Hui-Ming Cheng, Editor-in-Chief of Energy Storage MaterialsWelcome words:
Energy is one of the most critical issues for the sustainable development. Due to the rapid depletion of fossil fuels and increasing environmental pollution caused by vast fossil-fuel consumption, there is a high demand to make efficient use of energy and to seek renewable and clean energy sources. Energy storage, an intermediate step to the versatile, clean, and efficient use of energy, has received worldwide attention and increasing research interest.
Energy storage, in fact, could be dated back to ancient times. Mankind initially made fire using wood and charcoal, which are biomass energy storage carriers of solar energy and acted as one of the most important driving powers for ancient civilization. Then came coal and petroleum, which also store solar energy from buried plants in a much higher density than wood or charcoal to power steam engines and vehicles and to generate electricity. With the rapid development of economy and the increase of global population, the energy consumption has been dramatically increasing and its consumption manner is diversified. High-performance energy storage techniques are needed to enable efficient, versatile, and environmentally friendly uses of energy including electricity. Therefore, various energy storage systems are being developed aimed at proper utilization of different energy sources. In particular, popularization of portable electronics and electric vehicles worldwide stimulates the development of various energy storage devices, such as batteries, supercapacitors, solar cells, fuel cells, and thermoelectric devices, toward higher power density and energy density, which significantly depends upon the advancement of new materials. Therefore, energy storage science and technology are recognized as one of the most important parts of energy science and technology, while energy storage materials are taking the core position. In spite of such high demands, no journal specialized on energy storage materials exists.
Energy Storage Materials will be an international multidisciplinary forum for communicating great scientific and technological advances in the field of materials used for any kind of energy storage. The journal will report significant new findings in physics and chemistry related to synthesis, fabrication, textures, structures, properties, performance, and technological applications of materials and their use in devices for energy storage such as electrochemical, chemical, electrical, thermal, magnetic, and mechanical energy storage. These materials can be either inorganic (metallic or non-metallic) materials, organic materials, or their hybrids and composites. The journal also welcomes manuscripts dealing with materials for energy conversion, dissipation and transport in relation to energy storage, as well as with strategies and policies for developing advanced energy storage technologies. We expect that the journal will be one of the most prestigious journals in the fields of new energy and materials science from the outset.
Energy Storage Materials will guarantee fast publication, early online access, Article Based Publishing and the possibility to publish open access. There will be no page charges. It will also provide full-color high-resolution figures for all manuscripts without any additional charge to authors. The most exciting images will be selected as front cover images. Beside Full length and Review articles it will include Rapid communications which feature exciting research breakthroughs in the field and News and Opinions which comment on topical issues or express views on the developments in related fields. Also available feature for authors will be Graphical abstract: a summary of the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online. This journal will also offer a new free service called AudioSlides. These are brief, webcast-style presentations that are shown next to published articles on ScienceDirect. The Best Paper Award and The Most Exciting Image Award will be selected annually from the published papers. These awards will be given at the Carbon annual conference during the first couple of years.
The first issue of Energy Storage Materials is planned to publish in October 2015 and the second is at the end of Dec. 2015. The online submission system, EVISE, is now ready, so we welcome all of you working in the field of energy storage and conversion submit your high-quality papers to this exciting new journal.
Thank you very much for your strong support and great contribution to the Energy Storage Materials.