NGenE 2025: Electrochemistry for Energy Abundance

Next Generation Electrochemistry (NGenE) is a week-long workshop held annually since 2016 that targets postdoctoral and doctoral researchers in electrochemical research. NGenE assumes baseline knowledge because it does not ask “What is electrochemistry?” but rather “What will electrochemistry become?” World-renowned researchers present fundamental challenges at the cutting edge and hold vigorous discussions with participants about opportunities for future transformations, which were synthesized in previous Energy Focus articles. (1,2) In 2025, NGenE focused on the growing ways that electrochemistry can help address today’s energy demands, from autonomous vehicles to recycling of nuclear fuel, unlocking avenues for abundance that are accessible to everyone. The ongoing revolution driven by the explosion in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms featured prominently, both in terms of their use and the challenges to the energy ecosystem associated with the boom in data center construction.

NGenE participants were challenged to articulate what they view as the most crucial questions facing future generations of electrochemists. They were divided into groups, each of which produced a short document and a presentation of their propositions. This article summarizes their output, which identifies advances that are vertical, along a specific application, and horizontal, along developments that would cut across many possible uses of electrochemistry. We share it to collect feedback from the community and to motivate pursuit of directions at the research frontier.