battery-powered device the size of a shoebox would house everything associated with the small probe, with no other reagents, facilities or specialist personnel required.
#A BATTERY MADE FROM RHUBARB (SORT OF) The next step for renewable energy is to figure out how to store all the power we create.
Harvard researchers have used a molecule nearly identical to one in rhubarb to make a battery that can store more energy
or less moneyhan solid-state and traditional flow batteries. e have something that could change the way we deal with electricity,
Many existing flow batteries use expensive rare earth metals like vanadium. This new battery is modeled on photosynthesis and uses quinones
small molecules that store energy in plants and animals. They cause a beautiful color change from yellow to red-brown during charging,
For years after the operation he wore a Proprio Foot, a prosthetic with a motorized, battery-powered ankle, sold by the Reykjavik-based company Ossur.
Since there are no integrated batteries to deal with, there's no need to replace the sensors
and tongue-stimulating electrodes connected to a handheld battery-operated device. When cameras in the glasses pick up visual stimuli, software converts the information to electrical pulses sent as vibrations to be felt on the user tongue.
The pod has its own battery pack and requires to be submerged on the surface to work.
instead, relying on kerosene generators, battery-powered lamps or candles for light during the night.
The SALT (Sustainable Alternative Lighting) lamp offers a healthier solution with a saltwater-powered battery.
The lamp uses the science behind a galvanic cell for power. The cell is an electrochemical power source,
Batteries contain strong acids, and pollute ground and water when disposed of. The SALT lamp can also connect to a smartphone.
#Canadian partners hope for battery boost Call2recycle, which has operations across Canada, focuses on consumer single-use and rechargeable batteries weighing less than 5 kg,
while the CBA mainly deals in lead-acid batteries of all sizes, primarily collected from the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors.
The two organisations aim to work together to increase the number of drop-off points, reduce consumer confusion and share operations and infrastructure where practicable.
today's announcement is a real step forward in helping keep batteries out of landfills across the country
and is powered by a small battery, removing the need for it to be wired, and contains tiny reservoirs filled with the drugs to be administered during tests.
the computers shut down as their batteries drain. And worst of all-your smartphone dies. This scenario was one of the inspirations for Andrew Burns of California startup Stower to develop the candle charger.
and longer battery life.""With all light, computing can eventually be millions of times faster, "Menon said.
light batteries from wood pulp Researchers have created a new type of high-capacity storage device that both elastic and super-strong,
The foam-like batteries and supercapacitors were made using an aerogel material taken from tree fibres,
and unlike today batteries, could be used to create 3d structures, and line flexible and odd-shaped materials such as clothing or the bodies of vehicles."
"There are limits to how thin a battery can be, but that becomes less relevant in 3d,"lead researcher Max Hamedi,
The batteries and supercapacitors-which are devices that store and release power much faster than batteries-were made out of a wood-based aerogel.
To create this aerogel, the team first broke down cellulose, the fibre found in trees,
giving it the electronic properties that a battery requires. Using the material as a base,
and a hybrid battery. Both of them were fully functional even at 75 percent compression,
porous batteries such as this one would not be practical or have much storage capacity, Hamedi explains that it actually offers more functionality.
but in the future they could be used to store electricity in places that current batteries can't, and could help electric cars travel further on a single charge, thanks to their light and bendy structure.
and made it capable of continuously powering a battery-free surveillance camera. Even better, their work didn interfere with the router's data transfer speeds.
not only run battery-free temperature and camera sensors using Wi-fi signals from a distance of six and five metres respectively,
they also proved that they could charge a range of coin-cell batteries at distances of up to nine metres.
#This origami-style battery could double the life of wearable gadgets If you own a smartwatch
-or indeed a smartphone-then you'll know that battery performance on modern-day gadgets isn't quite
With these devices so central to our daily lives, scientists from all over the world are working on smaller, better-performing batteries,
The innovation here isn't so much the material used in the batteries-it's the same lithium-ion compound that makes up the smartphone batteries of today-but the way in
this new battery style can be extended and retracted like a car antenna, even while it's powering a device.
That means the stretchable battery can go places where normal batteries can't go, like the band of your smartwatch or inside a very thin section of a robot.
The batteries that the researchers have created can stretch and expand to more than 150 percent of their compacted size,
scientists have spent many years trying to work on batteries that can be folded in this way, but packs created from previous attempts at the technology would often break
The batteries produced by the team from the US and China overcome this problem by placing carefully calculated soft creases at various points along the battery's body.
The inventors say that these batteries could double the life of a smartwatch between charges, for example,
by being fitted into the band. What's more, the manufacturing process is reasonably straightforward. There is a tradeoff though-the shape of these batteries means they can't hold as much charge as a comparable rectangular one."
"When you ask a battery to be flexible like this, you give up some of the energy you can store in a given volume.
But if you're a designer trying to make the thinnest watch face possible, who knows?
It won't break any records for battery life, then, but it could add some invaluable extra power where normal batteries are unable to go
-and that means these new kirigami batteries have a lot of potential for the years to come e
#Microsoft is building a drone army to catch mosquitoes and stop epidemics One potential use for drones that you might not have thought about is preventing the spread of disease.
They use expensive batteries and chemicals that are difficult to source, and indiscriminately collect plenty other bugs besides mosquitoes-there's huge room for improvement in terms of the technology and its efficiency,
This hydrogen can be stored in fuel cells that power the system when the light is too low for the power cells.
as these gadgets are naturally bending and shifting shape during the course of the day-something like the Apple Watch could benefit from the extra battery life provided by Stretchsense's sensors."
and oxygen components far more cheaply and efficiently than the batteries and semiconductor materials that have been used in the past.
Previous studies have shown that connecting an existing silicon solar cell to a water-splitting battery can produce hydrogen fuel,
even though this is still some way off the 15 percent achieved by silicon cells coupled to a battery."
so their solar cells can meet this 15 percent battery yield.""For the nanowires we needed 10,000 less precious Gap material than in cells with a flat surface.
-so you then actually have a fuel cell in which you can temporarily store your solar energy.
#Carbon nanotube finding could lead to flexible electronics with longer battery life Led by materials science Associate professor Michael Arnold
Unlike chemical-based rechargeable batteries, capacitors charge fast and release all their energy at once when triggered.
But chemical batteries hold far more energy. Supercapacitors combine useful qualities of both--the fast charge/discharge of capacitors and high-energy capacity of batteries--into one package.
LIG supercapacitors appear able to do all that with the added benefits of flexibility and scalability.
while thin-film lithium ion batteries are able to store more energy, LIG supercapacitors of the same size offer three times the performance in power (the speed at which energy flows).
#Glass for battery electrodes In this regard researchers are diligently looking for new materials that exhibit a greater energy density
or larger than those used in today's lithium-ion batteries. Today's batteries provide a reliable power supply for our smartphones electric cars
and laptops but are unable to keep up with the growing demands placed on them. Dr Semih Afyon a scientist at the Electrochemical Materials Institute sums up the fundamental idea that is driving battery research:
What we need is new chemistry and novel compounds to obtain safe better and longer-lasting batteries.
ETH researchers led by Afyon and Reinhard Nesper professor emeritus of chemistry have made now a discovery.
Over the course of their several years of research they discovered a material that may have the potential to double battery capacity:
Afyon used this vanadate-borate glass powder for the battery cathodes which he then placed in prototypes for coin cell batteries to undergo numerous charge/discharge cycles.
During initial trials with vanadate-borate electrodes which were made not with material coated in RGO the discharge capacity dropped drastically after 30 charge/discharge cycles
One battery with an RGO-coated vanadate-borate glass electrode exhibited an energy density of around 1000 watt-hours per kilogram.
This would be enough energy to power a mobile phone between 1. 5 and two times longer than today's lithium-ion batteries Afyon estimates.
Afyon currently works as a project leader in a research consortium led by Jennifer Rupp professor of electrochemical materials focused on developing an innovative solid-state battery.
which could be achieved by improving battery and electrode designs as well as by using coatings other than reduced graphite oxide i
"Potential applications range from battery anodes, to solar cells, to 3d electronic circuits and biomedical devices.""The 3d transformation process involves a balance between the forces of adhesion to the substrate and the strain energies of the bent,
) HIV-1 virus. The process acts much like the jumper cables attached to a live battery recharging a dead one to get it running again,
#'Bulletproof'Battery: Kevlar Membrane for Safer Thinner Lithium Rechargeables New battery technology from the University of Michigan should be able to prevent the kind of fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013.
The innovation is advanced an barrier between the electrodes in a lithium-ion battery. Made with nanofibers extracted from Kevlar, the tough material in bulletproof vests,
the barrier stifles the growth of metal tendrils that can become unwanted pathways for electrical current.
"Lithium-ion batteries work by shuttling lithium ions from one electrode to the other. This creates a charge imbalance,
the electrons have a path within the battery, shorting out the circuit. This is how the battery fires on the Boeing 787 are thought to have started."
"The fern shape is particularly difficult to stop because of its nanoscale tip, "said Siu On Tung, a graduate student in Kotov's lab,
so we can get more energy into the same battery cell size, or we can shrink the cell size,
Kevlar's heat resistance could also lead to safer batteries as the membrane stands a better chance of surviving a fire than most membranes currently in use.
so that batteries can charge and release their energy more quickly. The study,"A dendrite-suppressing solid ion conductor from aramid nanofibers,
Running fuel cells on bacteria Researchers in Norway have succeeded in getting bacteria to power a fuel cell.
"In simple terms, this type of fuel cell works because the bacteria consume the waste materials found in the water,
and is fitted with a solar panel a wind turbine and a battery. The turbine runs at a speed of 10 to 200 revolutions per minute (rpm)
and has a lower output (100 W). An electronic control system manages the flow of energy between the solar panel the wind turbine the battery and the light.
#Engineer creates origami battery, for five cents Arraythe battery generates power from microbial respiration, delivering enough energy to run a paper-based biosensor with nothing more than a drop of bacteria-containing liquid."
"Dirty water has a lot of organic matter, "Choi says.""Any type of organic material can be the source of bacteria for the bacterial metabolism."
which a paper-based battery would create enough energy--we're talking microwatts--to run the biosensor.
Choi's battery, which folds into a square the size of a matchbook, uses an inexpensive air-breathing cathode created with nickel sprayed onto one side of ordinary office paper.
Choi, who holds two U s. patents, initially collaborated on the paper battery with Hankeun Lee,
"while working on an earlier iteration of the paper-based batteries, before he tried the origami approach."
such as operating batteries and catalysts. It could enable the manipulation of the inner workings of matter to understand,
#Key to quick battery charging time University of Tokyo researchers have discovered the structure and transport properties of the"intermediate state"in lithium-ion batteries--key to understanding the mechanisms of charge
and discharge in rechargeable batteries. These findings may help accelerate battery reaction speed and significantly shorten battery charging time.
Although there is strong demand to minimize battery-charging time, the mechanisms of battery charge and discharge reactions have yet to be understood fully.
While the existence of an"intermediate state"that accelerates battery charge and discharge reactions has been suggested,
there was no firm experimental evidence to support its existence and previous research had suggested that the short lifetime of the intermediate state would render a systematic investigation of its properties impossible.
Now Professor Atsuo Yamada's research group at the University of Tokyo Graduate school of Engineering have developed a novel technique to stabilize the intermediate state.
The group found a striped pattern of layers of densely and loosely packed electrons. Lithium ions distribute themselves so as not to disturb this striped pattern.
In addition, the intermediate state showed high lithium/electron conductivity compared to the charged or discharged state.
contributing significantly to accelerating lithium-ion battery charge and discharge reactions. The findings were contrary to expectations."
We hope to develop rechargeable batteries with quick charging time by applying our findings to the design of materials
In an engineering first, Cui and his colleagues used lithium-ion battery technology to create one low-cost catalyst that is capable of driving the entire water-splitting reaction.'
'Our group has pioneered the idea of using lithium-ion batteries to search for catalysts, 'Cui said.'
But in 2014, Stanford chemist Hongjie Dai developed a water splitter made of inexpensive nickel and iron that runs on an ordinary 1. 5-volt battery.
the Stanford team borrowed a technique used in battery research called lithium-induced electrochemical tuning.
The technique has been used in battery research for many years, but it's a new approach for catalysis. The marriage of these two fields is very powerful.'
#New manufacturing approach slices lithium-ion battery cost in half An advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at MIT and at a spinoff company called 24m,
promises to significantly slash the cost of the most widely used type of rechargeable batteries while also improving their performance
"says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a cofounder of 24m (and previously a cofounder of battery company A123).
The existing process for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, he says, has changed hardly in the two decades
In this so-called"flow battery,"the electrodes are suspensions of tiny particles carried by a liquid and pumped through various compartments of the battery.
The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version,
while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles.
Chiang and Carter refer to this as a"semisolid battery.""Simpler manufacturing process This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing,
and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang, who is senior author of a paper in the Journal of Power Sources analyzing the tradeoffs involved in choosing between solid
and flow-type batteries, depending on their particular applications and chemical components. This analysis demonstrates that
while a flow battery system is appropriate for battery chemistries with a low energy density (those that can only store a limited amount of energy for a given weight), for high-energy density devices such as lithium-ion batteries,
Almost immediately after publishing the earlier research on the flow battery, Chiang says, "We realized that a better way to make use of this flowable electrode technology was to reinvent the lithium ion manufacturing process."
the system reduces the conventional battery architecture's number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent.
Bendable and foldable In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says,
the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress,
the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing.
This should improve both safety and durability, he says. The company has made so far about 10
000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners, including an oil company in Thailand
By 2020, Chiang estimates that 24m will be able to produce batteries for less than $100 per kilowatt-hour of capacity.
when is it better to build a flow battery versus a static model. This paper will serve as a key tool for making design choices
"Viswanathan adds that 24m's new battery design"could do the same sort of disruption to lithium ion batteries manufacturing as
and is powered battery so it doesn't need an outlet. Beyond thermotherapy the applications are endless.
which act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells, and which, if faulty, can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure,
a temperature sensor, a camera, a coin battery charger and the AA battery charger shown above.
In their tests, they were able to operate the camera up to 17 feet away, the temperature sensor up to 20ft away and the battery chargers up to 28 feet away from their router.
The researchers hope that their technology will lead to battery-free sensors and mobile devices that are powered continuously by Wi-fi routers.
Unlike chemical-based rechargeable batteries, capacitors charge fast and release all their energy at once when triggered.
But chemical batteries hold far more energy. Supercapacitors combine useful qualities of both the fast charge/discharge of capacitors and high-energy capacity of batteries into one package.
LIG supercapacitors appear able to do all that with the added benefits of flexibility and scalability.
while thin-film lithium ion batteries are able to store more energy, LIG supercapacitors of the same size offer three times the performance in power (the speed at which energy flows).
#Carbon nanotube finding could lead to flexible electronics with longer battery life University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have made a significant leap toward creating higher-performance electronics with improved battery life and the ability to flex
#Chemists one step closer to new generation of electric car battery Lithium sulphur (Li-S) batteries can theoretically power an electric car three times further than current lithium-ion batteries for the same weight at much
Chemistry Professor Linda Nazar and her research team in the Faculty of science at the University of Waterloo have announced a breakthrough in Li-S battery technology based on chemical process discovered 170 years ago. his is a major step forward
and brings the Li-S battery one step closer to reality, said Nazar, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Solid State Energy Materials
Their discovery that nanosheets of manganese dioxide can maintain a rechargable sulphur cathode helps to overcome a primary hurdle to building a Li-S battery.
Nazar group is known best for their 2009 Nature Materials paper demonstrating the feasibility of a Li-S battery using nanomaterials.
Sulphur as a battery material is extremely abundant, relatively light, and very cheap. Unfortunately, the sulphur cathode exhausts itself after only a few cycles
BASF International Scientific Network for Electrochemistry and Batteries funded the research. The paper co-authors include Arnd Garsuch and Thomas Weiss of BASF n
In other cases, battery-operated radio sensors are used. But changing batteries in structures that have several windows can lead to a considerable maintenance expense.
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS in Duisburg therefore developed a pragmatic alternative:
#A Battery That Last Twice as Long A Solidenergy startup has developed a lithium-ion battery that stores far more energy.
Batteries are safe nonflammable and nonvolatile and can operate at elevated temperatures. It can be manufactured using existing Li-ion manufacturing facility leveraging mature infrastructure.
These stations also have 16 charging slots for the badge flat batteries. In Medsense HQ, individuals can track, for instance,
have longer battery life and generate less heat than existing mobile devices. The first supercomputers using silicon photonics already under development at companies such as Intel
According to HUS, this amount of hydrogen fuel should provide as much energy as 3 kg worth of lithium batteries.
The lightweight lithium-polymer hybrid fuel cell that converts the hydrogen gas into electricity to power the rotors was developed by a sister company,
in-between battery and combustion engine systems, said Wankewycz. The HUS was launched this year to merge the energy systems coming from HES with UAV platforms built from the ground up.
#Semiliquid Battery Almost As good as its Lithium Ion Counterparts and Supercapacitators Developed by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin,
the new membrane-free semiliquid battery, consisting of a liquid ferrocene electrolyte, a liquid cathode and a solid lithium anode, exhibited encouraging early results,
A new semiliquid battery combines all that is best about its lithium ion counterparts and supercapacitators (pictured above) to bring us closer to the next generation of energy storage devices.
Findings of the study were published in a recent issue of the science journal Nano Letters. he greatest significance of our work is that we have designed a semiliquid battery based on a new chemistry,
and Assistant professor Guihua Yu. he battery shows excellent rate capability that can be charged fully or discharged almost within one minute
and reasonable energy density, representing a promising prototype liquid redox battery with both high energy density and power density for energy storage.
Combining the best elements of lithium ion batteries the most common power sources in consumer electronics with supercapacitators (a relatively new type of battery valued for its capacity to discharge energy in large bursts) has been one of the focal point of much recent
The new battery high power density (1400 W/L) and good energy density (40 Wh/L) put it in the uniquely favorable position of combining a power density that is as high as that of current supercapacitors with an energy density on par with those of state-of-the-art
redox flow batteries and lead-acid batteries, though slightly lower than that of lithium-ion batteries. 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.
Yu and his team attribute the battery stellar performance in large part to its liquid electrode design. he ions can move through the liquid battery very rapidly compared to in a solid battery,
and the redox reactions in which the electrons are transferred between electrodes also occur at very high rates in this particular battery.
For comparison, the values used to measure these rates (the diffusion coefficient and the reaction constant) are orders of magnitude greater in the new battery than in most conventional flow batteries,
explained Lisa Zyga, reporting on the discovery for Phys. org. Before the new battery hits the shelves, researchers still have a lot of work ahead of them considering the lithium anode
which has to be made much safer than it currently is. As long as the electrolyte compatibility is resolved,
the team is also considering the use of other metals, such as zinc and magnesium that could serve as the anode in a battery of this type. e also expect that other organometallic compounds with multi-valence-state metal centers (redox centers) may also function as the anode,
which eventually would make the battery fully liquid. t
#Scientists teach robot to learn new skills via trial and error Scientists at University of California, Berkeley have taught robots to learn.
New technique, called eep learning is a system of algorithms that enable robots to learn motor tasks through trial and error.
#An origami battery that generates power from bacteria An engineer at Binghamton University has created a flexible, origami-style battery.
A battery that can create energy from a drop of bacteria-containing liquid is already a fantastic achievement,
bacteria-powered battery made from paper. Just like origami sculptures. This device is not a conventional battery we all know and use.
It generates power from microbial respiration. To explain simply, it extracts power from bacteria the process delivers enough energy to run a paper-based biosensor with nothing more than a drop of bacteria-containing liquid.
Scientists hope that these new batteries would eliminate such need. Seokheun Choi has envisioned a self-powered system in
which a paper-based battery would create enough energy to run the biosensor. Such sensors do not require a lot of power few microwatts would be enough.
This paper battery costs around 5 U s. dollar cents. Only 5 cents costing device that is so innovative that can produce power from dirty water would seem as science fiction some time ago,
Such simple and cost effective device could change how we look at batteries for variety of different sensors.
However, more research will have to be done until the origami battery will find its practical application. Source:
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