Ceramics for Sustainable Energy Technologies with a Focus on Polymer-Derived Ceramics - Novel Combustion Concepts for Sustainable Energy Development - page 490

Keywords Ceramics Polymer-derived ceramics Coatings Sustainable

technologies

1 Introduction

A broad range of scientists and policy makers have raised the alarm regarding the
change in global climate change due to emission of greenhouse gases. The most
widely recognized and thorough review has been conducted by the Intergovern-
mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The most recent report from this multi-
national group was released in 2014 (IPCC 2014 ). While the earlier reports focused
on the science of climate change and its impact (global temperature increase,
decrease in ice cover, changes in crop pattern and productivity, severe climate
events, etc.), as well as the primary causes of it (greenhouse gases such as CO 2
produced as a result of human activity), this report focuses on strategies to mitigate
climate change. It is widely recognized that one of the major sources of greenhouse
gases is the combustion of coal and hydrocarbons (gas- and petroleum-based liquid
fuels). These are the primary fuels of the industrial society and are used for
everything from electricity generation, transportation, industrial processes, and
residential needs and comforts. The best available science summarized in the IPCC
report mentioned above clearly presents a road map for the mitigation of climate
change. The three pillars of this strategy are as follows: energy ef ciency, alternate

energy technologies that reduce or eliminate greenhouse gases, and strategies to
sequester greenhouse gases.
In this paper, we show that ceramics already play and will play an increasingly
important role in all the three important mitigation strategies. In particular, we focus
on polymer-derived ceramics since this emerging technology is an attractive
approach to make a wide range of ceramic forms and components of interest to one
of the central grand challenges of our times

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
while increasing the quality of life for all human beings.

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1.1 Ceramics for Sustainable Applications

Ceramics, due to their refractory nature, high hardness, and environmental inert-
ness, are used in a broad spectrum of industries and energy conversion technolo-
gies. However, the urgency of the global climate change has led to much higher
demands on the material systems. In many cases, conventional materials systems

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including ceramics have been found to be inadequate to meet these increased

demands in performance and/or cost. The emerging need for novel ceramic mate-
rials for energy, environment, and sustainability have been summarized in many
publications, including, for example, the road map for the development of advanced