This roadmap presents the transformational research ideas proposed by “BATTERY 2030+,” the European large‐scale research initiative for future battery chemistries. A “chemistry‐neutral” roadmap to advance battery research, particularly at low technology readiness levels, is outlined, with a time horizon of more than ten years. The roadmap is centered around six themes: 1) accelerated materials discovery platform, 2) battery interface genome, with the integration of smart functionalities such as 3) sensing and 4) self‐healing processes. Beyond chemistry related aspects also include crosscutting research regarding 5) manufacturability and 6) recyclability. This roadmap should be seen as an enabling complement to the global battery roadmaps which focus on expected ultrahigh battery performance, especially for the future of transport. Batteries are used in many applications and are considered to be one technology necessary to reach the climate goals. Currently the market is dominated by lithium‐ion batteries, which perform well, but despite new generations coming in the near future, they will soon approach their performance limits. Without major breakthroughs, battery performance and production requirements will not be sufficient to enable the building of a climate‐neutral society. Through this “chemistry neutral” approach a generic toolbox transforming the way batteries are developed, designed and manufactured, will be created.

Inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene in remote locations, developing countries, and disaster zones fuel the growing demand for efficient small-scale desalination technologies. The aim is to provide high-quality freshwater to water-stressed and disaster-stricken communities even in the absence of energy infrastructure. The major key drivers behind the development of these technologies are the low cost of materials, the flexibility of the technology, the sustainability of the freshwater production, and the long-term stability of the device performance. However, the main challenge is to achieve stable performance by either preventing or mitigating salt accumulation during the desalination process. We present a multistage passive solar distiller whose key-strength is an optimized geometry leading to enhanced water yield (as compared to similar state of the art technologies) and spontaneous salt rejection. A comprehensive theoretical study is conducted to explain the apparently paradoxical experimental effective transport exceeding classical diffusion by two orders of magnitude. In our study, the Marangoni effect is included at the water–air interface and it stems from spatial gradients of surface tension. Interestingly, theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that the device is able to reject overnight all the salt accumulated on each evaporator during daytime operation. Furthermore, under realistic conditions, a distillate flow rate of almost 2 L m⁻² h⁻¹ from seawater at less than one sun illumination has been experimentally observed. The reported mechanism of the enhanced salt rejection process may have tremendous implications in the desalination field as it paves the way to the design of a new generation of hydrophilic and porous materials for passive thermal desalination. We envision that such a technology can help provide cheap drinking water, in a robust way, during emergency conditions, while maintaining stable performance over a long time.

Experimental evidences are reported on the potential of direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) in manufacturing flat and finned heat sinks with a remarkably enhanced convective heat transfer coefficient, taking advantage of artificial roughness in fully turbulent regime. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study where artificial roughness by DMLS is investigated in terms of such thermal performances. On rough flat surfaces, we experience a peak of 73% for the convective heat transfer enhancement (63% on average) compared to smooth surfaces. On rough (single) finned surfaces, the best performance is found to be 40% (35% on average) compared to smooth finned surface. These results refer to setups with Reynolds numbers (based on heated edge) within 3500≲ReL≲16,500 (corresponding to 35,000≲ReD≲165,000 in terms of Reynolds number based on hydraulic diameter). Experimental data are obtained by a purposely developed sensor with maximum and mean estimated tolerance intervals of ±7.0% and ±5.4%, respectively. Following the idea by Gioia et al. (2006) [48], we propose that heat transfer close to the wall is dominated by eddies with size depending on the roughness dimensions and the viscous (Kolmogórov) length scale. An excellent agreement between the experimental data and the proposed analytical model is finally demonstrated