#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,
Thermoelectric materials produce electricity by exploiting the flow of heat current from a warmer area to a cooler area,
and produces 10 watts of electricity has an efficiency rate of 10 percent. Top efficiency for current thermoelectric materials is about 12 percent
'This bifunctional catalyst can split water continuously for more than a week with a steady input of just 1. 5 volts of electricity.
'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 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."
and provide backup for renewable energy sources that produce intermittent output, such as wind and solar power. But Chiang says the technology is suited also well to applications where weight
"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.
In particular, current chemical synthesis methods use high temperatures and toxic solvents, which make environmental remediation expensive and challenging.
"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.
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.
Those systems are hindered by not being able to use that solar energy at night or when cloudy conditions exist.
The UT Arlington team developed an all-vanadium photo-electrochemical flow cell that allows for efficient and large-scale solar energy storage even at nighttime.
and use solar power, "said Fuqiang Liu, an assistant professor in the Materials science and engineering Department who led the research team."
"As renewable energy becomes more prevalent, 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,
000 Faculty Early Career development grant awarded to Liu to improve the way solar energy is captured, stored and transmitted for use.
said a major drawback of current solar technology is the limitation on storing energy under dark conditions."
"We have demonstrated simultaneously reversible storage of both solar energy and electrons in the cell, "Dong Liu said."
"Release of the stored electrons under dark conditions continues solar energy storage, thus allowing for unintermittent storage around the clock."
said that the research should allow solar energy storage to be done in a much higher capacity and on a much larger scale."
"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,
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.
It's an advance that could have huge implications for everything from photography to solar power.
meaning it can gather a lot of light energy, and then scatters the light over a very large area,
this one very small optical device can receive light energy from all around and yield a surprisingly strong output.
Given the nanoresonator's capacity to absorb large amounts of light energy, the technology also has potential in applications that harvest the sun's energy with high efficiency.
In addition, Yu envisions simply letting the resonator emit that energy in the form of infrared light toward the sky,
and could enable new technologies in light sensing and solar energy conversion, "Yu says s
#Better memory with faster lasers By studying the effect of femtosecond laser pulses on the types of materials used to make DVDS,
#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.
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,
"explains Göbelt. 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
what are known as plasmonic effects. e
#Cooking up altered states Churning raw milk sufficiently creates butter. Squirting lemon juice coagulates it into curd.
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,
The researchers suggested adding a carefully designed layer of electrically insulating material onto communications antennas that would essentially store electrical energy.
#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.
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).
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,
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.
#Floating wind turbines bring electricity where it#s needed It a balloon that lifts a wind turbine. That the easiest way to describe the technology being developed by Altaeros Energies,
and airship technology to lift a wind turbine. Most wind turbine manufacturers are competing to build taller turbines to harness more powerful winds above 500 feet,
or 150 meters. Altaeros is going much higher with their novel Buoyant Airborne Turbine: the BAT.
Altaeros Energies Most wind turbine manufacturers are competing to build taller turbines to harness more powerful winds above 500 feet,
Altaeros Energies Aiming high Most wind turbine manufacturers are competing to build taller turbines to harness more powerful winds above 500 feet,
The helium-inflatable shell channels wind through a lightweight wind turbine. The shell self-stabilizes and produces aerodynamic lift, in addition to buoyancy.
Remote customers typically pay over $0. 30/kwh USD for electricity. The BAT has the potential to bring affordable wind energy to these communities and industries.
The first model will provide enough electricity for a small community, or about a dozen American homes.
Credit: Altaeros Energies Remote customers typically pay over $0. 30/kwh USD for electricity. The BAT has the potential to bring affordable wind energy to these communities and industries.
The first model will provide enough electricity for a small community, or about a dozen American homes.
Credit: Altaeros Energies The BAT automated control system ensures safe and efficient operation, the highlight of which is the capability to adjust altitude autonomously for optimal power output.
The first BAT model is approximately 15 by 15 meters, is containerized, and does not require a crane or foundation for installation.
As a result, remote customers typically pay more than 30 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The BAT has the potential to bring affordable wind energy to these communities and industries.
The first model will provide enough electricity for a small community, or about a dozen American homes.
Combined with significant increases in energy output and the ability to install the unit in 24 hours,
and to develop its modular wind turbine for power performance and ease of installation. Altaeros recently received Series A funding of $7 million dollars for the continued development and commercialization of its technology. he new products being developed by the team at Altaeros are exciting
NSF SBIR program director. his technology has the potential to avoid many of the key challenges facing traditional wind turbines. i
Software developed by Fraunhofer researchers will ensure an optimum use of the available wind energy at any time.
it is critical that the available wind energy is used in the best possible way. In order to calculate the optimal sailing route, researchers from Fraunhofer Center for Maritime Logistics and Services CML, a division of Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
The tiny sensor is coated with a solar cell and it supplies itself with power. Sensors differentiate between ball and crowbar At ten millimeters,
Thanks to this window space, the solar cell obtains adequate light, even in the darkness of winter.
First of all, they succeeded in depositing the solar cell directly onto the uneven surface of the chip.
Secondly, the chip consumes power so meagerly that energy from the miniscule solar cell spans the dark hours.
like a street profile, prior to coating it with the solar cell, vom Bögel says. Currently IMS sensor prototypes can store enough power for up to 30 hours of darkness.
which was asking for solar cells on chips at IMS around two years ago, provided the impetus to developing the solar radio chip.
Andreas Goehlich group of developers succeeded in integrating the solar cells on the surface of the chips.
Using these solar cells, SOLCHIP seeks to monitor the street traffic for example, or the climate conditions in vineyards. s you can see,
#High efficiency concentrating solar cells move to the rooftop Ultra-high efficiency solar cells similar to those used in space may now be possible on your rooftop thanks to a new microscale solar concentration technology developed by an international team
of researchers. solar cells oncentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems leverage the cost of high efficiency multi-junction solar cells by using inexpensive optics to concentrate sunlight onto them,
which is where the majority of solar panels throughout the world are installed. Giebink notes that the falling cost of typical silicon solar cells is making them a smaller and smaller fraction of the overall cost of solar electricity,
which also includes oftcosts like permitting, wiring, installation and maintenance that have remained fixed over time.
because increasing the power generated by a given system reduces the overall cost of the electricity that it generates.
the researchers combined miniaturized, gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells, 3d-printed plastic lens arrays and a moveable focusing mechanism to reduce the size,
and create something similar to a traditional solar panel that can be placed on the south-facing side of a building roof.
very efficient multi-junction solar cells, said Giebink. hese cells are less than 1 square millimeter, made in large,
With each tiny solar cell located in the focus of this duo, sunlight is intensified more than 200 times.
the middle solar cell sheet tracks by sliding laterally in between the lenslet array. Previous attempts at such translation-based tracking have worked only for about two hours a day
because the focal point moves out of the plane of the solar cells, leading to loss of light and a drop in efficiency.
which allows small motors using a minimal amount of force for the mechanical tracking. he vision is that such a microtracking CPV panel could be placed on a roof in the same space as a traditional solar panel
and 99 percent of it everything except the solar cells and their wiring consists of acrylic plastic or Plexiglas,
solved one of the major challenges surrounding silicene by demonstrating that it can be made into transistors emiconductor devices used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power.
solar panels that could be integrated into windows, and membranes to desalinate and purify water. But all these possible uses face the same big hurdle:
The lightweight lithium-polymer hybrid fuel cell that converts the hydrogen gas into electricity to power the rotors was developed by a sister company,
This combination is a real winner considering that the battery is designed mostly for use in hybrid electric vehicles and energy storage for renewable energy sources.
#Taking remote control of your electricity Householders may soon be able to keep real-time track of their electricity usage
smartphone or tablet Eddy keeps track of electricity use, collects and analyses the data, and makes recommendations to help users save money.
the system can also reward households for using less electricity during peak energy periods. The technology was developed at CSIRO energy centre in Newcastle,
Superconductors are used for many applications including in magnetic resonance imaging devices and for magnetic energy storage. The basis for all superconductors is the formation of electron pairs.
so it can be integrated it into ultra-small renewable energy devices, such as solar cells, data storage hardware and advancing quantum computing. uow195685 o one in the scientific community believed silicene paper could be made
These new phenomena rely on the transport of thermal energy, in contrast to the conventional application of magnetic fields, providing a new,
a chemical engineer with joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley. he recyclable catalysts we developed are capable of converting sugarcane biomass into a new class of aviation fuel and lubricants with superior cold
and lubricants from biomass optimized using life-cycle greenhouse gas assessment. Corinne Scown, a research scientist with Berkeley Lab Energy Analysis and Environmental impacts Division,
Biofuels synthesized from the sugars in plant biomass help mitigate climate change. However jet fuels have stringent requirements that must be met. et fuels must be oxygen-free,
The process developed at EBI can be used to selectively upgrade alkyl methyl ketones derived from sugarcane biomass into trimer condensates with better than 95-percent yields.
sugar and electricity, says PNAS paper co-author Gokhale, a chemical engineer, who is managing the research project from BP side. xpanding the product slate to include aviation fuels
The rest of the waste biomass can be combusted to produce process heat and electricity to operate the refinery.
This new EBI process for making jet fuel and lubricants could also be used to make diesel
the strategy behind the process could also be applied to biomass from other non-food plants
and agricultural waste that are fermented by genetically engineered microbes. lthough there are some additional technical challenges associated with using sugars derived entirely from biomass feedstocks like Miscanthus
whereas the neodymium magnet in a wind turbine generator only has two. Currently, whether purifying the neodymium and dysprosium out of minerals or out of an old power tool motor
#UCLA chemists devise technology that could transform solar energy storage The materials in most of today residential rooftop solar panels can store energy from the sun for only a few microseconds at a time.
A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
The scientists devised a new arrangement of solar cell ingredients, with bundles of polymer donors (green rods) and neatly organized fullerene acceptors (purple, tan.
UCLA Chemistrythe new design is inspired by the way that plants generate energy through photosynthesis. iology does a very good job of creating energy from sunlight,
and keeping positive and negative charges separated, Tolbert said. hat separation is the key to making the process so efficient. o capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material.
There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics, rather than silicon,
but today plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy. odern plastic solar cells don have well-defined structures like plants do
because we never knew how to make them before, Tolbert said. ut this new system pulls charges apart
the process generates electrical energy. The plastic materials, called organic photovoltaics, are organized typically like a plate of cooked pasta a disorganized mass of long, skinny polymer paghettiwith random fullerene eatballs.
Schwartz said. o there no additional work. he researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells.
#Access to electricity and artificial light shortened time of our sleep Science knows that nowadays people tend to sleep less than they used to before modern times.
and electricity has shortened the amount of sleep humans get each night. Lead author Horacio de la Iglesia, said verything we found feeds
but differ in one key aspect access to electricity. They wanted to see if such simple factor of electricity and artificial light could lead to a smaller amount of sleep during an average week in both the summer and winter.
Scientists found these two groups in Argentina. One has a 24hour access to free electricity
and can turn on the light at any desired time, while another relies only on natural sunlight.
The community that had access to electricity slept about an hour less than their counterparts with no electricity.
when electricity became available. However because both of these groups, despite one having electricity, still live in very primitive conditions.
This must mean that with our access to electricity and technology the impact on our sleep habits is even greater.
Scientists, of course, could not watch people sleep and observe their sleeping habits directly. So they used technology.
Now scientists are thinking about ways to expand the research to get more information about links between electricity and sleep patterns in such communities.
whether the later sleep onset and reduced sleep in the community with electricity is due to a shift in the biological clock by measuring melatonin levels in the two communities.
and provide backup for renewable energy sources that produce intermittent output, such as wind and solar power. But Chiang says the technology is suited also well to applications where weight
At just one atom thick, graphene is the thinnest substance capable of conducting electricity. It is very flexible
when the electricity is turned off. Spintronic devices made of inorganic materials are used today for read heads on hard disk drives
I believe that crowd-sourced computing will enable more important scientific advances in cancer treatment and clean energy, for example in the future,
where they create clothing that kills bacteria, conducts electricity, wards off malaria, captures harmful gas and weaves transistors into shirts and dresses. otton is one of the most fascinating and misunderstood materials,
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
and release it at the exact timing desired would be a boon for the field of renewable energy.
The system requires only small amount of electricity or computational power for its operation. The primary power consumption is from a special LCD shutter that creates the 3d viewing experience.
Property of nonstick pans improves solar cell efficiency The same quality that buffers a raincoat against downpours
or a pan against sticky foods can also boost the performance of solar cells, according to a new study from UNL engineers.
Published July 20 in the journal Nature Communications, the study showed that constructing a type of organic solar cell on a on-wettingplastic surface made it 1. 5 times more efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.
Though grain size is limited typically to the thickness of a solar cell, Huang team found that a non-wetting surface allowed it to fabricate grains up to eight times larger than the cell is thick.
#Tiny grains of rice hold big promise for greenhouse gas reductions, bioenergy Discovery delivers high starch content,
such as starch for a richer food source and biomass for energy production, according to a study in Nature.
and creates more plant biomass, a bioenergy feedstock. In early work in Sweden, Jansson and his team investigated how distribution of sugars in plants could be controlled by a special protein called a transcription factor,
and Wi-fi routers, converting them to electricity, and feeding that power back to the phone battery.
A French solar technology company called Sunpartner Technologies is already working on this with a thin, see-through overlay called WYSIPS Crystal (the acronym stands for hat you see is photovoltaic surface that sits between the glass
The WYSIPS layer is covered with small solar cells; when the phone is exposed to artificial or natural light,
or cycling, generating electricity that stored in an internal battery (users have to connect their phone to Ampy to siphon off its juice).
Like India, Bangladesh has outdated an power grid that supplies electricity sporadicallyften as little as a few hours per day.
Rural dairy farmers on the subcontinent bring their milk to village collection centers that typically rely on diesel generators, a costly, dirty way of providing electricity.
they were determined to craft a technology that relied on solar power noble attempt that ultimately failed because solar power,
Eventually they settled on a thermal energy storage system that uses a phase-change material to store energy in the form of ice.
and the battery circulates that thermal energy into a heat exchanger to keep milk chilled over the course of the day.
That a huge improvement in a country where more than 300 million people live without access to electricity
has pledged to bring reliable electricity to the full population by 2022 t
#Google App Puts Neural networks on Your Phone to Translate Signs Offline In recent years Google has used networks of crudely simulated neurons running in its data centers to improve its speech recognition,
as well as the amount of power a satellite can get from its solar panels. Most communications satellites have data-transfer speeds of around a gigabit per second,
Right now, electricity is carried by streams of electrons -but Weyl fermions could provide a much more stable and efficient way of doing the same thing.
it doesn require electricity or a sophisticated lab or an experienced technician, added Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University in New orleans,
The discovery means the materials could be useful in spacecraft, the nuclear industry and in medicine.
which stores energy from domestic solar panels. ome people, especially if they don have solar panels, just assume solar panels come with a battery,
says Joe Warren, Powervault managing director. They don. Home energy generation has blossomed in the UK over the past four years,
with an estimated 650,000 homes fitted with solar panels. In 2010, the government introduced the feed in tariff scheme to pay householders who produce
The scheme aims to push renewable energy in the UK towards 15%of total energy by 2020.
A charger takes the energy from the solar panels and transforms it into energy which is stored then in the batteries and discharged around the home when needed.
or exporting electricity. If you are exporting it will charge the batteries until they are full
and if it notices that you are importing electricity, it will start to discharge energy
and it has been reduced in size to tailor it for The british home energy needs. he main purpose is to reduce people electricity bills,
the number of solar panels installed and how much energy they produce, although the company estimates that it could lower electricity bills by up to 15%.
%Warren said sales started in September, with devices snapped up by early adopters and people enthusiastic about green technology.
Warren says some estimates put the number of households with solar panels at 2m by 2020, by
which time the company hopes to have sold 50,000 units. hat we are trying to do here is change the electricity market,
we have got huge electricity cost increases that are affecting homeowners, are affecting the country. We need to get the carbon emissions of the country down,
Tesla wall-mounted Powerwall batteries are designed to store up to 10kw hours of wind or solar energy;
Eco-entrepreneur Dale Vince, chair of the renewable energy firm Ecotricity, said the home battery market remained undeveloped until now
The missing link Energy storage has been described as the missing link of solar energy adoption. A report from Deutsche Bank this year said solar energy storage would be cheap enough to be deployed on a large scale within five years as a result of a yearly cost reduction of 20%to 30%in the price of lithium-ion
batteries s
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