Synopsis: Energy:

while supercapacitors have the potential to charge faster and last longer than conventional batteries, they also need to be much larger in size

and mass in order to hold the same electric energy as batteries. Thus, many scientists are working to develop green, lightweight, low-cost supercapacitors with high performance.

In energy storage devices, storing an electrical charge is called"energy density,"a distinction from"power density, "which refers to how quickly energy is delivered.

Conventional capacitors have high power density but low energy density, which means they can quickly charge

and discharge and release a burst of electric power in a short time, but they can't hold a large amount of electric charges.

Conventional batteries on the other hand, are the opposite. They have high energy density or can store a lot of electric energy, but can take hours to charge and discharge.

Supercapacitors are a bridge between conventional capacitors and batteries, combining the advantageous properties of high power, high energy density and low internal resistance,

which may replace batteries as a fast, reliable and potentially safer power source for electric and portable electronic devices in future, said Singh.

In supercapacitors, high capacitance, or the ability to store an electrical charge, is critical to achieve higher energy density.

Meanwhile, to achieve a higher power density it is critical to have a large electrochemically accessible surface area, high electrical conductivity and short ion diffusion pathways.

and transporting ions through another material at the interface between electrode and electrolyte. Larger redox reaction surfaces are essential for achieving a higher power density for supercapacitors."

#Real-time Nanoscale Images of Lithium Dendrite Structures That Degrade Batteries Scientists at the Department of energy Oak ridge National Laboratory have captured the first real-time nanoscale images of lithium dendrite structures known to degrade lithium

-ion batteries. The ORNL team electron microscopy could help researchers address longstanding issues related to battery performance and safety.

ORNL electron microscopy captured the first real-time nanoscale images of the nucleation and growth of lithium dendrite structures known to degrade lithium-ion batteries.

CREDIT: ORNL Dendrites form when metallic lithium takes root on a battery anode and begins growing haphazardly.

If the dendrites grow too large, they can puncture the divider between the electrodes and short-circuit the cell,

resulting in catastrophic battery failure. The researchers studied dendrite formation by using a miniature electrochemical cell that mimics the liquid conditions inside a lithium-ion battery.

Placing the liquid cell in a scanning transmission electron microscope and applying voltage to the cell allowed the researchers to watch as lithium depositshich start as a nanometer-size seedrew into dendritic structures. t gives us a nanoscopic view of how dendrites nucleate and grow,

and more importantly, correlate that to the measured performance of a battery, said Robert Sacci,

when you run a battery over many charge-discharge cycles, you typically wait until things start failing

The study is published as anoscale Imaging of Fundamental Li Battery Chemistry: Solid electrolyte Interphase Formation and Preferential Growth of Lithium Metal Nanoclusters.

Coauthors are Robert Sacci, Jennifer Black, Nina Balke, Nancy Dudney, Karren More and Raymond Unocic.

an Energy Frontier Research center funded by DOE Office of Science. The study also used resources at Center for Nanophase Materials sciences, a DOE Office of Science User Facility at ORNL.

For more information, please visit http://science. energy. gov/a

#N1 Technologies Seeks Patent for Non-Petroleum Nano Organic Motor oil The directors and management of N1 Technologies Inc. have filed a patent for a bio-based non-petroleum motor oil.

Additionally, the tunable pressurization and antifouling properties could result in more than 50-percent energy savings compared to current methods."

"This advance offers an entirely new approach with which to confront a broad range of problems in fields ranging from energy to medicine."

and Power of Lithium-Ion Batteries One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging

degrading the battery performance over time. Now a team of researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China has found a novel way around that problem:

and provide a dramatic boost in the battery capacity and power. The new findings, which use aluminum as the key material for the lithium-ion battery negative electrode,

or anode, are reported in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by MIT professor Ju Li and six others.

Most present lithium-ion batteries the most widely used form of rechargeable batteries use anodes made of graphite, a form of carbon.

for many years, researchers have explored other options that would provide greater energy storage for a given weight.

Lithium metal, for example, can store about 10 times as much energy per gram, but is extremely dangerous,

Also, the liquid electrolyte in contact with aluminum will always decompose at the required charge/discharge voltages,

forming a skin called solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer, which would be ok if not for the repeated large volume expansion and shrinkage that cause SEI particles to shed.

As a result, previous attempts to develop an aluminum electrode for lithium-ion batteries had failed.

hat separates the aluminum from the liquid electrolytebetween the battery two electrodes. The shell does not expand

and the aluminum inside is protected from direct contact with the electrolyte. The team didn originally plan it that way,

says Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering, who has a joint appointment in MIT Department of Materials science and engineering. e came up with the method serendipitously,

For applications that require a high power-and energy density battery, he says, t probably the best anode material available.

the most attractive point of this work is that the process appears simple and scalable. here is much work in the battery field that uses omplicated synthesis with sophisticated facilities,

but such systems re unlikely to have impact for real batteries. Simple things make real impact in the battery field. he research team included Sa Li, Yu Cheng Zhao,

and Chang An Wang of Tsinghua University in Beijing and Junjie Niu, Kangpyo So, and Chao Wang of MIT.

from ultraviolet to the terahertz range, says Dr. Susanne Kehr from the TU Dresden. he focused light delivers energy to the sample,

NASA Spiderfab project intends to 3d print the underlying structures for such objects as antennas and solar panels.

large-scale solar array could power spacecraft, robots, drones, and more. And, though such projects as mining asteroids with solar-powered drones might seem like science fiction,

The first application in which this microscope was deployed in the DOE Bioenergy Science Center was for analyzing plant cell walls,

Researchers are looking to convert these biopolymers to free the functional sugars and discharge energy.

Innovation through Cross-Disciplinary Sciencethis work is part of a new project being undertaken by CAMERA (The Center for Advanced Mathematics for Energy Research Applications.

CAMERA is a joint effort between DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Office of Basic energy Sciences.

it can be extended to other applications in material and energy sciences as well. The work was supported by DOE Office of Science (Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Office of Basic energy Sciences) and by the National institute of health e

#Researchers Evaluate Particle Retention and Stability on Nanomembrane Sheets In a new study, Cornell researchers examined these special nylon sheets replete with applied nanoscale iron oxide particles to see

including energy harvesting technology, mass manufacturing of integrated electronics, autofocus and smart lens case technologies. EPGL has announced not yet publicly

#Universitat Jaume I Patents Graphene-Based Catalysts for Energy conversion and Storage Researchers at the Universitat Jaume I have developed materials based on graphene that can catalyse reactions for the conversion and storage of energy.

The technology, developed by the Group of Organometallic Chemistry and Homogeneous Catalysis (QOMCAT) of the UJI, is of great interest to the energy industry

which energy is stored as hydrogen. In this regard the materials patented by the UJI allow catalysing reactions for obtaining hydrogen from alcohols

Thus, the patented materials can be used both in the development of catalysts as well as storage batteries or other energy types p

Peidong Yang, a professor of chemistry at Berkeley and co-director of the school's Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute, leads a team that has created an artificial leaf that produces methane

a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.

or years and distributed through existing energy infrastructure. In a roundtable discussion on his recent breakthroughs and the future of synthetic photosynthesis, Yang said his hybrid inorganic/biological systems give researchers new tools to study photosynthesis

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.

In recent years, they have been studied for potential use in solar cells. But crystals aren formed always perfectly.

an element used in incandescent light bulbs. As the sample was tilted 62 times, the researchers were able to slowly assemble a 3-D model of 3, 769 atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample.

thanks to the electron beam energy being kept below the radiation damage threshold of tungsten. Miao and his team showed that the atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample were arranged in nine layers, the sixth

Miao and his team plan to build on their results by studying how atoms are arranged in materials that possess magnetism or energy storage functions,

This work was supported primarily by the U s. Department of energy Office of Basic energy Sciences (grant DE-FG02-13er46943 and contract DE-AC025CH11231

#Researchers Visualize Nano-Sized Gateways That Control Activity of Mitochondrial Battery Mitochondria are referred often to as the powerhouses of our cells,

because they generate chemical energy similar to that obtained from a battery. Whether it's a brain,

nano-sized gateways control the activity of the mitochondrial battery, by carefully allowing certain proteins

and energy harvesters that could be used for conversion of waste heat to electricity. Their development could also lead to advancements in the efficiency of solar energy capture.

The carbon nanotubes in the devices function as antennas for capturing light. When the light waves strike the nanotube antennas,

We could ultimately make solar cells that are twice as efficient at a cost that is ten times lower,

however the team aims to grow rectennas on foil or other suitable materials for developing flexible photodetectors and solar cells.

#Quantity, Dimensions of Carbon black Nanoparticles Crucial for Lithium-Ion Battery Function A Stanford undergraduate has contributed to a discovery that confounds the conventional wisdom in lithium-ion battery design,

the team explained how a material previously considered secondary in importance was actually critical to overall battery performance,

and also devised new design rules for better batteries. Graduate student Yiyang Li and undergraduate Sophie Meyer led the collaborative effort to design experiments that disproved an assumption shared by battery designers for more than 20 years:

While lithium-ion batteries needed a substance called carbon black in order to function, the precise amount of that material had not been considered crucial to overall performance."

"Our research demonstrated that isn't true, "said Meyer, who started the experiments when she was a sophomore with no prior experience in materials science.

for supervising Meyer over two years of experiments that included the construction of scores of batteries from scratch

Lithium-ion batteries have been used commonly in laptop and tablet computers, electric vehicles and renewable energy systems for more than two decades.

These batteries typically contain cathode particles through which the electrons flow, an action that enables the battery to charge.

These cathode particles are composed typically of lithium iron phosphate or lithium cobalt oxide, mixed together with carbon black,

Prior to the team's research, the quantity and dimensions of the carbon black nanoparticles weren't considered particularly crucial to a battery's function."

"The industry standard for lithium-ion batteries is a low carbon model say, 5 percent of the total material by weight,

something that varies a great deal within a battery.""Li said that by upping the percentage of carbon black as high as 20 percent in some experiments they found that the cathode particles charged more quickly

So although a battery with a higher carbon black content might charge faster, it would also have less energy

because it has fewer cathode particles to hold the charge.""It's about finding the optimum balance and the best material,

These results point toward possible future experiments to further optimize battery design. But such research would not be emphasized possible,

Li and Meyer worked with their teammates to fabricate hundreds of batteries with different concentrations of carbon black.

Each battery had to be analyzed for composition and performance. Among other things, that required the evaluation of nanometer scale images of the battery materials obtained through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's synchrotron

the Advanced Light source.""I had a lot of questions, and I read a ton of papers in the field,

"Then we had to figure out how to make the batteries: what ratio of carbon black to lithium iron phosphate to polymer binder to use;

#Researchers Enhance Efficiency of Ultrathin CIGSE Solar cells Using Nanoparticles Now, scientists at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have produced high quality ultrathin CIGSE layers

is inquiring how to use arrangements of such nanoparticles to improve solar cells and other optoelectronic devices.

Now the scientists report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society ACS Nano a considerable success with ultrathin CIGSE solar cells.

Problems add up below 1 micrometercigse solar cells have proven high efficiencies and are established thin film devices with active layers of a few micrometers thickness.

He then started to enquire how to implement nanoparticles between different layers of the solar cell.

No big effect by nanoparticles on topin a first step, the colleagues in Amsterdam implemented a pattern of dielectric Tio2-nanoparticles on top of Yin ultrathin solar cells;

But this did not increase the efficiency as much as proved in Si-based solar cells. Yin then continued testing and ultimately found out what worked best:

which corresponds to the back contact of the solar cell. On top of this structured substrate the ultrathin CIGSE layer was grown by Yin,

and subsequently all the other layers and contacts needed for the solar cell. With this configuration, the efficiency increased from 11.1%to 12.3,

Researchers in the malaria labs at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India, have identified now a five amino acid segment of a Plasmodium parasite protein that is normally involved in producing energy from glucose.

Engineers are presently trying to develop nanomaterial-based memory chips that perform better than their silicon counterparts to be used in low energy data centers and gadgets with a longer battery life.

and materials to create memory that consumed comparatively less energy than silicon. In the RRAM chips metal oxides are changed between conductive and resistive states by the application of a small joly of electricity. in these RRAM chips.

A zero is created when the electron flow is resisted by the metal oxides, and a one is created

The researchers used graphene to carrying the small jolts of electricity. Graphene is conductive even at very thin dimensions

Applying a small jolt of electricity to the alloy results in a change in its structure.

The security tag consists of a paper tag with an embedded battery and two coloured LEDS.

particularly as applied to medicine and health, energy and environment, entrepreneurship and security. With 91 tenured/tenure-track and 40 additional full-time faculty, 1, 300 undergraduate students, more than 900 graduate students and more than 23

Globally, several clean energy policies and regulations have been implemented over the past decade to reduce the consumption of higher carbon fossil fuels.

chemical industry, mining, agriculture & husbandry, automotive, and power plant. In 2014, the oil & fuel application was the largest segment of the global tank level monitoring application market,

bacteria could be reprogrammed to convert readily available sources of natural energy into pharmaceuticals, plastics and fuel products."

from illumination to energy source, but advances in visible light communication (VLC) add a new dimension to the list:

When Bearings Inside Wind turbines Will Fail Engineers from the University of Sheffield have developed a novel technique to predict

when bearings inside wind turbines will fail which could make wind energy cheaper. The method, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A and developed by Mechanical engineering research student Wenqu Chen,

uses ultrasonic waves to measure the load transmitted through a ball bearing in a wind turbine. The stress on wind turbine is recorded

and then engineers can forecast its remaining service life. When a bearing is subject to a load

its thickness is reduced by a very small amount due to elastic deformation, and the speed of sound is affected by the stress level in the material.

which are a common problem in wind turbines. By removing the risk of a loss of production and the need for unplanned maintenance,

it can help to reduce the cost of wind energy and make it much more economically competitive."

and is currently being tested at the Barnesmore wind farm in Donegal, Ireland by the company, Ricardo.

including time to contact, swing speed, energy transfer, bat path, power, overall efficiency and much more.

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

in order to reduce power consumption when transmitting and receiving information, wireless systems need to send signals that can easily travel from one side of the human body to another.

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,

so signals are communicated with much lower path losses and potentially, much lower power consumption. In their experiments, researchers demonstrated that the magnetic communication link works well on the body,

but they did not test the technique's power consumption. Researchers showed that the path losses associated with magnetic field human body communication are upwards of 10 million times lower than those associated with Bluetooth radios."

Lower power consumption also leads to longer battery life.""A problem with wearable devices like smart watches is that they have short operating times

because they are limited to using small batteries. With this magnetic field human body communication system, we hope to significantly reduce power consumption as well as how frequently users need to recharge their devices,

"said Jiwoong Park, a Ph d student in Mercier's Energy-efficient Microsystems Lab at the UC San diego Jacobs School of engineering and first author of the study.

The big question now is how to create all of that hydrogen. ind turbines could actually store their energy by producing hydrogen,

says Steelant. his has already been established by a Belgian supermarket chain where their forklifts are driven by hydrogen produced from an on-site wind turbine park.

David cameron and President Xi Jingping are expected to sign a deal this afternoon agreeing to Chinese investment in a new nuclear power station in Somerset.

France's EDF and CGN, a Chinese nuclear consortium, are poised to agree to build the plant,

Where will the power stations be built? The first will be built at Hinkley Point on the Somerset coast,

The government insists that 25,000 jobs will be created by the new power station-Hinkley Point C -and enough energy to power six million homes.

Two other stations at Sizewell in Suffolk, and Bradwell in Essex, could follow. The plant at Bradwell would be designed Chinese,

The UK government has been criticised for guaranteeing the price that will be paid for any electricity the new Hinkley Point reactor produces.

The Solar Trade Association thinks solar power could provide the same amount of electricity for half the subsidy cost.

"The government needs to explain why it is drastically cutting support for solar energy whilst offering double the subsidy to Hinkley Point C."It also needs to explain why it is championing overseas state-backed utilities over British solar companies which given stable support would have considerable growth prospects."

The government has maintained all along that it will not provide any public subsidies to the nuclear industry. It would not actually be illegal to do so,

In essence, the government has guaranteed EDF a price of £92. 50 per megawatt hour (Mwh), or £89. 50 if EDF develops another new reactor in Sizewell, Suffolk.

This simply reflects the fact that EDF's costs will be lower per reactor if it builds two of them.

If the market price of electricity falls below this level, the government has said in effect it will make sure EDF receives the difference between the two prices.

The wholesale price of electricity at the moment is about £45/Mwh. If the wholesale price remains at this level

then EDF will receive an additional £47. 50/Mwh. In practice, this money will not come from taxpayers (that would count as a subsidy),

but from consumers of electricity. The strike price works the other way as well-EDF has to refund the difference

if the price of electricity is above £92. 50/Mwh. For example, if the wholesale price is £110/Mwh,

then it has to refund £18. 50/Mwh. Again, this money goes back to bill payers, not to the government.

But why the need for any guaranteed price? Nuclear reactors cost a lot of money, and EDF wants to build two of them.

The final bill for just Hinkley is estimated at £24. 5bn. Even for a massive company like EDF, this is a huge investment,

which makes it inherently risky. For example, if the price of electricity falls, or becomes more volatile,

the company could lose a lot of money. And because the plant would take 10 years to build,

there is simply too much uncertainty to commit to such a huge investment without such comfort, investors would argue.

For this reason, EDF needs an added incentive to build the reactors. Knowing it will receive a guaranteed price for the electricity generated at Hinkley provides some kind of certainty that the investment will be worthwhile-in other words, profitable.

For its part, the government has been unable to play different energy companies off against each other, as German power giants RWE and E on decided long ago against building new plants in the UK.

It has, therefore, been forced to negotiate with EDF. But this doesn't mean EDF holds all the cards-the company is desperate to get Hinkley Point C started so it can serve as a blueprint for similar power stations across the world.

So what does it mean for bills? Until we know the price of electricity on the open market

when Hinkley Point C starts generating power, we simply won't know if it is a good or bad deal.

If the electricity price is below the strike price, then bills will probably be higher than they would otherwise be.

Conversely, if it is above the strike price, then bills would be lower. It will also depend on the energy mix at the time.

In other words, how much of your electricity is generated by nuclear power. At the moment, almost 20%of the UK's power is generated by nuclear reactors

but this is likely to fall in the short term as the UK's current nuclear capacity is decommissioned.

Better-insulated homes and more-efficient gadgets, could also lower usage in the future. This is all very well,

but why are we building new nuclear power plants? Precisely because there will be a shortfall in electricity generation as a result of existing nuclear-and coal and gas-power stations shutting down.

The question then is how to make up this shortfall. The government is committed to renewable energy, such as solar and wind power,

but to get enough generating capacity from these sources will take too long, it says,

so another solution is needed. In theory, it could simply increase power generation from traditional fossil fuels such as coal and gas,

but stringent, legally-binding carbon dioxide emissions targets mean this is not possible. There is some room for an increase in gas-generated power

And it wants EDF to lead by example, paving the way for other power companies to invest in new reactors in the UK,

because two new reactors will not be enough

#Boy, 15, held in NI over Talktalk hack Metropolitan Police said a house had been searched in County Antrim on Monday afternoon at about 16:20 GMT.

The boy was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences. He has been taken into custody at Antrim police station

#Electricity from the air-Drayson's big idea Free energy from the air. It sounds like a fantasy but that is

The technology involves harvesting radio frequency energy from existing wireless and broadcast networks, from 4g to digital television.

it doesn't require us to transmit any extra energy, it's recycling the energy

which isn't being used at the moment.""The technology was demonstrated in the lecture theatre at the Royal Institution,

Lord Drayson first showed how much radio frequency energy was in the room, and then used his Freevolt system to power a loudspeaker.

He also demonstrated the first product to use the energy system, a personal air pollution monitor called the Cleanspace tag.

A battery in the device is recharged continually by a Freevolt energy harvester. The technology which has been patented, could now be used by organisations such as supermarkets

The same thing could be achieved with a battery and low-power transmitter.""He says there are also questions to answer about the possible impact on the mobile networks,

suggesting that that the"free"energy might actually be needed for communication. I put it to Lord Drayson that the networks might demand a fee.

but have struggled to produce energy with enough efficiency to make the technology commercially viable. Now this British company believes it has found a solution.

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