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October 2020

Oct. 1, 2020

Apex Flex: An All-Perovskite Tandem Technology Suitable for Solar-Powered Vehicles

NREL's new perovskite material, marketed as Apex Flex, broke through two design barriers to arrive at a solar cell that is flexible and stable enough for car-top application at a cost 200 times less than flexible PV technologies of similar specific power.

September 2020

Sept. 24, 2020

Scientists Offer Companies a Novel Chemistry for Greener Polyurethane

Through a novel chemistry using nontoxic resources like linseed oil, waste grease, or even algae, chemist Phil Pienkos and colleague Tao Dong, an expert in chemical engineering, have developed a groundbreaking method for producing renewable polyurethane without toxic precursors.

August 2020

Aug. 13, 2020

ARIES and RAIL Promise To Advance Renewable Energy Innovation and Integration

Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette introduced two new acronyms to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) lexicon on Aug. 12: RAIL and ARIES. RAIL stands for Research and Innovation Laboratory, while ARIES is short for Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems.

Aug. 7, 2020

Two-for-One Energy from Photons, Now Better than Ever

NREL researchers have found a promising group of materials for tomorrow's super-efficient solar cells, demonstrating how a carefully designed molecule can efficiently split the energy imparted by one photon into two excited states and keep them separated for several microseconds.

July 2020

July 16, 2020

New Process Turns Carbon into Cleaner, High-Performance Diesel Biofuel Blendstock

A new single-phase catalyst that enables the conversion of renewable and waste carbon into sustainable diesel fuels has been developed through a unique collaboration between NREL and two DOE consortia, Chemical Catalysis for Bioenergy and the Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines initiative.

June 2020

June 22, 2020

Lowering Atmospheric CO2 in Large-Scale Renewable Energy Electrochemical Process

What if carbon dioxide (CO2), a prevalent greenhouse gas, could be transformed into higher-value fuels and chemicals using low-cost, renewable electricity? Recent results from NREL may enable the scale-up of an electrochemical process to reduce CO2 that has not been possible until now.

March 2020

March 25, 2020

JISEA Celebrates a Decade of Energy System Transformation Through Analysis

Ten years since its founding, the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis continues to provide critical insights linking energy, society, and prosperity around the world.

March 5, 2020

News Release: NREL Research Boosts Stability of Perovskites, Helps Silicon Solar Cells

A change in chemical composition enabled scientists to boost the longevity and efficiency of a perovskite solar cell developed at NREL. The new formula enabled the solar cell to resist a stability problem that has so far thwarted the commercialization of perovskites.

February 2020

Feb. 19, 2020

News Release: Researchers Improve Safety of Lead-Based Perovskite Solar Cells

Researchers at NREL and Northern Illinois University have developed a technique to sequester the lead used to make perovskite solar cells, a highly efficient emerging photovoltaic technology.

October 2019

Oct. 11, 2019

Matt Beard: New Senior Research Fellow Helps Make Quantum Leap in Solar Energy

Newly appointed NREL Senior Research Fellow Matt Beard is pursuing new concepts that can impact many types of different energy technologies.


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Last Updated May 5, 2025