Sustainability and Nanomaterials in Concert

Sustainable energy and the environment are one of the central priorities for our society, triggering a massive capital investment on research to define new trajectories for bypassing fossil fuel dependence and move to clean energy and consequent pollution abatement. The last decade has witnessed the rise and establishment of nanomaterials as frontrunners for a real societal impact of key processes under investigation, such as sustainable hydrogen production and CO2 conversion to fuels. The enormous progress achieved has been made possible by the opportunity to better understand materials at the nanoscale through the use of more powerful characterization techniques and advanced synthetic strategies. The lesson learned is that appropriately engineered multicomponent nanomaterials may hold the key to the routine industrial establishment of new greener concepts of energy production, with strong repercussions to the quality of life.