prices, production conditions, and energy availability, achieving the largest reduction in total energy costs and peak grid demand among the evaluated policies. This study quantifies the synergistic effects of combining supply-side (BESS) and demand-side (switch-off) strategies, providing a framework for developing resilient and cost-effective energy management systems in modern manufacturing. Full article

Effective thermal management is a cornerstone of safe, long-life lithium-ion battery operation, especially under high-rate charge–discharge and dynamic driving conditions. Conventional active cooling technologies face inherent trade-offs between heat dissipation efficiency, system complexity, and temperature uniformity, while phase change materials (PCMs) provide a promising passive alternative by absorbing latent heat during phase transition to buffer temperature spikes, improve temperature uniformity, and delay thermal runaway propagation. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advances in PCM-based lithium-ion battery thermal management, systematically covering the full scope from fundamental battery heat generation mechanisms to material synthesis optimization and hybrid system integration. At the material level, we analyze state-of-the-art strategies to address the intrinsic drawbacks of organic PCMs—low thermal conductivity, mismatched phase transition temperatures, and high flammability—including the construction of carbon/metal conductive skeletons, compositional tuning of phase change behavior, and flame-retardant modifications. These approaches have yielded composite PCMs with significantly improved heat transport capability and fire safety, while preserving high latent heat storage capacity. At the system level, we evaluate the thermal performance of pure passive PCM configurations, which excel at peak temperature suppression and inter-cell temperature uniformity, as well as hybrid designs that combine PCMs with air or liquid cooling to resolve heat accumulation issues and maintain stable performance under prolonged, demanding operating cycles. Despite these advances, key challenges remain: balancing high thermal conductivity with high latent heat capacity, developing climate-adaptable phase transition temperatures, and integrating multiple functionalities without compromising core thermal storage properties. Looking forward, future research directions include multifunctional integrated composites, smart adaptive PCMs, cost-effective scalable manufacturing, and precision structural engineering. This review also summarizes quantified performance trade-offs and provides actionable design guidelines for both material development and system-level integration. Full article

Sustainable energy management in grid-connected AC microgrids is investigated through a comparative assessment of centralized, distributed, and decentralized multi-agent-system-based load management control architectures integrating photovoltaic (PV) generation and battery energy storage system. A sustainability-oriented rule-based load scheduling strategy is implemented to efficiently utilize available renewable energy while maintaining grid power consumption within the prescribed demand limits and ensuring priority support for critical loads. Multi-agent-system (MAS)-based load agents coordinate centralized, distributed, and decentralized load management operations. The control architectures are evaluated under identical load profiles, PV generation patterns, and demand-limit constraints to ensure a fair comparison of sustainability-oriented energy management performance. Their resilience is further assessed under agent failures, communication losses, and delays. The comparative analysis employs sustainability-oriented performance metrics, including load served percentage, load curtailment percentage, demand-limit violation duration, and PV utilisation, to assess reliable energy delivery, demand-side efficiency, grid compliance, and effective renewable-energy utilisation. The results reveal distinct architectural trade-offs in sustainable energy management: decentralized control offers greater resilience to agent failures and achieves the highest average load-served percentage (64.83%) and lowest demand-limit violation duration (40.61 ms). Distributed control provides enhanced coordination and priority-based load management, with intermediate performance (64.10%, 41.17 ms), whereas centralized control is constrained by single-point failures and scalability, exhibiting the lowest performance (58.52%, 43.33 ms). PV utilisation remains approximately 99% across all architectures, indicating near-complete utilisation of available solar generation for load supply and battery charging with minimal curtailment. Full article

To comply with stringent emission regulations, the deployment of hybridized powertrains is continuously expanding. However, architectures such as plug-in and parallel hybrids intrinsically reduce the overall runtime of the internal combustion engine (ICE). Because the battery state-of-charge (SOC) dictates intermittent engine activation, this operational strategy inevitably induces frequent cold-start events. This study investigates the thermal dynamics of commercial catalyst geometries (300–1200 cpsi, 2–8 mil) via 1D numerical simulations under real-world driving conditions. Without active heating, high-thermal-mass substrates unexpectedly outperform ultra-thin-wall variants by buffering against convective quenching during prolonged idling. However, integrating start–stop functionality halts cold exhaust flow, elevating mean temperatures and marginalizing geometric disparities. Evaluating electrically heated catalysts (EHCs) reveals that discrete preheating is highly inefficient due to rapid heat dissipation. Conversely, continuous closed-loop heating coupled with start–stop functionality sustains operational temperatures for over 90% of the cycle. Under continuous heating, substrate geometry ceases to dictate thermal performance; instead, it governs electrical efficiency. Low-thermal-mass monoliths minimize cumulative energy demand to 213 kJ (versus 277 kJ for high-mass variants), incurring a negligible CO₂ penalty. Consequently, future hybrid architectures must integrate lightweight EHCs to ensure sustainable emission control. Full article

Background: Neurocognitive testing in neuro-oncological patients often relies on time-intensive batteries with limited feasibility in this patient cohort. We evaluated the feasibility of the Bonn Leistungs Tracking Test (BLTT), a time-efficient screening tool assessing episodic memory, semantic memory, and executive functions in patients with high-grade temporal lobe gliomas. Methods: Twenty patients undergoing resection of temporal high-grade glioma between 2019 and 2022 underwent preoperative cognitive assessment using either the BLTT or a comprehensive neuropsychological battery routinely applied in temporal lobe epilepsy surgery. Results: Twelve patients (60%) underwent the BLTT, and eight (40%) underwent the standard neuropsychological test battery. The BLTT was feasible in all 12 individuals (0% drop-out), whereas only four of eight patients (50% drop-out) were able to complete the standard battery. The mean BLTT total score was 69.3 (SD 4.5), indicating impaired neurocognitive performance relative to normative data. The BLTT provided evaluable domain-specific measures across episodic memory, semantic memory, and executive functioning despite the high discontinuation rate observed with standard testing. Conclusions: The BLTT showed high feasibility for preoperative neurocognitive testing in patients with temporal high-grade gliomas. Its brief administration time and consistent applicability across relevant cognitive domains support its utility for routine neurocognitive assessment. Full article

The increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is expected to generate a substantial number of retired lithium-ion batteries, creating both environmental challenges and opportunities for second-life energy storage applications. However, the performance variability of retired batteries makes the identification of suitable candidates for repurposing a significant challenge. This study proposes a Battery Stability Index (BSI) framework for evaluating the suitability of second-life EV batteries for stationary energy storage applications supporting EV charging infrastructures. Battery cycling data from Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV battery packs were analyzed using degradation rate, energy efficiency retention, operational stability, and energy throughput indicators. In addition, EV charging demand data were utilized to assess charging session support capability as a practical deployment-oriented performance metric. The proposed BSI integrates stability, degradation, and throughput characteristics into a unified assessment framework for battery ranking and suitability evaluation. The results demonstrate significant performance differences between the evaluated battery families. Nissan Leaf batteries exhibited lower capacity degradation rates (0.0086) than Mitsubishi i-MiEV batteries (0.0170), maintained higher energy efficiency retention (91.4% versus 79.0%), and achieved substantially greater energy throughput (21,911 Wh versus 6230 Wh). Furthermore, Nissan Leaf batteries supported up to 1.16 EV charging sessions, whereas Mitsubishi i-MiEV batteries supported fewer than 0.34 sessions. Consequently, Nissan Leaf batteries achieved the highest BSI values, with Leaf-1 and Leaf-2 obtaining scores of 0.658 and 0.638, respectively. The findings demonstrate that battery suitability cannot be reliably determined using a single health indicator. The proposed BSI framework provides a comprehensive and practical approach for identifying suitable second-life batteries, supporting battery repurposing decisions, sustainable energy storage deployment, and the integration of second-life batteries within EV charging ecosystems. Full article

This paper proposes a stochastic dispatch framework for multi-terminal high-voltage direct current (MT-HVDC) systems that explicitly accounts for uncertainty in photovoltaic (PV) generation and electrical demand while preserving computational tractability. The economic–environmental dispatch problem is formulated as a mixed-integer second-order cone programming (MI-SOCP) model, where the SOCP relaxation provides a convex representation of the network constraints, and the mixed-integer component captures the discrete charging/discharging states of battery energy storage systems (BESS). This formulation ensures that, for any fixed set of binary decisions, the remaining problem reduces to a standard convex SOCP, enabling efficient solution via branch-and-bound methods with tight continuous relaxations. Uncertainty is incorporated through a chance-constrained optimization (CCP) approach, where forecast errors are modeled using bounded truncated distributions and reformulated into deterministic convex constraints via quantile-based approximations, yielding a risk-aware dispatch strategy that avoids optimistic bias. Numerical studies on an 11-bus MT-HVDC test system demonstrate that accounting for uncertainty increases total operating costs by up to 31.87% and CO₂ emissions by up to 37.41% when both PV and demand uncertainties are considered simultaneously at a confidence level of 0.9, compared to the deterministic solution. Power demand uncertainty has a substantially greater impact than PV generation uncertainty, leading to cost increases of 28.09% versus 3.85% at the highest confidence level. Validation on a modified IEEE 24-bus MT-HVDC system confirms the scalability and computational efficiency of the proposed approach, achieving global optimality in a pure solver time of 1.34 s with a maximum relative relaxation gap of $5.81\times {10}^{-9}$, demonstrating numerical exactness and suitability for day-ahead scheduling. The results also highlight the critical role of BESSs in providing operational flexibility, with storage strategies differing significantly under uncertainty during early hours while converging to deterministic behavior later. The findings reveal a clear trade-off between economic performance and operational reliability as the confidence level increases, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed approach for integrating renewables and storage in modern HVDC grids, while also identifying important limitations regarding independence assumptions and scalability to larger systems. Full article

Self-assembled liquid crystal polymer networks build directional transport channels via molecular alignment, enabling efficient and ordered lithium-ion migration, while single-ion conducting polymer electrolytes improve lithium-ion transference number by covalently anchoring anions, which alleviates concentration polarization and effectively suppresses lithium dendrite growth. Herein, a series of substrate-free Li salt-grafted cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCE) with tunable helical pitches and spiral orientation were fabricated, and quasi-solid electrolyte membranes were obtained through plasticization. It was found that samples with the smallest helical pitch delivered the highest lithium-ion transference number irrespective of the spiral orientation. The optimal CLCE electrolyte membrane achieved a lithium-ion transference number of 0.94, exhibiting characteristic single-ion conductivity. Moreover, after adding small amount of extra free Li salt, the prepared electrolyte membrane delivered a room-temperature ionic conductivity of 2.6 × 10⁻⁴ S·cm⁻¹, an electrochemical stability window of 5.2 V and stable cycling performance, providing new insights into the design of high-performance safe quasi-solid lithium-ion batteries. Full article