#This fusion reactor could be cheaper than coal University of Washington Posted by Michelle Ma-Washington on October 16 2014fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true#zero greenhouse gas emissions no long-lived radioactive waste a nearly unlimited fuel supply.
They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant would rival costs for a new coal fired plant with similar electrical output.
The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results this week at the International atomic energy agency s Fusion energy Conference in St petersburg Russia. ight now this design has the greatest potential of producing economical fusion power of any current conceptsays Thomas Jarboe a professor
of aeronautics and astronautics and an adjunct professor in physics. The reactor called the dynomak started as a class project taught by Jarboe two years ago.
After the class ended Jarboe and doctoral student Derek Sutherland#who previously worked on a reactor design at the Massachusetts institute of technology#continued to develop
and refine the concept. The design builds on existing technology and creates a magnetic field within a closed space to hold plasma in place long enough for fusion to occur allowing the hot plasma to react and burn.
The reactor itself would be largely self-sustaining meaning it would continuously heat the plasma to maintain thermonuclear conditions.
Heat generated from the reactor would heat up a coolant that is used to spin a turbine
and generate electricity similar to how a typical power reactor works. his is a much more elegant solution because the medium in
which is crucial to keeping a fusion reactor going. The new design is known as a spheromak meaning it generates the majority of magnetic fields by driving electrical currents into the plasma itself.
and actually allows researchers to shrink the overall size of the reactor. Other designs such as the experimental fusion reactor project that s currently being built in France#called Iter#have to be much larger than the dynomak
because they rely on superconducting coils that circle around the outside of the device to provide a similar magnetic field.
When compared with the fusion reactor concept in France the dynomak is much less expensive#roughly one-tenth the cost of Iter
#while producing five times the amount of energy. Jarboe and colleagues factored the cost of building a fusion reactor power plant using their design
and compared that with building a coal power plant. They used a metric called vernight capital costswhich includes all costs particularly startup infrastructure fees.
A fusion power plant producing 1 gigawatt (1 billion watts) of power would cost $2. 7 billion
because the commercial reactor unit already looks economicalsutherland says. t s very exciting. ight now the concept is about one-tenth the size and power output of a final product
The team has filed patents on the reactor concept and plans to continue developing and scaling up its prototypes.
#This atomically thin material generates electricity Columbia University Georgia Institute of technology rightoriginal Studyposted by John Toon-Georgia Tech on October 16 2014engineers have demonstrated that a single atomic layer of molybdenum disulfide
The effect is known as piezoelectricity. Scientists had predicted it was theoretically possible in materials of only a few atomic thicknesses
#and ultimately wearable. his material#just a single layer of atoms#could be made as a wearable device perhaps integrated into clothing to convert energy from your body movement to electricity
and power wearable sensors or medical devices or perhaps supply enough energy to charge your cell phone in your pocketsays James Hone professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University
and co-leader of the research. roof of the piezoelectric effect and piezotronic effect adds new functionalities to these two-dimensional materialssays Zhong Lin Wang a professor in Georgia Tech s School of Materials science and engineering
and a co-leader of the research. he materials community is excited about molybdenum disulfide and demonstrating the piezoelectric effect in it adds
a new facet to the material. here are two keys to using molybdenum disulfide for generating current:
but Wang notes so an even number of layers cancels out the piezoelectric effect. The material s crystalline structure also is piezoelectric in only certain crystalline orientations.
They monitored the conversion of mechanical to electrical energy and observed voltage and current outputs. The researchers also noted that the output voltage reversed sign
The presence of piezotronic effect in odd layer Mos2 was observed also for the first time. hat s really interesting is we ve now found that a material like Mos2 which is not piezoelectric in bulk form can become piezoelectric
and give zero net piezoelectric effect. his adds another member to the family of piezoelectric materials for functional devicessays Wenzhuo Wu a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech.
whose piezoelectric materials remain unexplored. Importantly as has been shown by Hone and his colleagues 2d materials can be stretched much farther than conventional materials particularly traditional ceramic piezoelectrics
which are quite brittle. The research could open the door to development of new applications for the material
The US Department of energy Office of Basic energy Sciences and National Science Foundation funded the project. Source:
when it's under stresssays coauthor Chia-Hong Tsai a doctoral candidate in the Michigan State-department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory
and department of plant biology. hey go into quiescence to conserve energy and nutrients. That's when they produce the equivalent of vegetable oil.
and gives scientists a way to potentially produce high amounts of oil and biomass. In terms of human medicine this discovery gives scientists a promising new model to study tumor suppression and growth.
#Hybrid#dots#offer cheaper way to run fuel cells Last year chemist James Tour made graphene quantum dots from coal.
The result is a hybrid material that could make it much cheaper to generate energy with fuel cells.
So it s a superb hybridization. he material outperformed commercial platinum/carbon hybrids commonly found in fuel cells.
or energy fed into it but only does so in bursts Herrmann explains. Experts call this self-organized criticality.
In the case of solar flares the build up of magnetic energy is emitted in sudden bursts. The sun consists of hot plasma made of electrons and ions.
In mathematical terms it is a scale-free energy distribution that follows a power law. Conventional computer models have been able to qualitatively reconstruct this statistic size distribution
Using a supercomputer the team was able to show that the model consistently generated correct results even when changing details such as the number of flux tubes or the energy of the plasma.
which the energy state of electrons is described with electronic materials. In particular the researchers examined surfaces of constant energy as these determine the conductivity of the material and its application potential.
Ensslin makes another comparison to demonstrate the mathematical concept behind these energy surfaces: magine a hilly landscape in which the valleys fill up with electrical charges
just as the water level rises between the hills when it rains. his is how a conductive material is formed from an initial isolator
#New polymer makes solar cells more efficient Solar cells made from polymers have the potential to be cheap and lightweight
but scientists are struggling to make them generate electricity efficiently. A polymer is a type of large molecule that forms plastics
Now a team of researchers led by Yu has identified a new polymer that allows electrical charges to move more easily through the cell boosting electricity production. olymer solar cells have great potential to provide low-cost lightweight
The active regions of such solar cells are composed of a mixture of polymers that give and receive electrons to generate electrical current
The new polymer developed by Yu s group called PID2 improves the efficiency of electrical power generation by 15 percent
when added to a standard polymer-fullerene mixture. ullerene a small carbon molecule is one of the standard materials used in polymer solar cellslu says. asically in polymer solar cells we have a polymer as electron donor
and fullerene as electron acceptor to allow charge separation. n their work the researchers added another polymer into the device resulting in solar cells with two polymers and one fullerene.
when an optimal amount of PID2 was added the highest ever for solar cells made up of two types of polymers with fullerene
The group which includes researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory is now working to push efficiencies toward 10 percent a benchmark necessary for polymer solar cells to be viable for commercial application.
In order for a current to be generated by the solar cell electrons must be transferred from polymer to fullerene within the device.
But the difference between electron energy levels for the standard polymer-fullerene is large enough that electron transfer between them is difficult.
PID2 has energy levels in between the other two and acts as an intermediary in the process. t s like a stepyu says. hen it s too high it s hard to climb up
The fibers serve as a pathway to allow electrons to travel to the electrodes on the sides of the solar cell. t s like you re generating a street
which to develop high-efficiency organic photovoltaic devices to meet the nation s future energy needschen adds.
but gave the process a spin with a different preparation so now we re the first to make neat fibers of pure carbon nanotube electrolytes.
because the setup is sealed. he nanotube electrolyte solution could be protected from oxygen and water which would have caused precipitation of the nanotubeshe says. t turns out that this is not a showstopper
Since pretty much any material can be deposited on the scaffolds the method could be particularly useful for applications in optics energy efficiency and biomedicine.
#Ant-size radios could help create Internet of things A new radio the size of an ant can gather all the power it needs from the same electromagnetic waves that carry signals to its receiving antenna no batteries required.
This approach to miniaturization would have another benefit dramatically reducing power consumption because a single chip draws so much less power than conventional radios.
In fact if Arbabian's radio chip needed a battery which it doesn't a single AAA contains enough power to run it for more than a century.
a receiving antenna that also scavenges energy from incoming electromagnetic waves; a transmitting antenna to broadcast replies
Arbabian has used these prototypes to prove that the devices work they can receive signals harvest energy from incoming radio signals
As a consequence thermoplastic forming BMGS don t require massive amounts of energy. From there Schroers focused on producing BMGS in sheets.
#Sensor device grabs energy in odd places University of Washington Posted by Michelle Ma-Washington on September 4 2014scientists have built a new power harvester that uses natural fluctuations in temperature
The device harvests energy in any location where these temperature changes naturally occur powering sensors that can check for water leaks
which could provide another source of energy for certain applicationssays Shwetak Patel associate professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering at the University of Washington.
Small cantilever motion harvesters are placed on the bellows and convert this kinetic energy into electrical energy. This powers sensors that also are placed on the bellows
A number of battery-free technologies exist that are powered by solar and ambient radio frequency waves.
A temperature change of only 0. 25 degrees Celsius creates enough energy to power the sensor node to read
and plan to make it smaller about the size of A d battery. A future version would include four chemicals that activate in different temperature ranges so the same device could be used in various climates. think our approach is uniquesays Chen Zhao lead author
This protein has two mobile heads that are moved by the energy-rich molecule ATP which supplies the cells of humans
and other life forms with energy and therefore make it the fuel of choice in this artificial system.
#AAA BATTERY powers cheap water splitter A new device uses a regular AAA BATTERY to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The hydrogen gas could power fuel cells in zero-emissions vehicles. The battery sends an electric current through two electrodes that split liquid water into hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Unlike other water splitters that use precious-metal catalysts the electrodes in the Stanford device are made of inexpensive and abundant nickel
Fuel cell technology is essentially water splitting in reverse. A fuel cell combines stored hydrogen gas with oxygen from the air to produce electricity
which powers the car. The only byproduct is water unlike gasoline combustion which emits carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas.
Most of these vehicles will run on fuel manufactured at large industrial plants that produce hydrogen by combining very hot steam and natural gas an energy-intensive process that releases carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
In 2015 American consumers will finally be able to purchase fuel cell cars from Toyota and other manufacturers.
could eventually save hydrogen producers billions of dollars in electricity costs according to Gong. His next goal is to improve the durability of the device. he electrodes are fairly stable
That goal is achievable based on my most recent resultshe researchers also plan to develop a water splitter than runs on electricity produced by solar energy. ydrogen is an ideal fuel for powering vehicles buildings
and consume energy. dditional researchers from Oak ridge National Laboratory Stanford National Taiwan University of Science
Principal funding came from by the Global climate and Energy project the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford and by the US Department of energy.
Past efforts to create similar materials have been disappointing with inefficient energy production or highly colored materials. o one wants to sit behind colored glasssays Richard Lunt an assistant professor of chemical engineering
The lowinginfrared light is guided to the edge of the plastic where it is converted to electricity by thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells. ecause the materials do not absorb
in order to improve its energy-producing efficiency. Currently it is able to produce a solar conversion efficiency close to 1 percent
One approach is to capture CO2 emitted from power plants and other facilities and use it as a carbon source to make industrial chemicals most
It#s this extremely bright emission that can be collected from long distances. e get a large amount of energy into the system in a very short amount of time.
which we look at the interaction between the dipoles associated with these molecules and the nanosensor at high frequencieskulkarni says.
and reuses existing Wi-fi infrastructure to provide internet connectivity to battery-free devices. Called Wi-fi backscatter this technology is the first that can connect battery-free devices to Wi-fi infrastructure.
Imagine a world in which your wristwatch or other wearable device communicates directly with your online profiles storing information about your daily activities where you can best access it all without requiring batteries.
Or battery-free sensors embedded around your home could track minute-by-minute temperature changes and send that information to your thermostat to help conserve energy.
This not-so-distant nternet of Thingsreality would extend connectivity to perhaps billions of devices.
Sensors could be embedded in everyday objects to help monitor and track everything from the structural safety of bridges to the health of your heart.
and connect these devices to the internet has kept this from taking off. f Internet of things devices are going to take off we must provide connectivity to the potentially billions of battery-free devices that will be embedded in everyday objectssays Shyam Gollakota an assistant professor of computer science
or wearable technology could run without batteries or cords by harnessing energy from existing radio TV
and wireless signals in the air. This work takes that a step further by connecting each individual device to the internet
but sustaining the confined energy was challenging because light tends to dissipate at a metal s surface.
which work by detecting shifts in the wavelength of light Zhang says. he difference in intensity is similar to going from a light bulb for a table lamp to a laser pointer.
#Spinach leaves vibrate to kick off photosynthesis Vibrations deep within spinach leaves enhance the efficiency of photosynthesishe energy conversion process that powers life on our planet.
The discovery could potentially help engineers make more efficient solar cells and energy storage systems. It also injects new evidence into an ongoing uantum biologydebate over exactly how photosynthesis manages to be so efficient.
In the case of natural photosynthesis, that charge separation leads to biochemical energy, explains Jennifer Ogilvie,
and use it to generate electricity or some other useable energy source such as biofuels. CHARGE SEPARATION It takes about one-third of a second to blink your eye.
Ogilvie says. e can look at where the energy is transferring and when the charge separation has occurred.
when the gaps in energy level are close to vibrational frequencies, you can have enhanced charge separation,
a critical component of many nuclear power reactors. Production of lithium-7 was banned in the United states due to environmental concerns.
which requires huge amounts of energy to maintain a magnetic field with electromagnets, the new method for enriching stable isotopes, called MAGIS (magnetically activated and guided isotope separation), needs little energy due to its use of low-powered lasers and permanent magnets.
The new method, described in a study published in the journal Nature Physics, also has less potential for environmental effects than the chemical process used in producing lithium-7,
and a disruption could cause the shutdown of reactors. Other isotopes can be used to detect dangerous nuclear materials arriving at US ports.
#Power plant battery uses tanks of water Scientists have created new, water-based organic batteries that are built long-lasting
and from cheap, eco-friendly components. They built the new battery, which uses no metals or toxic materials, for use in power plants,
where it could make the energy grid more resilient and efficient by creating a large-scale way to store energy for use as needed. he batteries last for about 5,
000 recharge cycles, giving them an estimated 15-year life span, says Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California and corresponding author of the paper published online in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. ithium ion batteries degrade after around 1,
000 cycles and cost 10 times more to manufacture. Narayan collaborated with G. K. Surya Prakash,
professor of chemistry and director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute. uch organic flow batteries will be game-changers for grid electrical energy storage in terms of simplicity, cost, reliability,
and sustainability, Prakash says. Renewable energy The batteries could pave the way for renewable energy sources to make up a greater share of the nation energy generation.
Solar panels can only generate power when the sun shining, and wind turbines can only generate power when the wind blows.
That inherent unreliability makes it difficult for power companies to rely on them to meet customer demand.
With batteries to store surplus energy which can be doled out as needed, that sporadic unreliability could cease to be an issue.?
Mega-scaleenergy storage is a critical problem in the future of renewable energy, Narayan says. The new battery is based on a redox flow designimilar in design to a fuel cell,
with two tanks of electroactive materials dissolved in water. The solutions are pumped into a cell containing a membrane between the two fluids with electrodes on either side releasing energy.
The design has the advantage of decoupling power from energy. The tanks of electroactive materials can be made as large as neededncreasing the total amount of energy the system can storer the central cell can be tweaked to release that energy faster or slower
altering the amount of power (energy released over time) that the system can generate. Nature energy transfer The team breakthrough centered on the electroactive materials.
While previous battery designs have used metals or toxic chemicals, Narayan and Prakash wanted to find an organic compound that could be dissolved in water.
Such a system would create a minimal impact on the environment and would likely be figured cheap,
they. Through a combination of molecule design and trial-and-error, the scientists found that certain naturally occurring quinonesxidized organic compoundsit the bill.
Quinones are found in plants, fungi bacteria, and some animals, and are involved in photosynthesis and cellular respiration. hese are the types of molecules that nature uses for energy transfer,
Narayan says. Currently, the quinones needed for the batteries are manufactured from naturally occurring hydrocarbons. In the future, the potential exists to derive them from carbon dioxide,
Narayan says. The team has filed several patents in regard to the design of the battery and next plans to build a larger-scale version.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Open-Funding Opportunity Announcement program, USC, and the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute supported the research.
Source: University of Southern Californi U
#Vibrating glove could teach you Braille A new wireless computing glove can help people learn to read
which could make it a much lighter weight replacement for copper transmission lines. In addition, the researchers believe that the material lends itself to many kinds of highly sensitive sensors. e found this graphene oxide fiber was very strong
#Solar cell spikes let in 99%of sunlight The more light absorbed by a solar panel active elements,
A new one-step process to etch nanoscale spikes into silicon lets the maximum amount of sunlight reach a solar cell,
#Can nano dots outshine current solar cells? University of Toronto rightoriginal Studyposted by Marit Mitchell-Toronto on June 9 2014those flat glassy solar panels on your neighborâ#roof may be getting a more efficient makeover thanks to a new class of solar-sensitive nanoparticles.
This new form of solid stable light-sensitive nanoparticles called colloidal quantum dots could lead to cheaper and more flexible solar cells as well as better gas sensors infrared lasers infrared light emitting diodes and more.
The work appearsâ in Nature Materials. Collecting sunlight using these tiny colloidal quantum dots depends on two types of semiconductors:
-and p-type layers simultaneously not only boosts the efficiency of light absorption it opens up a world of new optoelectronic devices that capitalize on the best properties of both light and electricity.
and with this new material we can build new device structuressays Ning odide is almost a perfect ligand for these quantum solar cells with both high efficiency
But improved performance is just a start for the new quantum dot-based solar cell architecture. The powerful little dots could be mixed into inks
and accessibility of solar power for millions of people. he field of colloidal quantum dot photovoltaics requires continued improvement in absolute performance
The material shows promise to replace more costly and energy-intensive processes. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel.
All of this works in ambient temperatures unlike current high-temperature capture technologies that use up a significant portion of the energy being produced.
and this week set new rules to cut carbon pollution from the nation s power plants. ur technique allows one to specifically remove carbon dioxide at the source.
and produces energy as a byproductnd couples that with an ultrafiltration, air stripping, and a reverse osmosis system. f you have 1, 000 cows on your operation,
When light (an electromagnetic field) reflects from a metal mirror it shakes the metal s free electrons (the particles)
and chemical energy in plants and solar cells and in the future it may enable metals to function as active elements in optical communications.
The Division of Chemical sciences Geosciences and Biosciences of the Office of Basic energy Sciences of the US Department of energy supported the work.
A transducer turns one form of energy into another. In this case it turns terahertz light into ultrasound waves
because it responds to the energy of individual terahertz light pulses, rather than a continuous stream of T-rays.
Geobacter removes any waste produced during glycerol fermentation to generate electricity. It is a win-win situation.
These fuel cells do not harvest electricity as an output. Rather, they use a small electrical input platform to generate hydrogen and increase the MEC efficiency even more.
#New battery turns wasted heat into energy Stanford university rightoriginal Studyposted by Dan Stober-Stanford on May 22 2014researchers have developed a new battery technology that captures low-temperature waste heat
and converts it into electricity. Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants.
Researchers have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have focused on thermoelectric devicesâ##solid-state materials that can produce electricity from a temperature gradientâ
##but the efficiency of such devices is limited by the availability of materials. Now researchers have found a new alternative for low-temperature waste-heat conversion into electricityâ##that is in cases where temperature differences are less than 100 degrees Celsius.
The researchers describe the approach inâ Nature Communications. irtually all power plants and manufacturing processes like steelmaking
and refining release tremendous amounts of low-grade heat to ambient temperaturessays Yi Cui an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford university. ur new battery technology is designed to take advantage of this temperature gradient at the industrial scale. he new system
is based on the principle known as the thermogalvanic effect which states that the voltage of a rechargeable battery is dependent on temperature. o harvest thermal energy we subject a battery to a four-step process:
heating up charging cooling down and dischargingsays Seok Woo Lee a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford
First an uncharged battery is heated by waste heat. Then while the battery is still warm a voltage is applied.
Once fully charged the battery is allowed to cool. Because of the thermogalvanic effect the voltage increases as the temperature decreases.
When the battery has cooled it actually delivers more electricity than was used to charge it. That extra energy doesn t appear from nowhere explains Cui.
It comes from the heat that was added to the system. The system aims at harvesting heat at temperatures below 100 C which accounts for a major part of potentially harvestable waste heat. ne-third of all energy consumption in the United states ends up as low-grade heatsays co-lead author Yuan
Yang a postdoc at the Massachusetts institute of technology (MIT. In the experiment a battery was heated to 60 C charged and cooled.
The process resulted in an electricity-conversion efficiency of 5. 7 percent almost double the efficiency of conventional thermoelectric devices.
This heating-charging-cooling approach was proposed first in the 1950s at temperatures of 500 C
or more says Yang who notesâ that most heat recovery systems work best with higher temperature differences. key advance is using material that was not around at that timefor the battery electrodes as well as advances in engineering the system says co-author Gang Chen a professor
of mechanical engineering at MIT. his technology has the additional advantage of using low-cost abundant materials
and manufacturing processes that are used already widely in the battery industryadds Lee. While the new system has a significant advantage in energy conversion efficiency over conventional thermoelectric devices it has a much lower power densityâ##that is the amount of power that can be delivered for a given weight.
The new technology also will require further research to assure long-term reliability and improve the speed of battery charging
and discharging Chen adds. t will require a lot of work to take the next step. here is currently no good technology that can make effective use of the relatively low-temperature differences this system can harness Chen says. his has an efficiency we think is quite attractive.
and deployed to use it. he results are very promising says Peidong Yang a professor of chemistry at the University of California Berkeley who was involved not in the study. y exploring the thermogalvanic effect the researchers were able to convert low-grade heat to electricity with decent efficiencyhe says. his is a clever idea
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