Materials and Energy

The profound importance of materials for society is reflected by the naming of epochs after the materials that were mastered (for instance the Stone Age). Now we enter the nano epoch in which we have control over essentially all materials on a scale as small as the nanometer, with many unprecedented and largely unexplored opportunities for applications in the area of sustainability.

To develop a sustainable society, we must reduce and subsequently eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. Nanomaterials will play a key role in reaching a sustainable society powered by a renewable, decarbonized energy system. However, it is not sufficient to only harvest renewable energy, it must in many cases also be transported and stored to balance supply and demand in time and location. To be able to satisfy the world’s strongly growing demand for computing, data transfer, and communication in a more sustainable way, energy efficiency has to be improved through software and hardware.