where they create clothing that kills bacteria, conducts electricity, wards off malaria, captures harmful gas and weaves transistors into shirts and dresses.
With ultrathin solar panels for trim and a USB charger tucked into the waist, the Southwest-inspired garment captured enough sunshine to charge cell phones
cyanobacteria suck in huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the environment and convert it into other materials, such as biomass.
#Novel method creates nanowires with new useful properties (Nanowerk News) Harvard scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind method of creating a class of nanowires that one day could have applications in areas ranging from consumer electronics to solar panels.
Professor of Chemistry, could have applications in areas ranging from consumer electronics to solar panels. This is really a fundamental Discovery day said.
and lead to faster transistors, cheaper solar cells, new types of sensors and more efficient bioelectric sensory devices.
and it can conduct electricity as well as copper, carrying electrons with almost no resistance even at room temperature, a property known as ballistic transport.
An optical transistor could perform a similar role for light instead of electricity, bringing far faster systems than now possible.
#Nikola Labs unveils new tech to harvest electricity from EMFS; learn history behind Nikola Tesla's free electricity A revolutionary new energy harvesting technology recently unveiled by Nikola Labs,
an Ohio-based startup company inspired by the late inventor and energy genius Nikola Tesla,
reportedly harvests the electromagnetic radiation transferring to and from mobile phones and converts it into direct current (DC) electrical energy,
which reports at the time highlighted was being designed to draw millions of volts of electricity through the air from Niagara falls and feed it into cities, factories and private houses from the tops of towers, all without wires.
much as solar panels convert light energy into electrical energy. That voltage was boosted then to a useful level by a DC-DC converter (arxiv. org/abs/1505.06815.
#Improved, cheaper hybrid solar cell material created Researchers at Lithuania Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) Organic chemistry department have developed a new semiconductor material,
ffers a much cheaper alternative to those currently used in hybrid solar cells The efficiency of the new semiconductor methoxydiphenylamine-substituted carbazole,
The solar cells containing organic semiconductors created at KTU were constructed and tested by physicists at Lausanne. The tests revealed that the efficiency of the cellsconverting solar energy into electricity was 16.9%.
%Professor Getautis commented, he material created by us is considerably cheaper and the process of its synthesis is complicated less than that of the currently-used analog material.
Also, both materials have a similar efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity. That means that our semiconductors have similar characteristics to the known alternatives
and incorporated into a CH3NH3PBI3 perovskite solar cell, which displayed a power conversion efficiency of 16.91,
Various electro-optical measurements were carried out to characterize the new material. rof Getautis said that the material will be used in the construction of future solar cells:
lmost all solar cells are made from inorganic semiconductors. Hybrid, semi-organic solar cells are still being developed and perfected at the research centers all over the world.
KTU and Swiss Federal Institute of technology Lausanne have registered the invention at the European Patent office. e concluded, n V886,
and solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. ur paper is among the 5%of most important publications in one of the most influential chemistry journals followed by all undertaking research in the field of chemistry.
In an energy conference in Paris on Tuesday, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said that a coal-togas switch ensures a sustainable energy system tomorrow.
#Multilayer QD Solar cells Promising for Natcore RED BANK, N. J.,Feb 23, 2015 A new breed of quantum dots (QDS) could enable multilayer solar cells that capture more of the sun energy.
Natcore Technology Inc. said scientists in the laboratories of cofounder Dr. Andrew Barron, who is also a professor at Rice university,
have formed successfully a heterojunction solar cell using germanium QDS on an ordinary n-type silicon wafer. Individual germanium quantum dots were coated with silicon dioxide (silica),
QD solar cells have the potential to capture solar energy more efficiently than other cells available commercially today.
Tandem solar cells are used in space applications. The major issue preventing their broad use in terrestrial applications has been need the to use exotic semiconducting materials for the upper layers, according to Natcore.
it will open the door to potential ultra-high-efficiency, multijunction solar cells, the company said.
or less moneyhan solid-state and traditional flow batteries. e have something that could change the way we deal with electricity,
By 2017, they hope to release a commercial version big enough to hold a day worth of energy from a typical three-kilowatt home rooftop solar array.
Japanese electronics company Ricoh says the rubber generates electricity while it stretches. When crystalline materials such as quartz and ceramics are stretched or compressed,
so that it could conduct electricity. When they tested one conductive gel with the nanotubes and one without,
"Potential applications range from sensors integrated with packaging, to textiles that convert body heat to electricity,
#Self-Healing Material Could Instantly Fix Airplane Wings Mid-Flight Tiny scratches on a wind turbine
#For the first time, Waves Are Adding Power To The U s. Grid Azura, a machine that turns the mothion of waves into electricity,
but now they're also a source of electricity. For the first time in the United states, energy collected from waves is being turned into electricity that is heading onto the grid,
and powering homes in Hawaii. The project involves the Azura prototype, built by Northwest Energy Innovations.
Pavegen CEO and Founder Laurence Kemball-Cook shares, ut we need several hundred thousand footsteps to allow the vehicle to drive 20 minutes within London busiest streets. avegen electricity
and campaign for a future where walking is a source of electrical energy. As of writing, Pavegen has raised over $2. 2 million with backers chipping in as much as $85, 000 each.
powered by electrical energy which cause spontaneous redox reactions. Two different metals, a anode and a cathode
Electricity is difficult to use in these situations and the SALT lamp can provide it.
Since a diode acts as an electricity valve, its structure needs to be asymmetric so that electricity flowing in one direction experiences a different environment than electricity flowing in the other direction.
In order to develop a single-molecule diode, researchers have designed simply molecules that have asymmetric structures. hile such asymmetric molecules do indeed display some diode-like properties,
determine its golden color and conduct electricity. The electronic tongue distinguishes between lagers by detecting the different concentrations of polyphenols.
Solar cell Made Of Highly Ordered Molecular Frameworks Researchers have developed a functioning organic solar cell consisting of a single component has been produced on the basis of metal-organic framework compounds (MOFS.
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.
The metal-organic solar cell was produced on the basis of this novel porphyrine-MOF. he clou is that we just need a single organic molecule in the solar cell
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.
Citation: Jinxuan Liu, Wencai Zhou, Jianxi Liu, Ian Howard, Goran Kilibarda, Sabine Schlabach, Damien Coupry, Matthew Addicoat, Satoru Yoneda, Yusuke Tsutsui
these sorts of materials are"super"at conducting electricity: When superconductors are cooled below a certain temperature,
which resists the flow of electricity, those eddies would weaken. The lack of electrical resistance in superconductors means that once an eddy current starts
which conduct electricity, and insulators, which don, are polar opposites. At least that what wee believed until now.
such as glass, are stuck largely in one place, yielding high resistance to the flow of electricity.
#Solar cells that work on cloudy days just hit a record-breaking 22.1%efficiency There's been plenty of good news about solar power lately-not only are governments around the world using it more and more,
traditional solar cells simply don't work that well unless they're in direct, bright sunlight. To rectify this, researchers have been working on creating structures called black silicon solar cells,
which absorb way more light and are useful even on overcast days. But they've never been efficient enough to be real players in the solar race-up until now, that is.
A team of European researchers has announced just that they've set a new record by creating black silicon solar cells that can convert 22.1 percent of the Sun's light into electricity-an increase of almost four percent on their previous record.
While this doesn't compare to the record of 40 percent efficiency in traditional silicon solar cells,
it shows that black silicon solar cells are now real contenders that could help greatly reduce the cost of solar power in the future.
Even more impressively, the team compared their new black silicon solar cells with traditional solar cells of the same efficiency,
black cells generate considerably more electricity than traditional cells even though both cells have identical efficiency values."
"What's different about black silicon solar cells is that their surfaces are covered in tiny, nanoscale ridges,
rather than flowing through the cell as electricity-a problem that's created a limit to how efficient the cells could become.
Publishing in Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers report that their resulting cells are the most efficient black silicon solar cells to date, capable of turning 22.1 percent of available light into electricity."
and black silicon solar cells have real potential for industrial production, "the authors write. What's even more exciting about this research is the fact that the team hasn't optimised the new cells as yet,
Basically, this means that we may soon see solar panels on the market that can create electricity no matter where the Sun is in the sky,
'Manufactured in France by Audi partner company, Global Bioenergies, the fuel is produced by converting corn-derived glucose-a renewable source of biomass sugar-into isobutane gas.
Commonly used in refrigeration systems and aerosols, isobutane gas is also one of the staples of the petrochemical industry.
In this case, the team at Global Bioenergies refined it into a clear, high-grade,'unleadedfuel.""The next step in the process was to run the material through a conditioning
so that no biomass is required-just water, hydrogen, CO2 and sunlight, like how they're producing their new'e-diesel'fuel."
vice president for chemical engineering at Global Bioenergies, told Gizmag.""It's basically how we're moving away from an oil-based economy towards something that has a renewable, sustainable future to it."
and it will let us store way more electricity in much smaller spaces. The foam-like batteries and supercapacitors were made using an aerogel material taken from tree fibres,
"This aerogel is coated then with a special ink that conducts electricity within the aerogel, giving it the electronic properties that a battery requires.
but in the future they could be used to store electricity in places that current batteries can't, and could help electric cars travel further on a single charge, thanks to their light and bendy structure.
#Light-based computers will be even more awesome than we thought Researchers have come up with an efficient way of transporting data between computer chips using light rather than electricity.
and far more energy-efficient computers that use light rather than electricity for internal data transport, "as the press release explains.
and can be hooked up to a city electricity mains and installed along the side of any major road.
rather than electricity-guzzling air-conditioners. Someone get the technology commercialised, ASAP. Love science? Find out more about the research happening at UTS Science
bobbing, twisting and wobbling its way to a higher electricity output.""The team plans on installing the new megawatt-capable system in 2017,
#Scientists figure out how to make solar cells produce fuel AND electricity A new type of solar cell can convert liquid water into clean hydrogen fuel 10 times more effectively than any other technology,
and uses 10,000 times less precious material in the process. Invented by researchers in The netherlands,
the secret to these new prototype solar cells are gallium phosphide nanowires, which can split water into its hydrogen
The efficiency of solar cell technology has improved dramatically over the past decade and is now providing Germany with at least half its national energy requirements.
70-metre stretch of road covered in solar cells generated enough electricity to power an household for a year.
Over the past few years, scientists have been figuring out how to take things one step further by using solar cells to produce both fuel and electricity.
Previous studies have shown that connecting an existing silicon solar cell to a water-splitting battery can produce hydrogen fuel,
and when used in big, flat sheets, it not capable of absorbing sunlight as efficiently as needed for a viable solar cell system.
and integrated them with existing solar cell technology. Not only did they end up using 10,000 less gallium phosphide than
so their solar cells can meet this 15 percent battery yield.""For the nanowires we needed 10,000 less precious Gap material than in cells with a flat surface.
#Improved solar panels and printed electronics on the horizon with new material discovery Published today in Nature Communications,
University of Melbourne researchers say their discovery of the highly sought-after'nematic liquid crystals'can now lead to vastly improved organic solar cell performance.
"We have improved the performance of this type of solar cell from around 8 per cent efficient to 9. 3 per cent,
"The discovery is a step forward for the wider commercialization of printed organic solar cells. But more than this, could aid in the development of new materials with improved performance such as LCD screens."
"Uptake of the current generation of organic solar cells has lagged behind more widespread silicon-based models, due to their comparative lack of performance even with a simplified construction via large printers.
This discovery could help improve the performance of these solar cells, and lead to even more innovation in the coming years,"concluded Dr Jones s
like transistors and solar cells. Part of the challenge of working with nanowires is creating a good transition between these nanowires and an electrical contact to the outside world.
#Flexible methane production from electricity and biomass The variable operation modes were the biggest challenge during development says Project Head Siegfried Bajohr of the Engler-Bunte Institute (EBI) of KIT.
From the products of a biomass gasification plant i e. hydrogen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide the Demosng pilot plant directly produces methane and water by means of a nickel catalyst (SNG operation.
Then the volume flow in the plant can be doubled utilization of carbon from biomass will increase to nearly 100%and a large amount of usable waste heat will be produced by the catalyst (Ptg operation.
As conventional methanation processes reach their limits at this point we have developed a new reactor concept Bajohr says.
There it will be integrated into the gas flows of a biomass gasification plant utilizing wooden residues.
With plants such as Demosng excessive green electricity can be used much better. For example it might be converted decentrally with the carbon dioxide produced by the about 800000 biogas facilities
"Potential applications range from battery anodes, to solar cells, to 3d electronic circuits and biomedical devices.""The 3d transformation process involves a balance between the forces of adhesion to the substrate and the strain energies of the bent,
and his colleagues now want the electricity supply sector to adopt safety measures used by vehicle manufacturers.
which SINTEF's materials and electricity experts are collaborating. Almost four years ago the initiators of the project began to seek solutions to the problem.
and in the pilot project they have been joined by four Norwegian electricity generators. All large transformers use oil for insulation
The previously unknown durability to extreme conditions position Graphexeter as a viable and attractive replacement to indium tin oxide (ITO) the main conductive material currently used in electronics such as'smart'mirrors or windows or even solar panels.
This is particularly exciting for the solar panel industry where the ability to withstand all weathers is crucial.
Having a metallic conductor stable at temperatures above 600c that is also optically transparent and flexible can truly enable novel technologies for space applications and harsh environments such as nuclear power centrals.
At just one atom thick graphene is the thinnest substance capable of conducting electricity. It is very flexible
material able to conduct electricity. The same team have discovered now that Graphexeter is also more stable than many transparent conductors commonly used by for example the display industry y
#Suitcase laboratory developed for rapid detection of the Ebola virus No electricity, no reliable cold chain,
Moreover, the mobile suitcase laboratory will be operated by an integrated solar panel and a power pack. The mobile suitcase laboratory will enter a field trial in Guinea, in collaboration with the Institut pasteur de Dakar
"In remote field hospitals, resources such as electricity and cold storage are often in short supply.""added Dr. Ahmed Abd El Wahed,"The Diagnostics-in-a-Suitcase will
they can also be warmed actively with an electricity source to further crank up the heat. The researchers calculated that their thermal textiles could save about 1
000 kilowatt hours per person every year--that's about how much electricity an average U s. home consumes in one month h
and the products of the process are purified water droplets and electricity. This is an environmentally-friendly process for the purification of water derived from industrial processes and suchlike.
It also generates small amounts of electricity--in practice enough to drive a small fan, a sensor or a light-emitting diode.
and generate electricity. The wastewater comes from the local Tine dairy and is rich in organic acids,
The research by the team from the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) based at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall is published in the journal Solar energy Materials & Solar cells.
The research is questioning the perovskite material's ability to produce stable solar cells under versatile climatic conditions.
The obtained results are very crucial in terms of perovskite solar cell growth and understanding how to make better devices s
#New technique for growing high-efficiency perovskite solar cells This week in the journal Science, Los alamos National Laboratory researchers reveal a new solution-based hot-casting technique
that allows growth of highly efficient and reproducible solar cells from large-area perovskite crystals.""These perovskite crystals offer promising routes for developing low-cost, solar-based, clean global energy solutions for the future,"said Aditya Mohite,
high temperature crystal-growth processes are seen as the future of efficient solar technology. Solar cells composed of organic-inorganic perovskites offer efficiencies approaching that of silicon,
but they have been plagued with some important deficiencies limiting their commercial viability. It is this failure that the Los alamos technique successfully corrects.
The researchers fabricated planar solar cells from pervoskite materials with large crystalline grains that had efficiencies approaching 18%
#Self-assembled nanotextures create antireflective surface on silicon solar cells Reducing the amount of sunlight that bounces off the surface of solar cells helps maximize the conversion of the sun's rays to electricity,
has potential for streamlining silicon solar cell production and reducing manufacturing costs. The approach may find additional applications in reducing glare from windows, providing radar camouflage for military equipment,
"The issue with using such coatings for solar cells, "he said, "is that we'd prefer to fully capture every color of the light spectrum within the device,
The scientists started by coating the top surface of a silicon solar cell with a polymer material called a"block copolymer,
The self-assembled pattern served as a template for forming posts in the solar cell like those in the moth eye using a plasma of reactive gases-a technique commonly used in the manufacture of semiconductor electronic circuits.
The resulting surface nanotexture served to gradually change the refractive index to drastically cut down on reflection of many wavelengths of light simultaneously, regardless of the direction of light impinging on the solar cell."
Solar cells textured in this way outperform those coated with a single antireflective film by about 20 percent,
whether there are economic advantages to assembling silicon solar cells using our method, compared to other, established processes in the industry,
Matt Eisaman of Brookhaven's Sustainable energy Technologies Department and a professor at Stony Brook University."
including glass and plastic, for antiglare windows and coatings for solar panels. This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science e
and is fitted with a solar panel a wind turbine and a battery. The turbine runs at a speed of 10 to 200 revolutions per minute (rpm)
and has a lower output (100 W). An electronic control system manages the flow of energy between the solar panel the wind turbine the battery and the light.
This low intensity can provide six nights of electricity without wind or sun he adds.
The next big step forward will be generating laser light with electricity instead and without the need for cooling if possible.
#Getting rid of pinholes in solar cells The pinholes, identified by OIST's Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit led by Prof.
The pinholes in the top layer of the solar cell, known as the hole transport layer, were identified as a key cause for the quick degradation of perovskite solar cells.
Researchers around the world are investigating the potential of perovskite, a humanmade organic-inorganic hybrid material, as an alternative to silicon-based solar cells."
"The researchers eliminated the pinholes by using a different method to create the top layer of the solar cell,
and the spiro-OMETAD molecules deposited onto the solar cell. To create this layer, a solar cell is positioned upside down on the ceiling of a vacuum chamber.
As the spiro-OMETAD is heated up, it evaporates and the gas molecules that stick to the perovskite,
"We were able to reduce the thickness of the solar cell from over 200 nanometers to 70 nanometers."
which makes the movement of"holes"carrying positive charges around the solar cell circuit much easier.""A very small difference between the top layer and perovskite material means maybe we get greater energy efficiency,
The evaporation method also resulted in a much longer-lasting solar cell. Before, the cells would lose the ability to efficiently convert sunlight into electricity after a couple of days.
Now, their efficiency remains high for more than 35 days. While cheaper than conventional silicon-based solar cells, evaporation-based perovskite solar cells are more expensive than spin-coated cells.
The team is now working to determine how to strike a balance between cost and efficiency
#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
#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."
or provide electrical power.""""We use the spin current created by ultrafast heat conduction to generate spin transfer torque.
#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.
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
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