#High-temperature superconductivity in atomically thin films A research group has succeeded in fabricating an atomically thin,
because the unique quantum effects in superconductors are a great advantage in achieving the energy saving
#Revolutionary microbe for biofuel production developed Biofuels pioneer Mascoma LLC and the Department of energy's Bioenergy Science Center have developed a revolutionary strain of yeast that could help significantly accelerate the development of biofuels from nonfood plant matter.
features fermentation and ethanol yields that set a new standard for conversion of biomass sugars from pretreated corn stover--the non-edible portion of corn crops such as the stalk--converting up to 97 percent
Researchers announced that while conventional yeast leaves more than one-third of the biomass sugars unused in the form of xylose,
and convert sugars from lignocellulosic biomass has accelerated greatly the translation of basic research outcomes to a commercial product,
"Although cellulosic biomass such as corn stover, wheat straw and bagasse (the fibrous remains after sugar is extracted from sugarcane
or heat-loving, bacteria to produce biofuels directly from biomass in a single process o
shows that a primordial form of energy production that still exists in mammals can be harnessed to achieve spontaneous tissue regeneration in mice, without the need for added stem cells.
#Stable perovskite solar cells developed through structural simplification Lead-halide-based perovskite (hereinafter simply referred to as perovskite) has been used as a solar cell material since six years ago.
Perovskite solar cells are promising low-cost and highly-efficient next-generation solar cells because they can be produced through low-temperature processes such as spin coating,
and generate a large amount of electricity due to their high optical absorption together with the high open-circuit voltage.
As such, the research on perovskite solar cells is making rapid progress. In order to identify the semiconducting properties of perovskites
and formulate guidelines for the development of highly efficient solar cell materials, NIMS launched an ad hoc Team on Perovskite PV Cells last October led by the deputy director-general of GREEN.
While the conventional perovskite solar cells have demonstrated high conversion efficiency, they were not sufficiently stable plagued by their low reproducibility
and the hysteresis in the current-voltage curves depending on the direction of the voltage sweeps.
Researchers successfully created reproducible and stable perovskite solar cells as follows; They proposed an equivalent circuit model that explains the semiconducting properties of perovskites based on analysis of the internal resistance of perovskite solar cells.
This model indicated the existence of a charge transport process derived from an impurity level between the conduction
Due to this transport process, the efficiency of perovskite solar cells may be suppressed to some extent. In future studies, researchers will investigate into the cause of the impurity level and its influence on solar cells.
In addition, they intend to remove the impurity level and improve the efficiency of the solar cells,
thereby contributing to energy and environmental conservation. This study was conducted at GREEN as a part of the MEXT-commissioned project titled"Development of environmental technology using nanotechnology."
"Arra a
#Psychology researchers report a major discovery of harmony amid chaos The researchers say the study demonstrates that inherent delays in the nervous system may play a constructive role in enabling individuals to anticipate the movement of others.
This process creates a current of magnetic dipoles that we use to manipulate the orientation of a second magnetic layer,
or provide electrical power.""""We use the spin current created by ultrafast heat conduction to generate spin transfer torque.
#Engineer creates origami battery, for five cents Arraythe battery generates power from microbial respiration, delivering enough energy to run a paper-based biosensor with nothing more than a drop of bacteria-containing liquid."
"Dirty water has a lot of organic matter, "Choi says.""Any type of organic material can be the source of bacteria for the bacterial metabolism."
"The method should be especially useful to anyone working in remote areas with limited resources. Indeed, because paper is inexpensive and readily available,
which a paper-based battery would create enough energy--we're talking microwatts--to run the biosensor.
Choi's battery, which folds into a square the size of a matchbook, uses an inexpensive air-breathing cathode created with nickel sprayed onto one side of ordinary office paper.
Choi, who holds two U s. patents, initially collaborated on the paper battery with Hankeun Lee,
"while working on an earlier iteration of the paper-based batteries, before he tried the origami approach."
and biological systems at the atomic level with high efficiency is a current roadblock to solving many of today's greatest scientific challenges in energy,
such as operating batteries and catalysts. It could enable the manipulation of the inner workings of matter to understand,
and the focus size was measured at beamline 34-ID-C. The research was funded by the U s. Department of energy, Office of Basic energy Sciences and the National Science Foundation n
it could be considered for other sites where uranium was processed for nuclear arsenals or power plant fuel. While the problem isn't widespread,
The current 3. 5-inch lab prototype, for example, has a force threshold level of 200 newtons--capable of absorbing the energy of a 100 mph fastball in 0. 03 seconds.
#Key to quick battery charging time University of Tokyo researchers have discovered the structure and transport properties of the"intermediate state"in lithium-ion batteries--key to understanding the mechanisms of charge
and discharge in rechargeable batteries. These findings may help accelerate battery reaction speed and significantly shorten battery charging time.
Although there is strong demand to minimize battery-charging time, the mechanisms of battery charge and discharge reactions have yet to be understood fully.
While the existence of an"intermediate state"that accelerates battery charge and discharge reactions has been suggested,
there was no firm experimental evidence to support its existence and previous research had suggested that the short lifetime of the intermediate state would render a systematic investigation of its properties impossible.
Now Professor Atsuo Yamada's research group at the University of Tokyo Graduate school of Engineering have developed a novel technique to stabilize the intermediate state.
The group found a striped pattern of layers of densely and loosely packed electrons. Lithium ions distribute themselves so as not to disturb this striped pattern.
In addition, the intermediate state showed high lithium/electron conductivity compared to the charged or discharged state.
contributing significantly to accelerating lithium-ion battery charge and discharge reactions. The findings were contrary to expectations."
We hope to develop rechargeable batteries with quick charging time by applying our findings to the design of materials
and high-energy costs and need their gills to be working as efficiently as possible, "says co-author Dr Jodie Rummer.
#First solar cell made of highly ordered molecular frameworks"We have opened the door to a new room,
suggest that the excellent properties of the solar cell result from an additional mechanism--the formation of indirect band gaps--that plays an important role in photovoltaics.
Nature uses porphyrines as universal molecules e g. in hemoglobin and chlorophyll, where these organic dyes convert light into chemical energy.
A metal-organic solar cell produced on the basis of this novel porphyrine-MOF is presented now by the researchers in the journal Angewandte Chemie (Applied Chemistry.
"The clou is that we just need a single organic molecule in the solar cell, "Wöll says.
and take up electric charges. By means of a process developed at KIT, the crystalline frameworks grow in layers on a transparent,
Thanks to their mechanical properties, MOF thin films of a few hundred nanometers in thickness can be used for flexible solar cells or for the coating of clothing material or deformable components.
While the demand for technical systems converting sunlight into electricity is increasing, organic materials represent a highly interesting alternative to silicon that has to be processed at high costs before it can be used for the photoactive layer of a solar cell l
#A diode a few atoms thick shows surprising quantum effect A quantum mechanical transport phenomenon demonstrated for the first time in synthetic,
which is supported by the U s. Department of energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic energy Sciences, under Contract No.
#New formula expected to spur advances in clean energy generation Researchers from the University of Houston have devised a new formula for calculating the maximum efficiency of thermoelectric materials, the first new formula in more than a half-century,
whether devices based on a material would generate energy efficiently enough to be worth pursuing, said Zhifeng Ren, principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH (Tcsuh."
Thermoelectric materials produce electricity by exploiting the flow of heat current from a warmer area to a cooler area,
In thermoelectric materials, efficiency is calculated as the measure of how well it converts heat--often waste heat generated by power plants or other industrial processes--into power.
and produces 10 watts of electricity has an efficiency rate of 10 percent. Top efficiency for current thermoelectric materials is about 12 percent
"For this reason, it is desirable to establish a new model to predict the energy conversion efficiency based on the temperature-dependent individual TE (thermoelectric) properties for devices operating under a large temperature difference."
In an engineering first, Cui and his colleagues used lithium-ion battery technology to create one low-cost catalyst that is capable of driving the entire water-splitting reaction.'
'Our group has pioneered the idea of using lithium-ion batteries to search for catalysts, 'Cui said.'
A conventional water-splitting device consists of two electrodes submerged in a water-based electrolyte.
But in 2014, Stanford chemist Hongjie Dai developed a water splitter made of inexpensive nickel and iron that runs on an ordinary 1. 5-volt battery.
'This bifunctional catalyst can split water continuously for more than a week with a steady input of just 1. 5 volts of electricity.
'In conventional water splitters, the hydrogen and oxygen catalysts often require different electrolytes with different phone acidic,
'For practical water splitting, an expensive barrier is needed to separate the two electrolytes, adding to the cost of the device,
'But our single-catalyst water splitter operates efficiently in one electrolyte with a uniform ph.'Wang
'At first the device only needed 1. 56 volts of electricity to split water, but within 30 hours we had to increase the voltage nearly 40 percent.
the Stanford team borrowed a technique used in battery research called lithium-induced electrochemical tuning.
The technique has been used in battery research for many years, but it's a new approach for catalysis. The marriage of these two fields is very powerful.'
the huge international tokamak under construction in France that will demonstrate the feasibility of fusion as a source of energy for generating electricity.
"For example, a single layer of platinum nanowires conducts electricity in only one direction, but a two-layer mesh conducts uniformly in all directions."
#New manufacturing approach slices lithium-ion battery cost in half An advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at MIT and at a spinoff company called 24m,
promises to significantly slash the cost of the most widely used type of rechargeable batteries while also improving their performance
"says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a cofounder of 24m (and previously a cofounder of battery company A123).
The existing process for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, he says, has changed hardly in the two decades
In this so-called"flow battery,"the electrodes are suspensions of tiny particles carried by a liquid and pumped through various compartments of the battery.
The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version,
while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles.
Chiang and Carter refer to this as a"semisolid battery.""Simpler manufacturing process This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing,
and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang, who is senior author of a paper in the Journal of Power Sources analyzing the tradeoffs involved in choosing between solid
and flow-type batteries, depending on their particular applications and chemical components. This analysis demonstrates that
while a flow battery system is appropriate for battery chemistries with a low energy density (those that can only store a limited amount of energy for a given weight), for high-energy density devices such as lithium-ion batteries,
Almost immediately after publishing the earlier research on the flow battery, Chiang says, "We realized that a better way to make use of this flowable electrode technology was to reinvent the lithium ion manufacturing process."
the system reduces the conventional battery architecture's number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent.
Bendable and foldable In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says,
the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress,
the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing.
This should improve both safety and durability, he says. The company has made so far about 10
000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners, including an oil company in Thailand
By 2020, Chiang estimates that 24m will be able to produce batteries for less than $100 per kilowatt-hour of capacity.
when is it better to build a flow battery versus a static model. This paper will serve as a key tool for making design choices
"Viswanathan adds that 24m's new battery design"could do the same sort of disruption to lithium ion batteries manufacturing as
"Quantum dots, which have use in diverse applications such as medical imaging, lighting, display technologies, solar cells, photocatalysts, renewable energy and optoelectronics, are typically expensive and complicated to manufacture.
or chemical environment to provide unique functionality in a wide range of applications from energy to medicine.
emit light or energy, or change shape. Making IPNS has been tried before with a type of plastic known as a block copolymer,
which a microbe uses nutrients and generates energy to live and reproduce. It typically involves complex biochemical processes implemented through the orchestration of metabolic reactions and gene regulation,
reactive material system capable of performing computations without external energy inputs, amplification or computer mediation. Their research,"Achieving synchronization with active hybrid materials:
Chemical computing systems are limited by both the lack of an internal power system and the rate of diffusion as the chemical waves spread throughout the system,
which a magnetic field induces a Lorentz force on moving electric charge carriers, leading to deflection and a measurable Hall voltage.
and (2) power consumption, which varies inversely with charge carrier mobility. It is high carrier mobility that makes graphene useful in such applications,
These alterations cause impaired energy production in the cells and therefore, lead to the disease. The clinical manifestations of affected individuals are chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia (CPEO), a slowly progressive paralysis of the extraocular muscles,
With little oxygen in the atmosphere, many organisms derived energy by metabolizing iron instead of oxygen.
"A semiconductor is a substance that conducts electricity under some conditions but not others, making it a good medium for the control of electrical current.
and power consumption of existing ultrasound sensors are currently prohibitive.""Within the realm of biometrics and information security, the group's work is particularly significant,
and entangle each photon pair into multiple dimensions using quantum properties such as the photons'energy and spin.
The idea was to take a Cooper pair--a pair of electrons that allows electricity to flow freely in superconductors
#New storage cell for solar energy storage, nighttime conversion The innovation is an advancement over the most common solar energy systems that rely on using sunlight immediately as a power source.
the ability to store solar energy and use it as a renewable alternative provides a sustainable solution to the problem of energy shortage.
It also can effectively harness the inexhaustible energy from the sun."The work is a product of the 2013 National Science Foundation $400,
and consume energy.""Dr. Liu and his colleagues are working to help us shape a more sustainable future
and use one of the larger sources of energy available to us--the sun, "Behbehani said.
said a major drawback of current solar technology is the limitation on storing energy under dark conditions."
and is powered battery so it doesn't need an outlet. Beyond thermotherapy the applications are endless.
when electromagnetic radiation emitted by an object is absorbed by the Q-Eye sensor, even down to the level of very small packets of quantum energy (a single photon).
"First, lactic acid is fed into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic under high temperature and in a vacuum,
"We have applied a petrochemical concept to biomass, "says postdoctoral researcher Michiel Dusselier.""We speed up and guide the chemical process in the reactor with a zeolite as a catalyst.
Zeolites are porous minerals. By selecting a specific type on the basis of its pore shape,
FY26 is able to shut down a cancer cell by exploiting weaknesses inherent in their energy generation. The researchers argue that the drug could be cheaper to produce,
The new drug works by forcing cancer cells to use their mitochondria, the'power house'of a cell,
to generate the energy necessary to function. Whilst healthy cells use mitochondria to generate energy,
cancer cells contain defective mitochondria which are incapable of sustaining the cell's energy requirements. In the absence of FY26, cancer cells switch from using their defective mitochondria to using metabolic activity in their cytoplasm to generate energy.
By stopping this switch of energy source, the drug causes the cancer cell to die. Lead researcher Professor Peter Sadler
of the University of Warwick's Department of chemistry, said explains:""Healthy cells generate their energy in organelles called mitochondria,
but cancer cells have defective mitochondria and are forced to generate energy through glycolysis in the cytoplasm.
Our new compounds work by attacking the energy balance in cancer cells.""Commenting on the drug's benefits
when compared to existing platinum-based drugs, such as Cisplatin, Professor Sadler says:""Platinum-based drugs are used in nearly 50%of all chemotherapeutic regimens
and exert their activity by damaging DNA and cannot select between cancerous and non-cancerous cells.
and a member of the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, operated jointly by UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab."The microphone and loudspeaker are some of the closest devices to commercial viability,
converting over 99 percent of the energy driving the device into sound, whereas today's conventional loudspeakers and headphones convert only 8 percent into sound.
2015 at a lab on KAIST's campus. They used high-frequency magnetic materials in a dipole coil structure to build a thin,
Arraythe research team used the Dipole Coil Resonance System (DCRS) to induce magnetic fields, which was developed by the team in 2014 for inductive power transfer over an extended distance.
The DCRS is composed of two (transmitting and receiving) magnetic dipole coils, placed in parallel, with each coil having a ferrite core
the dipole coil is very compact and has a less dimension. Therefore a crossed dipole structure has 2-dimension rather than 3-dimension of a crossed loop coil structure.
The DCRS has a great advantage to transfer power even when the resonance frequency changes in the range of 1%(Q factor is below 100).
Arraythe research team rearranged the two dipole coils from a parallel position to cross them
the level of magnetic flux is below the safety level of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guideline (27 T) for general public exposure to electromagnetic field (EMF).
Phase diagramm between 2 and 900 Kelvin Using neutron scattering experiments at the BER II research reactor,
since the kinetic energy of the atoms still suppresses the Jahn-Teller effect and magnetic ordering cannot become established.
and emit light energy is such that it can make itself--and, in applications, other very small things--appear 10,000 times as large as its physical size."
amplifying itself as the surrounding environment manipulates the physical properties of its wave energy. The researchers took advantage of this by creating an artificial material in
Much as a very thin string on a guitar can absorb a large amount of acoustic energy from its surroundings
In addition, Yu envisions simply letting the resonator emit that energy in the form of infrared light toward the sky,
While LEDS are most commonly known as an energy saving light source, they have also been known to have an antibacterial effect.
But the energy and temperature scale in unconventional magnets, like the few that have no magnetic elements,
and are capable of absorbing the energy of high impact collisions. The finding means metal foams hold promise for use in nuclear safety, space exploration and medical technology applications."
Different source materials produce gamma rays with different energies. For example, cesium and cobalt emit higher energy gamma rays, while barium and americium emit lower energy gamma rays.
The researchers found that the high-Z foam was comparable to bulk materials at blocking high-energy gamma rays,
and their energy absorption capabilities, make the material a good candidate for various nuclear structural applications
#Sticky tape and phosphorus the key to ultrathin solar cells The team used sticky tape to create single-atom thick layers,
such as LEDS or solar cells,"said lead researcher Dr Yuerui (Larry) Lu, from The Australian National University (ANU)."
which could potentially be used for applications in dry environments, such as computer hard drives, wind turbine gears, and mechanical rotating seals for microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems.
#Transparent, electrically conductive network of encapsulated silver nanowires The electrodes for connections on the"sunny side"of a solar cell need to be not just electrically conductive,
She then transferred this suspension with a pipette onto a substrate, in this case a silicon solar cell.
who heads the Institute of Nanoarchitectures for Energy conversion at HZB and additionally directs a project team at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL).
In addition, the new electrode casts a considerably smaller shadow on the solar cell.""The network of silver nanowires is so fine that almost no light for solar energy conversion is lost in the cell due to the shadow,
On the contrary, she hopes"it might even be possible for the silver nanowires to scatter light into the solar cell absorbers in a controlled fashion through
and agricultural activity than is the case for the energy sector. The paper noted a gulf between global efforts to reduce the climate impacts of deforestation,
which act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells, and which, if faulty, can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure,
In 2006 the state passed a law mandating that it buy less coal fired energy. The Los angeles Department of Water and Power is now also selling its stake in the Navajo Generating station to invest in clean energy alternatives,
though the plant (which generates more climate-warming gases than almost any other plant in the nation) will continue pumping Colorado river water to Arizona.
how Las vegas'water chief preached conservation while backing growth and all about the power plant that's fueling America's drought.
The researchers suggested adding a carefully designed layer of electrically insulating material onto communications antennas that would essentially store electrical energy.
nor does it consume additional energy or require extra weight. Still, Gao cautioned that this finding is only a theoretical prediction."
A group of researchers from the University of Washington were able to send energy from a Wi-fi router to low power electronics from up to 28 feet away,
a temperature sensor, a camera, a coin battery charger and the AA battery charger shown above.
In their tests, they were able to operate the camera up to 17 feet away, the temperature sensor up to 20ft away and the battery chargers up to 28 feet away from their router.
The researchers hope that their technology will lead to battery-free sensors and mobile devices that are powered continuously by Wi-fi routers.
It also can harness the energy generated from typing to either power itself or another small device.
#Laser-generated surface structures create extremely water-repellent metals Super-hydrophobic properties could lead to applications in solar panels,
#Perovskites provide big boost to silicon solar cells Stacking perovskites onto a conventional silicon solar cell dramatically improves the overall efficiency of the cell,
The researchers describe their novel perovskite-silicon solar cell in this week edition of the journal Energy & Environmental science. ee been looking for ways to make solar panels that are more efficient and lower cost,
said study co-author Michael Mcgehee, a professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford. ight now, silicon solar cells dominate the world market,
but the power conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaics has been stuck at 25 percent for 15 years.
One cost-effective way to improve efficiency is to build a tandem device made of silicon and another inexpensive photovoltaic material,
Mcgehee said. ou simply put one solar cell on top of the other, and you get more efficiency than either could do by itself.
iodide and methylammonium could convert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of 3. 8 percent.
rivaling commercially available silicon solar cells and spawning widespread interest among silicon manufacturers. ur goal is to leverage the silicon factories that already exist around the world,
co-lead author of the study. ith tandem solar cells, you don need a billion-dollar capital expenditure to build a new factory.
Sunlight to electricity Solar cells work by converting photons of sunlight into an electric current that moves between two electrodes.
Silicon solar cells generate electricity by absorbing photons of visible and infrared light, while perovskite cells harvest only the visible part of the solar spectrum where the photons have more energy.
Microscopic cross-section of a tandem solar cell made with two photovoltaic materials, perovskite stacked on top of CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide).
COURTESY: Colin Bailie, Stanford bsorbing the high-energy part of the spectrum allows perovskite solar cells to generate more power per photon of visible light than silicon cells,
Bailie said. A key roadblock to building an efficient perovskite-silicon tandem has been a lack of transparency. olin had to figure out how to put a transparent electrode on the top
Mcgehee said. o one had made ever a perovskite solar cell with two transparent electrodes. Perovskites are damaged easily by heat and readily dissolve in water.
This inherent instability ruled out virtually all of the conventional techniques for applying electrodes onto the perovoskite solar cell
Remarkable efficiency For the experiment, the Stanford team stacked a perovskite solar cell with an efficiency of a 12.7 percent on top of a low-quality silicon cell with an efficiency of just 11.4 percent. y combining two cells
In another experiment, the research team replaced the silicon solar cell with a cell made of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS.
it might be possible to upgrade conventional solar cells into higher-performing tandems with little increase in cost,
We have a ways to go to show that perovskite solar cells are stable enough to last 25 years.
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