Boettcher, ShannonKrivina, Raina2022-10-042022-10-04https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27642Climate change dilemma forces researchers from all over the world to focus on developing solutions for reducing fossil fuel consumption and overall energy use. In this dissertation, several advanced materials for energy consumption reduction and renewable energy storage are explored. Chapter I introduces the materials and studies completed. One promising material that can reduce the heating and cooling energy demands in buildings is tin-doped indium oxide (ITO). ITO can block incoming heat radiation. The ITO coatings are currently produced by wasteful sputter deposition methods. Chapter II describes solution processing of ITO nanomaterial. Solution processing of these materials allows to reduce waste during deposition while using nanomaterial instead of bulk enables to combine the optical properties of ITO with different dopant levels in a single thin film.The bottleneck of large-scale implementation of renewable energy is the lack of storage technologies. A key technology that has potential to connect renewable energy production and end user is water electrolysis. Water electrolysis allows to direct the energy produced by wind turbines or solar panels to split water and produce H2 that can be stored and transported safely. Chapter III introduces a novel catalyst for the anodic half-reaction in acid synthesized from a molecular precursor that aims to maximize the intrinsic activity of every active site while minimizing the overall catalyst loading. In Chapter IV, the degradation routes for complex polymers used in water splitting devices are investigated. The potential-induced polymer oxidation in the presence of several widely-used supporting electrolytes is discussed. The final two chapters give an overview of the challenges of using non-platinum-group-metal catalysts in water electrolyzers and unveils the numerous degradation modes possible for these catalysts in a zero-gap system. This work benefits the electrolysis field by providing new insight into the complex processes occurring during electrolyzer operation understanding of which is essential for designing robust stable materials for water electrolyzers. This dissertation contains previously published and unpublished co-authored materials.en-USAll Rights Reserved.AEMcatalysiselectrochemistryelectrolyzernon-PGMXPSElectronic Thesis or Dissertation