and for the wider use of renewable energy y
#Detecting HIV diagnostic antibodies with DNA nanomachines Detecting HIV diagnostic antibodies with DNA nanomachines (Nanowerk News) New research may revolutionize the slow,
able to turn solar energy into heat for residentsuse, will be installed next year in a building in Merida, Spain.
silicon solar cells are stacked typically and thus hundreds of micrometers thick. If they were any thinner, light would simply pass through them.
#New low-cost battery could help store renewable energy Wind and solar energy projects are growing at a respectable clip.
But storing electric power for days when the air is still or when the sun goes down remains a challenge, largely due to cost.
It was designed with all the latest equipments like GPS, video and audio, solar panels 3g facilities and foam arms to hug
#MIT Invention Turns Salt water Into Drinking water Using Solar power From plants to people, every living thing on this planet needs water.
The group came up with a method that uses solar panels to charge a bank of batteries.
Renewable energy is tricky in tunnels, since the sun's rays don't reach that far. But each GENESI node and sensor includes a miniature wind turbine that harvests energy from passing trains.
For all other sensors, whether tucked away in tunnel walls or nestled in dark unlit crevices under bridges,
and lasting the effects of the mountainslow snowpack levels will be on urban and agricultural water supplies, hydroelectric power,
#Plug Your Toaster Into the Sun Sunport lets you use solar power at homeithout the panels.
Solar power has long been touted as a clean, green way to generate electricity. Typically, that means installing large, expensive solar panels,
which is not practical for those who cannot afford it or who don have the space.
But a new device called the Sunport lets you use solar energy, anywhere, and it only the size of a three-prong plug.
The accompanying app upgrades your usage to solar using Solar Renewable energy Credits (S-RECS). In effect,
it certifies that you have asked the energy grid to power your device with solar power. You see,
Although it lets you use solar energy, it won reduce your electric bill. But like organic foods or hybrid vehicles, it will help the environment. he more solar we use,
it will be concentrated the largest solar power (CSP) plant in the world, and the first phase, called Noor 1, will go live next month.
The potential for solar power from the desert has been known for decades. In the days after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 the German particle physicist Gerhard Knies
Morocco environment minister, Hakima el-Haite, believes that solar energy could have the same impact on the region this century that oil production had in the last.
so when we heard about the potential of solar energy, we thought; why not? olar energy will make up a third of Morocco renewable energy supply by 2020,
with wind and hydro taking the same share each. e are very proud of this project,
el-Haite said. think it is the most important solar plant in the world. ach parabolic mirror is 12 metres high
due to open in 2017 will store energy for up to eight hours opening the prospect of 24/7 solar energy in the Sahara,
says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of Société dnvestissements Energétiques, the national renewable energy investment firm. But he says the project ultimate impact will go far wider even as far as the Middle east. he ultimate objective given by his majesty the king is Mecca. hether that ambition is achieved remains to be seen
but exporting solar energy could have stabilising effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen).
what is advanced the most renewable energy programme in the middle East and North African region. e are at the avant-garde of solar,
#Shortening Organic solar cell Production One of the building blocks of the solar panel, solar cells are responsible for converting solar energy into electricity.
Most commercial solar cells are made from the inorganic crystalline silicon. Now, the U s. Dept of energy (DOE) Oak ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a method to save steps in the organic solar cell manufacturing process by introducing solvents into solar cell film production.
Usually, the thin filmssed by organic bulk heterojunction solar cellsre created by mixing conjugated polymers and fullerenes,
According to the DOE, organic photovoltaic solar cells have low efficiencies due to their small excition diffusion lengths
However, the information obtained from the neutron reflectometry will help scientists boost organic solar cell performance, according to ORNL. ptimization of photovoltaic properties provides information to manufacture solar cells with fully controlled morphology
and device performance, said Nuradhika Herath, the lead of the study. hese findings will aid in developing dealphotovoltaics,
electric cars and grid-scale storage for solar power.""In their simplest form, batteries are made of three components:
One compelling idea is to use solar energy to split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen and then harvest the hydrogen for use as fuel.
This meant that more of the solar energy could be used by the electrode.""Now we understand what's going on at the microscopic level,
#Storage advance may boost solar thermal energy potential Engineers at Oregon State Univ. have identified a new approach for the storage of concentrated solar thermal energy,
In contrast to conventional solar photovoltaic cells that produce electricity directly from sunlight, solar thermal generation of energy is developed as a large power plant in
Auyeung said. he molten salts now being used to store solar thermal energy can only work at about 600 degrees centigrade,
which consumes thermal energy. During discharge, the recombination of strontium oxide and carbon dioxide releases the stored heat.
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.
#New tidal energy system could help POWER UK, say developers A British company, in conjunction with Oxford university researchers, believes it has devised a way to overcome this obstacle by creating a new type of horizontal axis turbine that can be used underwater at depths of up to 30 meters, at an economical cost.
Conventional propeller-type turbines are like underwater wind turbines and the number of suitable sites for them are reduced vastly by the size of their large blades,
Guy Houlsby, professor of civil engineering at Oxford university, says their design is an improvement on the vertical Darrieus wind turbine used in some turbine systems."
"A one kilometer (0. 6 mile) long tidal energy fence, capable of creating 30 megawatts at peak performance,
#New solar battery outperforms conventional lithium-iodine batteries By combining a solar cell and a battery into a single device,
which is harvested by a flat solar panel on top of the battery. Below, the researchers have installed a new type of electrolyte that replaces the lithium-cobalt oxide or lithium iron phosphate of regular battery electrolytes with water."
by making the solar panel a solid sheet rather than a mesh, because it no longer needs air flow to function,
"The solar cell is also super-efficient, known as a dye-sensitised solar cell. The team used a red dye called ruthenium to tune the wavelength of light it captures
while the solar panel made up the other 20 percent. The team now wants to work on increasing this percentage,
"This solar flow battery design can potentially be applied for grid-scale solar energy conversion and storage, as well as producing'electrolyte fuels'that might be used to power future electric vehicles,"one of the team,
's goal of being powered by 90 percent renewable energy by 2025. The decision means that, with the exception of a few small-scale industrial plants,
"But significant market investment in other forms of renewable energy in recent years, particularly in geothermal, means that a coal backstop is becoming less of a requirement."
Over the past year and a half, New zealand has increased significantly the amount of electricity it produces from renewable energy,
with nearly 80 percent of its electricity coming from renewable sources in 2014 thanks to huge expansion in geothermal.
when it comes to renewable energy. But if recent research has shown us anything, it's that there are plenty of renewable energy sources out there to be exploited,
and every country On earth has more than enough to go around. We just need to follow New zealand's lead,
say researchers Figures indicate that the world uptake of renewable energy has eclipsed finally its demand for fossil fuel sources,
which effectively mimics plant-based photosynthesis by using solar energy to convert water into hydrogen. The process,
clean and renewable source of hydrogen as the ultimately sustainable fuel, said Leone Spiccia, lead author of the research,
Hydrogen could even be used as an inexpensive energy storage technology at the household level to store energy from rooftop solar cells.
#This transparent lithium-ion battery charges itself with sunlight Researchers in Japan have invented a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can charge itself using sunlight-no solar cell required.
and the team behind it hopes to see the technology integrated into a mart windowthat can act as both a large rechargeable battery and a photovoltaic cell all at once.
Theye since been working towards a battery-integrated window that can store energy from sunlight while also changing its structure automatically to provide a tint during the day.
In addition to Tu's malaria drug, Artemisinin, China has pioneered also development of solar and wind technology, and is working on trains that will reach 500 km h.
direct air capture works just like these new solar cells that split water into a hydrogen fuel-the CO2 recycling plant extracts CO2 from the air using a giant complex of fans,
A major limitation of solar and wind technologies, on the other hand, is that they require specific technologies to capture
not just for smartphones but for electric cars and solar power, where batteries are essential for storing energy to use
Solar energy heats the zeolite and increases the methanol vapor pressure, the refrigerant is condensed and stored in a tank flowing to the evaporator."
The project was presented at the International Congress of Solar energy at Germany y
#Future antibiotic-making kit for amateurs? Kit could one day Be led by widely available Professor Jeffrey Bode of the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules at Nagoya University in Japan,
which has traditionally been used for applications including transistors and solar cells. With the use of lithium ions as dopant, researchers found it offered significant electronic conductivity
organic polymers could potentially be synthesized from biomass.""Organic-conjugated polymers are emerging as a materials class for energy-related applications,
"This means we have demonstrated the most important step toward a hydrogen economy--producing distributed and affordable green hydrogen from local biomass resources,
the Virginia Tech team used dirty biomass--the husks and stalks of corn plants--to create their fuel.
or better than more expensive metal-based catalysts used in alkaline and acidic fuel cells and in dye-sensitized solar cells."
and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels.
"In natural photosynthesis, leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced 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.""In our system, nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria,
where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products."
the Berkeley team achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of up to 0. 38-percent for about 200 hours under simulated sunlight,
and silicon-based materials for thermoelectric and solar power components. VTT is currently seeking a party interested in commercializing the technique e
#Better battery imaging paves way for renewable energy future"Iron fluoride has the potential to triple the amount of energy a conventional lithium-ion battery can store,
we could advance large-scale renewable energy storage technologies for electric cars and microgrids, "he says. Jin also believes that the novel X-ray imaging technique will facilitate the studies of other technologically important solid-state transformations
and help to improve processes such as preparation of inorganic ceramics and thin-film solar cells. The experiments were performed with the help of Yu-chen Karen Chen-Wiegart, Feng Wang, Jun Wang and their co-workers at Beamline X8c
wind turbines Karl A. Gschneidner and fellow scientists at the U s. Department of energy's Ames Laboratory have created a new magnetic alloy that is an alternative to traditional rare-earth permanent magnets.
and wind turbines--eliminates the use of one of the scarcest and costliest rare earth elements, dysprosium,
the naturally occurring minerals with unique magnetic properties that are used in electric vehicle (EV) motors, and wind generators.
#Electrical power converter allows grid to easily accept power from renewable energy Doctoral student Joseph Carr developed the system with his adviser, Juan Balda, University Professor and head of the department of electrical engineering.
Innovations in this field are critical as the United states moves toward integration of renewable energy sources to the national power grid.
"The availability and use of renewable energy sources, such as solar, geothermal and wind, and their associated harvesting systems increase the need for new power converters that can efficiently convert diverse energy sources to work across modern electrical grid systems.
Current renewable energy conversion systems are bulky, inefficient and struggle to accept multiple inputs from diverse sources.
under the sunlight, a small portion of solar energy(<1 percent) captured by chlorophyll is emitted as fluorescence.
or biocarbon that can be defined as a carbonaceous material obtained through thermal treatment of biomass at low temperatures and under inert atmosphere.
"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
and storing renewable energy, 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 its partnering institutions in 2010,
and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface
substantial gains in the durability and applicability of these structures for solar panels, highly robust, self-healing coatings,
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,
According to the team's simulations of solar power generation during the summer solstice in Arizona it is almost as good as a conventional single-axis tracker, offering a 36 percent improvement over a stationary panel.
"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.
a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.
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.
a type of solar power based on the ability of plants to transform sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars.
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.
By 2020, the EU aims to have 10 per cent of the transport fuel of every EU country come from renewable sources such as biofuels.
Roofing tiles that double as solar panels. Sun powered cell phone chargers woven into the fabric of backpacks.
A new generation of organic semiconductors may allow these kinds of flexible electronics to be manufactured at low cost,
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 hotter solar cells get, the less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful electricity.
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,
"because it shunted thermal energy directly into the deep, cold void of space. 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
in the form of infrared light, into space. 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,
a figure that represents a significant gain in energy production. The researchers said the new transparent thermal overlays work best in dry, clear environments,
which are preferred also sites for large solar arrays. They believe they can scale things up so commercial and industrial applications are feasible
and thus tapping into increasingly efficient solar energy conversion and new pathways for CO2 reduction. Beyond this, researchers are interested in numerous other chemical reactions.
Holey metamaterials enhance thermal energy harvesting It's estimated that the U s. fails to use more than half of the energy it generates--mostly
For the case of optimizing thermal energy harvesting, the researchers found they could"spectrally tune"a surface to emit more radiation at 1 THZ frequency.
Simulations predict that an antenna placed near the holey surface could capture 10,000 to 100,000 times more thermal energy than an antenna in open space.
The results will also help the team calculate how rectenna thermal energy harvesting might compare to other ways of harvesting waste heat,
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.
and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels.
leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced 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, nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria,
where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products.
With this approach, the Berkeley team achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of up to 0. 38-percent for about 200 hours under simulated sunlight,
season and year along with weather events and increased use of intermittent renewable energy from the sun
and at the National Renewable energy Laboratory that collectively analyze trends in PV system pricing. The latest edition of Tracking the Sun
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.
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,
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,
we could apply it to energy conversion technologies and solar energy capture. The research, supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center and the Army Research Office (ARO
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,
The advance could eventually lead to vastly improved technology for capturing solar energy. 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,
and for the wider use of renewable energy. OSU officials say they are seeking support for further research
#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.
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.
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
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.
Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCLA, said there are several factors that lead to quick deterioration in normally layered perovskite solar cells.
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.
says that nine months ago surgeons implanted two bunches of silicon electrodes, called Utah arrays, into the volunteer motor cortex.
#Graphene's thermoelectric properties to help cars recover lost thermal energy Charging bateries 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
including power generation in wind turbines, memory storage, and medical imaging. However, only three metals iron cobalt and nickel-are naturally ferromagnetic,
This meant that more solar energy could be used by the electrode. ow we understand what going on at the microscopic level,
And the new design could be used to store renewable energy of the electrical grid, the researchers suggested.
and store up to 10kwh of energy from wind or solar panel. The reserves can be drawn on
Musk also unveiled a larger owerpack a 100kwh battery block to help utilities smooth out their supply of wind and solar energy
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.
There is more good news for proponents of renewable energy after the UK government #which is no longer encouraging onshore wind
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.
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