Over the last three decades, fiber optic sensors (FOS) have gained a lot of attention for their wide range of monitoring applications across many industries, including aerospace, defense, security, civil engineering, and energy. FOS technologies hold great promise to form the backbone for next‐generation intelligent sensing platforms that offer long‐distance, high‐accuracy, distributed measurement capabilities and multiparametric monitoring with resilience to harsh environmental conditions. The major limitations posed by FOS are 1) cross‐sensitivity, 2) enormous volume and large data generation, 3) low data processing speed, 4) degradation of signal‐to‐noise ratio over the fiber length, and 5) overall cost of sensor and interrogator systems. These challenges can be overcome by building advanced data analytics engines enabled by recent breakthroughs in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). This article presents a comprehensive review of recent studies that integrate ML and AI algorithms with FOS technologies. This review also highlights several FOS technology development directions that promise a significant impact on widespread use for several industrial applications, with an emphasis on energy systems monitoring. A perspective on future directions for further research development is also provided.

On its revolutionary threshold, quantum sensing is creating potentially transformative opportunities to exploit intricate quantum mechanical phenomena in new ways to make ultrasensitive measurements of multiple parameters. Concurrently, growing interest in quantum sensing has created opportunities for its deployment to improve processes pertaining to energy production, distribution, and consumption. Safe and secure utilization of energy is dependent upon addressing challenges related to material stability and function, secure monitoring of infrastructure, and accuracy in detection and measurement. A summary of well‐established and emerging quantum sensing materials and techniques, as well as the corresponding sensing platforms that have been developed for their deployment is provided here. Specifically, the enhancement of existing advanced sensing technologies with quantum methods and materials is focused on, enabling the realization of an unprecedented level of sensitivity, placing an emphasis on relevance to the energy industry. The review concludes with a discussion on high‐value applications of quantum sensing to the energy sector, as well as remaining barriers to sensor deployment.

By combining density functional theory and lattice phonon dynamics, the thermodynamic properties of CO2 absorption/desorption reactions with alkaline earth metal oxides MO and hydroxides M(OH)2 (where M=Be,Mg,Ca,Sr,Ba) are analyzed. The heats of reaction and the chemical potential changes of these solids upon CO2 capture reactions have been calculated and used to evaluate the energy costs. Relative to CaO, a widely used system in practical applications, MgO and Mg(OH)2 systems were found to be better candidates for CO2 sorbent applications due to their lower operating temperatures (600–700 K). In the presence of H2O, MgCO3 can be regenerated into Mg(OH)2 at low temperatures or into MgO at high temperatures. This transition temperature depends not only on the CO2 pressure but also on the H2O pressure. Based on our calculated results and by comparing with available experimental data, we propose a general computational search methodology which can be used as a general scheme for screening a large number of solids for use as CO2 sorbents.

The lithium silicates have attracted scientific interest due to their potential use as high-temperature sorbents for CO₂ capture. The electronic properties and thermodynamic stabilities of lithium silicates with different Li₂O/SiO₂ ratios (Li₂O, Li₈SiO₆, Li₄SiO₄, Li₆Si₂O₇, Li₂SiO₃, Li₂Si₂O₅, Li₂Si₃O₇, and α-SiO₂) have been investigated by combining first-principles density functional theory with lattice phonon dynamics. All these lithium silicates examined are insulators with band-gaps larger than 4.5 eV. By decreasing the Li₂O/SiO₂ ratio, the first valence bandwidth of the corresponding lithium silicate increases. Additionally, by decreasing the Li₂O/SiO₂ ratio, the vibrational frequencies of the corresponding lithium silicates shift to higher frequencies. Based on the calculated energetic information, their CO₂ absorption capabilities were extensively analyzed through thermodynamic investigations on these absorption reactions. We found that by increasing the Li₂O/SiO₂ ratio when going from Li₂Si₃O₇ to Li₈SiO₆, the corresponding lithium silicates have higher CO₂ capture capacity, higher turnover temperatures and heats of reaction, and require higher energy inputs for regeneration. Based on our experimentally measured isotherms of the CO₂ chemisorption by lithium silicates, we found that the CO₂ capture reactions are two-stage processes: (1) a superficial reaction to form the external shell composed of Li₂CO₃ and a metal oxide or lithium silicate secondary phase and (2) lithium diffusion from bulk to the surface with a simultaneous diffusion of CO₂ into the shell to continue the CO₂ chemisorption process. The second stage is the rate determining step for the capture process. By changing the mixing ratio of Li₂O and SiO₂, we can obtain different lithium silicate solids which exhibit different thermodynamic behaviors. Based on our results, three mixing scenarios are discussed to provide general guidelines for designing new CO₂ sorbents to fit practical needs.

The structural, electronic, and phonon properties of ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$ and ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ solids are investigated using density functional theory (DFT) and their thermodynamic properties for ${\text{CO}}_2$ absorption and desorption reactions are analyzed. The calculated bulk properties for both the ambient- and the high-pressure phases of ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$ and ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ are in good agreement with available experimental measurements. The calculated band gap of the high-pressure phase of ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$ (8.37 eV, indirect) is about 3 eV larger than the one corresponding to the ambient ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$ phase (5.39 eV, direct), whereas the calculated band gap for the high-pressure phase of ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ (3.55 eV, indirect) is about 1.6 eV smaller than that for the ambient phase of ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ (5.10 eV, direct). The oxygen atoms in the ambient phase of the ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ crystal are not equivalent as reflected by two different sets of C-O bond lengths (1.28 and $1.31\text{Å}$) and they form two different groups. When ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ dissociates, one group of O forms ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$, while the other group of O forms ${\text{CO}}_2$. The calculated phonon dispersion and density of states for the ambient phases of ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$ and ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ are in good agreement with experimental measurements and other available theoretical results. ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}\left(s\right)+{\text{CO}}_2\left(g\right)\leftrightarrow {\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3\left(s\right)$ is the key reaction of lithium salt sorbents (such as lithium silicates and lithium zircornates) for ${\text{CO}}_2$ capture. The energy change and the chemical potential of this reaction have been calculated by combining DFT with lattice dynamics. Our results indicate that although pure ${\text{Li}}_2\text{O}$ can absorb ${\text{CO}}_2$ efficiently, it is not a good solid sorbent for ${\text{CO}}_2$ capture because the reverse reaction, corresponding to ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ releasing ${\text{CO}}_2$, can only occur at very low ${\text{CO}}_2$ pressure and/or at very high temperature when ${\text{Li}}_2{\text{CO}}_3$ is in liquid phase.