The arrangements exhibit much lower potential energy and greater stability than a standard-setting configuration reported last year by a Nobel prize-winning team from Stanford university.
with less potential energy making for a more stable molecule. The team calculates that one of the arrangements may represent the most stable possible structure in a molecule with its composition."
and absorb high-energy radiation. Also, in order to work properly at room temperature, the material should have a reasonably large band gap (the energy difference between the top of the valence band
or biocarbon that can be defined as a carbonaceous material obtained through thermal treatment of biomass at low temperatures and under inert atmosphere.
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.
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,
"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
and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface
Uranium plays an important role in the search for alternative energies to fossil fuels; however, uranium resources on land are limited.
substantial gains in the durability and applicability of these structures for solar panels, highly robust, self-healing coatings,
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,
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."
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,
"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.
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.
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.
Roofing tiles that double as solar panels. Sun powered cell phone chargers woven into the fabric of backpacks.
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 solar technologies,"says Furis, who directs UVM's program in materials science, "and to do that we need a deeper understanding of exciton diffusion.
#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,
which are preferred also sites for large solar arrays. They believe they can scale things up so commercial and industrial applications are feasible
"This zero-index metamaterial offers a solution for the confinement of electromagnetic energy in different waveguide configurations
and turn into usable DC electricity. The researchers will describe the surface at the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition
The difference is the frequency of the oscillation--the electricity from a wall socket in North america oscillates 60 times a second,
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.
#Saltwater lamp could replace dangerous kerosene lights The majority of inhabitants on the Philippines7000 islands do not have access to electricity.
Computers currently shuttle information around using electricity traveling down nanoscale metal wires. Although inexpensive and easy to miniaturize,
which is involved in memory retention using minute amounts of electricity. The increase in brain cells reduces anxiety and depression,
and combined with water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass, says Chris Chang, an expert in catalysts for carbon-neutral energy conversions. n our system,
Under blue light the hematite conducts electricity and when bathed in hydrogen peroxide will catalyze a chemical reaction to split oxygen from hydrogen.
#Power grid forecasting tool reduces costly errors Accurately forecasting future electricity needs is tricky, with sudden weather changes and other variables impacting projections minute by minute.
PNNL's Power grid Integrator has demonstrated up to a 50 percent improvement in forecasting future electricity needs over several commonly used tools.
which could save millions in wasted electricity costs. PNNL Power grid Integrator has demonstrated up to a 50 percent improvement in forecasting future electricity needs over several commonly used tools.
Project lead Luke Gosink, right, consults on the use of the new tool, which could save millions in wasted electricity costs.
Performance of the tool, called the Power Model Integrator, was tested against five commonly used forecasting models processing a year worth of historical power system data. or forecasts one-to-four hours out,
but a power purchaser bottom line. magine the complexity for coordinators at regional transmission organizations who must accurately predict electricity needs for multiple entities across several states,
and in real time to address a variety scenarios that impact electricity use, from peak periods during the day to seasonal swings.
and develop energy-efficient methods for transporting electricity. But superfluids are temperamental, and can disappear in a flash
such as extraordinary strength (it is about 200 times stronger than steel by weight), almost transparent nature and conductivity of heat and electricity with great efficiency.
which is not as efficient in conducting electricity and dissipating heat. However, to use graphene in such applications is not easy
which conducts electricity and heat with such efficiency that it is likely to revolutionize electronics.
notes Galen Barbose of Berkeley Lab Electricity Markets and Policy Group, the report lead author.
& Interfaces the development of a biodegradable nanogenerator made with DNA that can harvest the energy from everyday motion and turn it into electrical power.
and convert it into electricity so we might one day use it to power our mobile gadgetry.
Revealed by a brand new lectron camera, one of the world speediest, this unprecedented level of detail could guide researchers in the development of efficient solar cells, fast and flexible electronics and high-performance chemical catalysts.
and an extraordinary ability to conduct electricity and heat. But how do these monolayers acquire their unique characteristics?
Understanding these dynamic ripples could provide crucial clues for the development of next-generation solar cells, electronics and catalysts.
and could be used in future solar cells. Because of this strong interaction with light, researchers also think they may be able to manipulate the material properties with light pulses. o engineer future devices,
where critical resources, including reliable electric power, laboratory space, and computational server capacity, are limited often severely,
energy harvesters that would convert waste heat to electricity and ultimately for a new way to efficiently capture solar energy.
and believe that a rectenna with commercial potential may be available within a year. e could ultimately make solar cells that are twice as efficient at a cost that is ten times lower,
or other material that would produce flexible solar cells or photodetectors. Cola sees the rectennas built so far as simple proof of principle.
Using biomass a biological material from living or recently living organisms, as a replacement for graphite, has drawn recent attention because of its high carbon content, low cost and environmental friendliness.
UC Riverside engineers were drawn to using mushrooms as a form of biomass because past research has established they are highly porous,
In fact, it could literally reshape solar cells. Scientists could potentially create ight antennasthin, pole-like devices that could absorb light from all directions,
Devices such as solar cells and photosensors work better if the crystals grow vertically because vertical crystals can be packed more densely in the semiconductor,
#Next-generation perovskite solar cells made stable by metal oxide andwichucla professor Yang Yang, member of the California Nanosystems Institute, is renowned a world innovator of solar cell technology
whose team in recent years has developed next-generation solar cells constructed of perovskite, which has remarkable efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Despite this success, the delicate nature of perovskite a very light, flexible, organic-inorganic hybrid material stalled further development toward its commercialized use.
When exposed to air, perovskite cells broke down and disintegrated within a few hours to few days.
This is a significant advance toward stabilizing perovskite solar cells. Their new cell construction extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times, with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
The study was published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Postdoctoral scholar Jingbi You and graduate student Lei Meng from the Yang Lab were the lead authors on the paper. here has been much optimism about perovskite solar cell technology
Meng said. In less than two years, the Yang team has advanced perovskite solar cell efficiency from less than 1 percent to close to 20 percent. ut its short lifespan was a limiting factor we have been trying to improve on since developing perovskite cells with high efficiency.
Yang, who holds the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCLA, said there are several factors that lead to quick deterioration in normally layered perovskite solar cells.
The most significant, Yang said, was that the widely used top organic buffer layer has poor stability
because electricity generated by the cell is extracted through them. Meng said that in this study the team replaced those organic layers with metal oxide layers that sandwich the perovskite layer,
The next step for the Yang team is to make the metal oxide layers more condensed for better efficiency and seal the solar cell for even longer life with no loss of efficiency.
Alternative energy Solutions/New Materials Research: Finding new and more efficient solutions to energy harvesting, nanoporous membranes for water desalinization, solar thermal fuels and more.
is central to most electric power plants, heating and cooling systems, and desalination plants. Now, for the first time, researchers at MIT have found a way to control this process, literally with the flick of an electrical switch.
which could improve the efficiency of electric power generation and other processes, is described in a paper by Department of Mechanical engineering Professor Evelyn Wang, graduate student Jeremy Cho,
The carbonic anhydrase would be immobilized with solvent inside a reactor vessel that serves as a large purification column.
when the plant turns the Sun energy into chemical energy and then transported to the seeds.
Several privately funded companies and small university-based research groups pursuing novel fusion reactor designs have delivered promising results that could shorten the timeline for producing a prototype machine from decades to several years.
but the outlines of such a reactor can now be perceived. Traditional fusion research has centered on large, doughnut-shaped machines called tokamaks,
the fusion reactors of today, such as the one at the International Thermonuclear Experimental reactor (ITER) project in southern France, use giant coils of electromagnets that consume much more energy than the machine actually produces.
ITER (pronounced ater, which combines scientists and funding from China, the European union, India, Russia, Japan, South korea,
and the United states, is projected to cost dozens of billions of dollars to produce a working reactor sometime in the 2030s.
Two recent developments, offering new and faster pathways to energy-producing fusion reactors, have galvanized the fusion community.
such as the Large hadron collider, to bear on the problems of fusion reactors. Specifically, the team has built a device, 23 meters long,
a professor of nuclear science and engineering and the center director, published a conceptual design in July for a machine called the ARC reactor (ffordable, robust, compact.
the ARC reactor can achieve magnetic fields with much higher energyhus enabling a reactor design much smaller than other tokamak-based machines.
and provide an efficient heat-exchange medium to produce electricity. Increasing the amplitude of the surrounding magnetic field raises the amount of fusion power produced in the plasma to the fourth power dramatic increase that could lead to a commercial prototype in a matter of years,
Now the advent of advanced superconductor tapes could enable a compact reactor that produces fusion continuously.
the ARC reactor paper stresses that, for the moment, it a conceptual design only. Whyte is hoping to attract funding to build an experimental machine over the next few years.
says that nine months ago surgeons implanted two bunches of silicon electrodes, called Utah arrays, into the volunteer motor cortex.
and translates the sensation into pulses of electricity that can be interpreted by the mammalian nervous system,
or running air conditioning could be assisted by energy from fuel normally wasted as heat emissions One of the less well-known properties of graphene could enable the carbonaceous wonder-material to help combustion engine vehicles to make better use of the energy from their fuel by converting waste heat into electricity
Graphene-doped strontium titanium oxide has the ability to generate electricity from relatively small amounts of heat
Freer said. he new material will convert 3-5%of the heat into electricity. That is not much, Freer conceded,
Splitting water into its constituent elements has long been touted as a potential source of clean and sustainable energy,
Our rechargeable aluminium battery generates about two volts of electricity. That higher than anyone has achieved with aluminium.
he missing piece it said, in the transition to a sustainable energy world. The batteries, which will retail at $3,
and store up to 10kwh of energy from wind or solar panel. The reserves can be drawn on
when electricity costs are highest. The smallest owerwallis 1. 3m by 68cm, small enough to be hung inside a garage on
He said on Thursday about two billion Powerpacks could store enough electricity to meet the entire world needs. hat may seem like an insane number,
says the turbines will in time produce electricity more cheaply than offshore wind farms. It hopes to install its new design in
what is called a tidal energy fence, one kilometre long, in the Bristol Channel#an estuary dividing South Wales from the west of England#at a cost of £143m.
each of which will start generating electricity as it is completed, until the whole array is producing power.
And just to visualise that, it like one small nuclear reactor worth of electricity being generated from the tides in the Bristol Channel. he new Transverse Horizontal Axis Water turbine (THAWT)
and solar energy#gave the go-ahead for a large offshore wind farm that could provide power for up to two million homes.
The new wind farm is to be built near the Dogger Bank in the North sea and will have 400 turbines.
with the new development, will form one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world. But the fossil fuel industry is far from abandoning its own interest in British waters as the energy giant BP has announced that it is to invest about £670m to extend the life of its North sea assets.
The hover engine essentially creates"swirls of electricity"that form magnetic fields both within the hover engine and the conductive surface.
"Using pervaporation eliminates the need for electricity that is used in classic desalination processes, thus cutting costs significantly."
Underneath the hood though they are investing in the ishares S&p global clean energy index fund. The app lets users choose from some 30 types of investments
In a paper published online October 15 2014 in Nature research groups from the two institutions demonstrate the mechanical generation of electricity from the two-dimensional (2d) Mos2 material.
This 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
Zhong Lin Wang and his research group pioneered the field of piezoelectric nanogenerators for converting mechanical energy into electricity.
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
Switching lighting to LEDS over the next two decades reports the U s. Department of energy could save the country $250 billion in energy costs over that period reduce the electricity consumption for lighting by nearly one half
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.
when consuming a unit amount of electric power which is an important index to compare the energy-efficiency of different lighting devices Shimoi said.
The world's rapidly growing demand for energy and the requirement of sustainable energy production calls for an urgent change in today's fossil fuel based energy system.
In a new study in EPJ Plus French scientists have come up with an open source simulation method to calculate the actual cost of relying on a combination of electricity sources.
Bernard Bonin from the Atomic energy Research Centre CEA Saclay France and colleagues demonstrate that cost is not directly proportional to the demand level.
The authors consider wind solar hydraulic nuclear coal and gas as potential energy sources. In their model the energy demand and availability are cast as random variables.
This mix contains a large amount of nuclear power and a small amount of fluctuating energies: wind and solar.
By a pipeline system fecal sludge of the hospital enters a two-stage unaerobic reactor where it is mixed with biowaste.
Grasslands support more species than cornfields In Wisconsin bioenergy is for the birds. Really. In a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE University of Wisconsin-Madison
whether corn and perennial grassland fields in southern Wisconsin could provide both biomass for bioenergy production and bountiful bird habitat.
These grassland fields can also produce ample biomass for renewable fuels. Monica Turner UW-Madison professor of zoology and study lead author Peter Blank a postdoctoral researcher in her lab hope the findings help drive decisions that benefit both birds
and biofuels too by providing information for land managers farmers conservationists and policy makers as the bioenergy industry ramps up particularly in Wisconsin and the central U s as bioenergy production demand increases we should pay attention to the ecological consequences says Turner.
when UW-Madison's Carol Williams coordinator of the Wisconsin Grasslands Bioenergy Network and the DNR's David Sample approached Turner
of which are used already for small-scale bioenergy production--and 11 cornfields in southern Wisconsin. Over the course of two years the researchers characterized the vegetation growing in each field calculated
and estimated the biomass yields possible and counted the total numbers of birds and bird species observed in them.
According to Blank and Turner the study is one of the first to examine grassland fields already producing biomass for biofuels
and is one of only a few analyses to examine the impact of bioenergy production on birds.
and other types of vegetation the new findings indicate grassland fields may represent an acceptable tradeoff between creating biomass for bioenergy and providing habitat for grassland birds.
Our study suggests diverse bioenergy crop fields could benefit birds more so than less diverse fields.
new findings indicate grassland fields may represent an acceptable tradeoff between creating biomass for bioenergy and providing habitat for grassland birds.
By locating biomass-producing fields near existing grasslands both birds and the biofuels industry can win.
They also add that the biomass yields calculated in the study may represent the low end of
We really can produce bioenergy and provide habitat for rare birds in the state. Story Source:
The ability to mold inorganic nanoparticles out of materials such as gold and silver in precisely designed 3d shapes is a significant breakthrough that has the potential to advance laser technology microscopy solar cells electronics environmental testing disease
It is so strong that the binding energy of the proton gives a much larger contribution to the mass through Einstein's equation E=mc2 than the quarks themselves. 3 Due in part to the forces'relative simplicity scientists have previously been able to solve the equations behind gravity
Similar but more powerful transformers are used in electricity substations to convert the high voltages of the transmission grid into the standard AC power supply delivered to households.
and replace them with synthetic components to create a new generation of solar cells. Evans concludes:"
and conduct both heat and electricity. This scanning electron microscope image shows the network of conductive nanoribbons in Rice university's high-density graphene nanoribbon film.
The basic concept behind resistive memory devices is the insertion of a dielectric material--one that won't normally conduct electricity--between two wires.
#New Technique Increases Nanofiber Production Rate Fourfold Nanofibers polymer filaments only a couple of hundred nanometers in diameter have a huge range of potential applications, from solar cells
Tangled tale Nanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume solar cells, for instance,
or produce electricity has remained largely untapped until now. In the June 16 online issue of Nature Communications, Columbia University scientists report the development of two novel devices that derive power directly from evaporation a floating,
piston-driven engine that generates electricity causing a light to flash, and a rotary engine that drives a miniature car.
it could one day produce electricity from giant floating power generators that sit on bays or reservoirs,
Coupling that piston to a generator produced enough electricity to cause a small light to flash. e turned evaporation from a pool of water into light,
and more spores could potentially generate even more power per unit area than a wind farm. The Columbia team other new evaporation-driven engine the Moisture Mill contains a plastic wheel with protruding tabs of tape covered on one side with spores.
A larger version of the Moisture Mill could also produce electricity Sahin said, suggesting a wheel that sits above a large body of water
and generate electricity. This development would steadily produce as much electricity as a wind turbine, Sahin said
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