or biocarbon that can be defined as a carbonaceous material obtained through thermal treatment of biomass at low temperatures and under inert atmosphere.
This opens the door to a memory system that can be packed onto a microprocessor, a major step toward the goal of reducing energy dissipation in modern electronics."
A large portion of the energy used in computing is spent on transferring data from one type of memory to another.
Doing that quickly takes more energy and generates more heat. In past research Salahuddin and his colleagues found that directing electrical current through the rare metal tantalum creates polarity in magnets without an external magnetic field.
#'Yolks'and'shells'improve rechargeable batteries One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging
degrading the battery's performance over time. Now a team of researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China has found a novel way around that problem:
and provide a dramatic boost in the battery's capacity and power. The new findings,
which use aluminum as the key material for the lithium-ion battery's negative electrode,
Most present lithium-ion batteries--the most widely used form of rechargeable batteries--use anodes made of graphite, a form of carbon.
Lithium metal, for example, can store about 10 times as much energy per gram, but is extremely dangerous,
Also, the liquid electrolyte in contact with aluminum will always decompose at the required charge/discharge voltages,
forming a skin called solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer, which would be ok if not for the repeated large volume expansion and shrinkage that cause SEI particles to shed.
As a result, previous attempts to develop an aluminum electrode for lithium-ion batteries had failed.
"Li says,"that separates the aluminum from the liquid electrolyte"between the battery's two electrodes.
and the aluminum inside is protected from direct contact with the electrolyte. The team didn't originally plan it that way,
says Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering, who has a joint appointment in MIT's Department of Materials science and engineering."
For applications that require a high power-and energy density battery, he says, "It's probably the best anode material available."
"Since screens consume large amounts of energy in devices like laptops, phones, and tablets, our approach could have a huge impact on energy consumption and battery life,
"she noted.""If you start with polarized light, then you double your optical efficiency, "See explained."
then the battery will last much longer because the display would only draw half as much power as conventional displays."
we're sending a lot more energy to that spot than the energy sent by the sun,
the mathematical framework developed by the team can compute energy-efficient codes that optimize the amount of energy that reaches the camera.
noting that a robot's sensors expend a relatively large amount of energy because they are always on."
But by creating the vapor with a strong jolt of electricity instead of heat, the researchers found they could ionize the gas into a plasma that glowed a soft blue light."
"said Cedric Poulain, a physicist at The french Alternative energies and Atomic energy commission. Poulain speculates that the deformability of a liquid drop would let the researchers rig up a device to move the plasma along a surface,
because they study an event called"boiling crisis"in nuclear power plant steam generators. If the core of a nuclear reactor gets too hot,
Arrayin their lab, Poulain and his colleagues devised a setup to run electricity through conductive droplets and film the droplets'behavior at high speed..
which conducts electricity, above a metal plate and applied a voltage across the drop. When the drop touched the plate,
electricity began to flow, and the water in the hydrochloric acid solution started to break down into hydrogen and oxygen gas.
but further analysis revealed that the gaseous cushion was in fact mostly water vaporized by energy from the electric current.
what gives rise to the very high electric field necessary to generate a long-term and dense plasma with little energy.
which is both time-consuming and energy-intensive. Instead, his team came up with a process for ultra-fast boriding
a process that saves time, money and energy, and even alleviates environmental concerns. In three years, Erdemir and his team took an abstract concept
often for 10 hours or more--the ultra-fast method uses a battery-like design to channel reactive boron into metal surfaces.
Like a battery, the furnace relies on the attraction between positive and negative charges to get boron flowing swiftly toward its destination.
According to Erdemir, the heating process alone makes pack-boriding extremely energy-intensive. Ultra-fast boriding can do a better job
while using 80 to 90 percent less energy. And while the powder mix-based traditional boriding releases carbon dioxide and other hazardous emissions
is significant because it represents a new way of combining elemental materials to form the building blocks of energy storage technology--such as batteries, capacitors and supercapacitors,
"Due to their structure and electric charge, certain elements just don t'like'to be combined, "Anasori said.""It's like trying to stack magnets with the poles facing the same direction--you're not going to be very successful
was the first two-dimensional material to be touted for its potential energy storage capabilities. But, as it was made up of only one element, carbon,
The new MXENES have surfaces that can store more energy. An Elemental Impasse Four years later, the researchers have worked their way through the section of the Periodic table with elements called"transition metals"
We see possible applications in thermoelectrics, batteries, catalysis, solar cells, electronic devices, structural composites and many other fields, enabling a new level of engineering on the atomic scale
oil and gas pipelines and nuclear plants has been developed by researchers at the University of Strathclyde with inspiration from the natural world.
If there are defects in a nuclear plant or an oil pipeline, we would be able to detect cracks that have a range of sizes
such as solar or wind power, is a key barrier to a clean energy economy. When the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) was established at Caltech
the U s. Department of energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub had one main goal: a cost-effective method of producing fuels using only sunlight, water,
and storing energy in the form of chemical fuels for use on demand. Over the past five years, researchers at JCAP have made major advances toward this goal,
or artificial leaf, is described in the August 24 online issue of the journal Energy and Environmental science.
and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface
converts 10 percent of the energy in sunlight into stored energy in the chemical fuel,
Enhancing the mobility of liquid droplets on rough surfaces has applications ranging from condensation heat transfer for heat exchangers in power plants to more efficient water harvesting in arid regions where collecting fog droplets on coated meshes provides drinking water
The NAPA platform consists of an array of silicon nanoposts that exhibit enhanced electromagnetic fields upon interaction with pulses of laser radiation.
Uranium plays an important role in the search for alternative energies to fossil fuels; however, uranium resources on land are limited.
U s. Department of energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic energy Sciences, Chemical sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, Heavy Element Chemistry Program under contract number DE-FG02-07er15865 to C. H
Office of Basic energy Sciences under contract number DE-AC02-06ch11357 7
#Super water-repellant coatings can now take the pressure Conventional superhydrophobic coatings that repel liquids by trapping air inside microscopic surface pockets tend to lose their properties
substantial gains in the durability and applicability of these structures for solar panels, highly robust, self-healing coatings,
Office of Science, Basic energy Sciences in the Materials sciences and Engineering Division and at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials under Contract No.
the noise of part of the electromagnetic field was reduced to an extremely precise and low level, below the standard baseline of vacuum fluctuations.
This was done at the expense of making other parts of the electromagnetic field less measurable, meaning that it became possible to create a level of noise that was lower-than-nothing, in keeping with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,
which fluctuations in the electromagnetic field could be measured on a graph creates a shape where the uncertainty of one part has been reduced,
in order to reduce power consumption when transmitting and receiving information, wireless systems need to send signals that can easily travel from one side of the human body to another.
which uses the body as a vehicle to deliver magnetic energy between electronic devices. An advantage of this system is that magnetic fields are able to pass freely through biological tissues,
so signals are communicated with much lower path losses and potentially, much lower power consumption. In their experiments, researchers demonstrated that the magnetic communication link works well on the body,
but they did not test the technique's power consumption. Researchers showed that the path losses associated with magnetic field human body communication are upwards of 10 million times lower than those associated with Bluetooth radios."
Lower power consumption also leads to longer battery life.""A problem with wearable devices like smart watches is that they have short operating times
because they are limited to using small batteries. With this magnetic field human body communication system, we hope to significantly reduce power consumption as well as how frequently users need to recharge their devices,
"said Jiwoong Park, a Ph d student in Mercier's Energy-efficient Microsystems Lab at the UC San diego Jacobs School of engineering and first author of the study.
The new approach combines a battery-powered wearable bionic suit that enables people to move their legs in a step-like fashion,
The discovery could lead to dramatic improvements and addresses one of the biggest challenges in flexible electronics, an industry still in its infancy with applications such as bendable batteries, robotic skins, wearable monitoring devices and sensors,
and bending while continuing to conduct electricity. Manufacturers have used so far tiny metal springs that can stretch
Furthermore, electricity has to travel farther in coiled springs, requiring more power and bigger batteries."
"The circuitry ends up requiring a ton of real estate and bulky batteries,"said Panat. Researchers have experimented with gold,
which works better than other materials but is prohibitively expensive, and copper, which severely cracks when it is stretches more than 30 percent or so.
According to financial reports, the global market for graphene reached $9 million in 2014 with most sales in the semiconductor, electronics, battery, energy,
According to financial reports, the global market for graphene reached $9 million in 2014 with most sales in the semiconductor, electronics, battery, energy,
lightweight solar cells track the sun Solar cells capture up to 40 percent more energy when they can track the sun across the sky,
Now, by borrowing from kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed solar cells that can have it both ways."
what a large tracking solar panel does and condenses it into something that is essentially flat, "said Aaron Lamoureux, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering and first author on the paper in Nature Communications.
Residential rooftops make up about 85 percent of solar panel installations in the U s.,according to a report from the Department of energy,
A team of engineers and an artist developed an array of small solar cells that can tilt within a larger panel
the solar cell would split into tiny segments that would follow the position of the sun in unison."
"Solar cell researchers think of tracking in terms of how much of a solar panel the sun can"see.""When the panel is at an angle,
To make the solar array, Kyusang Lee, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, built custom solar cells in the lab of Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and Paul G. Goebel
because the solar cells would be very long and narrow. Scaling up to a feasible width, the cells became too long to fit into the chambers used to make the prototypes on campus,
Conventional trackers produce about 40 percent more energy than stationary panels under the same conditions,
"It could ultimately reduce the cost of solar electricity
#Genome mining effort discovers 19 new natural products in four years It took two postdoctoral researchers, a lab technician,
#Nano-dunes with the ion beam Many semiconductor devices in modern technology--from integrated circuits to solar cells and LEDS--are based on nanostructures.
Peidong Yang, a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane, the primary component of natural gas
or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure. In a roundtable discussion on his recent breakthroughs and the future of synthetic photosynthesis
where he previously headed the Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis. Ultimately, researchers hope to create an entirely synthetic system that is more robust and efficient than its natural counterpart.
--and how learning from nature's genius could transform our energy future. Imagine creating artificial plants that make gasoline
a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane,
or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure. In a roundtable discussion on his recent breakthroughs and the future of synthetic photosynthesis, Yang said his hybrid inorganic/biological systems give researchers new tools to study photosynthesis
where he previously headed the Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis. Ultimately, researchers hope to create an entirely synthetic system that is more robust and efficient than its natural counterpart.
The authors first discovered that an enzyme related to HSD10, Csga, produces energy during sporulation in the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus.
Csga was found to degrade the phospholipid cardiolipin into fragments that were used as energy sources during sporulation much the same way humans produce
and protects the energy-making machinery from oxidative stress. HSD10 is a versatile protein with many known functions
the newly formed cardiolipin peroxides induce apoptosis instead of energy production. The UGA research team, led by microbiology professor Lawrence Shimkets,
Roofing tiles that double as solar panels. Sun powered cell phone chargers woven into the fabric of backpacks.
And then, with this enhanced view,"this energy barrier can be eliminated entirely, "the team writes.
Better Solar cells Though the Nature Communications study focused on just one organic material, phthalocyanine, the new research provides a powerful way to explore many other types of organic materials, too--with particular promise for improved solar cells.
A recent U s. Department of energy report identified one of the fundamental bottlenecks to improved solar power technologies as"determining the mechanisms by
which the absorbed energy (exciton) migrates through the system prior to splitting into charges that are converted to electricity."
--and can't be pushed by voltage like the electrons flowing in a light bulb--they can, in a sense, bounce from one of these tightly stacked molecules to the next.
This allows organic thin films to carry energy along this molecular highway with relative ease,
"One of today's big challenges is how to make better photovoltaics and solar technologies,"says Furis,
who directs UVM's program in materials science, "and to do that we need a deeper understanding of exciton diffusion.
#Loss of cellular energy leads to neuronal dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease model A new study from the Gladstone Institutes shows for the first time that impairments in mitochondria--the brain's cellular power plants--can deplete cellular energy levels
A link between mitochondria, energy failure, and neurodegeneration has long been hypothesized. However, no previous studies were able to comprehensively investigate the connection because sufficiently sensitive tests,
the scientists created novel assays to more accurately measure the brain's energy production. Using a model of Leigh's disease,
the researchers tested energy levels in neurons using the new assays. They found that the genetic mutation associated with Leigh's disease compromised ATP levels,
"It was assumed always that defects in mitochondria would result in a depletion of energy levels,
the researchers also determined the energy threshold needed to support synaptic vesicle cycling--the process by
so that the cells had to rely solely on their mitochondria for energy. This allowed the researchers to more accurately assess the contribution of mitochondrial ATP to different steps in the cycle,
From this exploration, the scientists revealed that bringing the vesicles back up into the cell after they have released their neurotransmitters is the most energy-demanding process.
The researchers also compared energy levels in boutons--the docks from which neurotransmitters are shipped--with and without mitochondria.
Remarkably, there was no difference in energy levels between the two, and both types of boutons had sufficient ATP to support synaptic vesicle cycling.
so that even those boutons lacking mitochondria have sufficient energy to function under normal conditions. They note it will be important to determine
and without the need for chemical additives or the high power consumption associated with conventional strategies,
relays signals between the cell's mitochondria"powerhouses"and the immune system. The new study shows that this crosstalk is important not only for launching immune responses against tumors,
thanks to the electron beam energy being kept below the radiation damage threshold of tungsten. Miao and his team showed that the atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample were arranged in nine layers, the sixth
#Engineers invent transparent coating that cools solar cells to boost efficiency Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe:
Now three Stanford engineers have developed a technology that improves on solar panel performance by exploiting this basic phenomenon.
Their invention shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.
The work by Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, research associate Aaswath P. Raman and doctoral candidate Linxiao Zhu is described in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy
The hotter solar cells get, the less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful electricity.
The Stanford solution is based on a thin, patterned silica material laid on top of a traditional solar cell.
The material is transparent to the visible sunlight that powers solar cells, but captures and emits thermal radiation,
or heat, from infrared rays.""Solar arrays must face the sun to function, even though that heat is detrimental to efficiency,
"Fan said.""Our thermal overlay allows sunlight to pass through, preserving or even enhancing sunlight absorption,
In their new paper, the researchers applied that work to improve solar array performance when the sun is beating down.
The Stanford team tested their technology on a custom-made solar absorber--a device that mimics the properties of a solar cell without producing electricity--covered with a micron-scale pattern designed to maximize the capability to dump heat
Their experiments showed that the overlay allowed visible light to pass through to the solar cells, but that it also cooled the underlying absorber by as much as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
For a typical crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 20 percent, 55 F of cooling would improve absolute cell efficiency by over 1 percent,
a figure that represents a significant gain in energy production. The researchers said the new transparent thermal overlays work best in dry, clear environments,
which are preferred also sites for large solar arrays. They believe they can scale things up so commercial and industrial applications are feasible
and reduce their energy consumption. Together with all-optical connections, they might reduce latencies. Energy-intensive conversion of optical signals into electronic signals and vice versa would no longer be required i
#Quantum teleportation: World record of 100 kilometers Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have teleported
and is a co-director of the Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute (Kavli-ENSI), is the corresponding author of a paper describing this research in the journal Science.
including ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity, superconductivity and colossal magnetoresistance. In the past couple of years, organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites have been processed solution into thin films
potentially multiple FPGA chips or FPGA chips with other chips that are high in power consumption.
and that will lead to improvements in bandwidth density and reductions in energy use.""The cooling research was funded by DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office, through the ICECOOL program.
This first prototype of a terahertz accelerator was able to increase the energy of the particles by seven kiloelectronvolts (kev."
Engineers build better energy storage device Mcmaster Engineering researchers Emily Cranston and Igor Zhitomirsky are turning trees into energy storage devices capable of powering everything from a smart watch to a hybrid car.
an organic compound found in plants, bacteria, algae and trees, to build more efficient and longer-lasting energy storage devices or supercapacitors.
and Zhitomirsky, a materials science and engineering professor, demonstrates an improved three-dimensional energy storage device constructed by trapping functional nanoparticles within the walls of a nanocellulose foam.
and faster charging abilities compared to rechargeable batteries. Lightweight and high-power density capacitors are of particular interest for the development of hybrid and electric vehicles.
The fast-charging devices allow for significant energy saving, because they can accumulate energy during braking and release it during acceleration."
"I believe that the best results can be obtained when researchers combine their expertise, "Zhitomirsky says."
reducing energy costs for ink curing. Once dry, the'electric ink'is also waterproof and adheres to its substrate extremely well.
These bacteria can only use organochlorine compounds as an energy source during their respiration process, transforming them into products that are chlorinated less, more biodegradable and, in some cases, harmless.
or squished, twisted or turned, without losing energy. A zero-index material that fits on a chip could have exciting applications, especially in the world of quantum computing."
"Integrated photonic circuits are hampered by weak and inefficient optical energy confinement in standard silicon waveguides,
"This zero-index metamaterial offers a solution for the confinement of electromagnetic energy in different waveguide configurations
electrical devices (pacemakers or defibrillators) or drugs (eg beta blockers. However, these methods are relatively crude: they can stop
Mumbai, India, have identified now a five amino acid segment of a Plasmodium parasite protein that is normally involved in producing energy from glucose.
Holey metamaterials enhance thermal energy harvesting It's estimated that the U s. fails to use more than half of the energy it generates--mostly
and turn into usable DC electricity. The researchers will describe the surface at the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition
held Oct 18-23 in San jose, Calif. Objects that heat up from wasted energy emit electromagnetic oscillations,
The difference is the frequency of the oscillation--the electricity from a wall socket in North america oscillates 60 times a second,
The research described in this story is funded in part by a grant from Redwave Energy Inc c
which are tiny'batteries'in cells that provide energy, play an important role in a number of diseases that affect the nervous system, including Parkinson's.
The researchers'analysis found that this energy-consuming intermediary step is not necessary for the conversion to happen.
Instead, an energy-producing"hydrocarbon pool"mechanism allows the zeolite catalysts to directly produce longer hydrocarbon chains from the original alcohols."
and requires energy. We showed this step doesn't occur, and that the overall reaction is slightly exothermic."
The research, supported by DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office, has implications for the energy efficiency and cost of catalytic upgrading technologies proposed for use in biorefineries.
Uncovering the mechanism behind the reaction helps support the potential economic viability of ORNL's direct biofuel-to-hydrocarbon conversion approach."
Energy & Sustainability: Bigger Cities Aren't Always Greener, Data Show Health: Pharma Watch: Raising Awareness or Drumming Up Sales?
requiring them to use fermentation to generate energy. They are also missing many basic biosynthetic pathways
The Universe Is Dying Slowly The most comprehensive assessment of the energy output in the nearby universe reveals that today's produced energy is only about half of
A team of international scientists used several of the world's most powerful telescopes to study the energy of the universe
-and ground-based telescopes as we could get our hands on to measure the energy output of over 200,000 galaxies across as broad a wavelength range as possible,"Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) team leader Simon Driver,
When the Big bang created the energy of the universe about 13.8 billion years ago, some portion of that energy found itself locked up as mass.
When stars shine they are converting that mass back into energy, as described by Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 (energy=mass x speed of light squared).
From the Big bang to Now in 10 Easy Steps"While most of the energy sloshing around in the universe arose in the aftermath of the Big bang,
additional energy is constantly being generated by stars as they fuse elements like hydrogen and helium together,
"Driver said.""This new energy is absorbed either by dust as it travels through the host galaxy,
or escapes into intergalactic space and travels until it hits something, such as another star, a planet,
or, very occasionally, a telescope mirror.""Astronomers have known that the universe is slowly fading out since the late 1990s.
the team found that the energy output is dropping over 21 different wavelengths, making their results the most comprehensive assessment to date of the energy output of the nearby universe."
"The universe will decline from here on in, sliding gently into old age, "Driver said d
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011