This paper presents a new type of process for the cracking of ammonia (NH3) that is an alternative to the use of rare or transition metal catalysts. Effecting the decomposition of NH3 using the concurrent stoichiometric decomposition and regeneration of sodium amide (NaNH2) via sodium metal (Na), this represents a significant departure in reaction mechanism compared with traditional surface catalysts. In variable-temperature NH3 decomposition experiments, using a simple flow reactor, the Na/NaNH2 system shows superior performance to supported nickel and ruthenium catalysts, reaching 99.2% decomposition efficiency with 0.5 g of NaNH2 in a 60 sccm NH3 flow at 530 °C. As an abundant and inexpensive material, the development of NaNH2-based NH3 cracking systems may promote the utilization of NH3 for sustainable energy storage purposes.

Increasing concerns regarding the sustainability of lithium sources, due to their limited availability and consequent expected price increase, have raised awareness of the importance of developing alternative energy-storage candidates that can sustain the ever-growing energy demand. Furthermore, limitations on the availability of the transition metals used in the manufacturing of cathode materials, together with questionable mining practices, are driving development towards more sustainable elements. Given the uniformly high abundance and cost-effectiveness of sodium, as well as its very suitable redox potential (close to that of lithium), sodium-ion battery technology offers tremendous potential to be a counterpart to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in different application scenarios, such as stationary energy storage and low-cost vehicles. This potential is reflected by the major investments that are being made by industry in a wide variety of markets and in diverse material combinations. Despite the associated advantages of being a drop-in replacement for LIBs, there are remarkable differences in the physicochemical properties between sodium and lithium that give rise to different behaviours, for example, different coordination preferences in compounds, desolvation energies, or solubility of the solid–electrolyte interphase inorganic salt components. This demands a more detailed study of the underlying physical and chemical processes occurring in sodium-ion batteries and allows great scope for groundbreaking advances in the field, from lab-scale to scale-up. This roadmap provides an extensive review by experts in academia and industry of the current state of the art in 2021 and the different research directions and strategies currently underway to improve the performance of sodium-ion batteries. The aim is to provide an opinion with respect to the current challenges and opportunities, from the fundamental properties to the practical applications of this technology.

The non-stoichiometric lithium imide–amide system effectively decomposes ammonia to its constituents, hydrogen and nitrogen. Isotopic studies show that this bulk catalytic reaction has the potential to generate high-purity hydrogen for future energy and transport applications.

Two-dimensional hexagonally ordered honeycomb surfaces have been created by solvent casting polybutadiene films under controlled humidity. Subsequent CF(4) plasmachemical fluorination introduces cross-linking and surface texturing, leading to hierarchical surfaces with roughness on both the 10 μm (honeycomb) and micrometer (texturing) length scales. For microliter droplets, these display high water contact angle values (>170°) in combination with low contact angle hysteresis (i.e., superhydrophobicity) while displaying bouncing of picoliter water droplets. In the case of picoliter droplets, it is found that surfaces which exhibit similar static contact angles can give rise to different droplet impact dynamics, governed by the underlying surface topography. These studies are of relevance to technological processes such as rapid cooling, delayed freezing, crop spraying, and inkjet printing.

The impact of picoliter-sized water droplets on superhydrophobic CF(4) plasma fluorinated polybutadiene surfaces is investigated with high-speed imaging. Variation of the surface topography by plasmachemical modification enables the dynamics of wetting to be precisely controlled. Final spreading ratios as low as 0.63 can be achieved. A comparison of the maximum spreading ratio and droplet oscillation frequencies to models described in the literature shows that both are found to be much lower than theoretically predicted.