#Nano Cages Provide New Approach for Structuring Catalysts University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have developed a new approach to structuring the catalysts used in essential reactions in the chemical and energy fields.
to low temperature fuel cells. Materials researchers at the Georgia Institute of technology initially came across the nano cage as a potentially powerful approach,
including medicine, electronics and energy. Discovered only 11 years ago, graphene is one of the strongest materials in the world,
Daniel Feuermann and Jeffrey Gordon) that reconstitutes the immense brightness within the plasma of high-power xenon discharge lamps at a remote reactor,
#Novel Fabrication Technique Helps Produce Ultra-Thin Hollow Platinum Nanocages for Fuel cells Researchers from Georgia Tech, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Oak ridge National Laboratory,
Arizona State university and Xiamen University in China have developed a new fabrication method that minimizes the need for expensive metal to induce catalytic activity in fuel cell applications.
When these nanocage structures are used in fuel cell electrodes, platinum's utilization efficiency can be increased by a factor of seven,
which could affect the economic viability of the fuel cells. e can get the catalytic activity we need by using only a small fraction of the platinum that had been required before,
However, due to its high cost, the use of low-temperature fuel cells in automobile and home applications has been limited.
The research is focused mainly on reducing the expense of cathodes used in fuel cells that power homes and automobiles.
The oxygen-reduction reaction occurring at the cathode in the fuel cell requires platinum in substantial quantities.
The hollow shells could result in economically beneficial automotive and home fuel cells by minimizing the amount of platinum by up to a factor of seven.
and it uses far less energy. The plasmon-trickfor this sleight of hand the researchers led by Leuthold and his doctoral student Christian Haffner
who contributed to the development of the modulator, use a technical trick. In order to build the smallest possible modulator they first need to focus a light beam
the light is turned first into so-called surface-plasmon-polaritons. Plasmon-polaritons are a combination of electromagnetic fields
and electrons that propagate along a surface of a metal strip. At the end of the strip they are converted back to light once again.
The advantage of this detour is that plasmon-polaritons can be confined in a much smaller space than the light they originated from.
but rather plasmon-polaritons that are sent through an interferometer that is only half a micrometer wide.
and hence the velocity of the plasmons in one arm of the interferometer can be varied,
After that, the plasmons are reconverted into light, which is fed into a fibre optic cable for further transmission.
and that thus modulates the plasmons inside the interferometer. As such a modulator is much smaller than conventional devices it consumes very little energy-only a few thousandth of Watts at a data transmission rate of 70 Gigabits per second.
This corresponds to merely a hundredth of the consumption of commercial models. In that sense it contributes to the protection of the environment
given that the amount of energy used worldwide for data transmission is considerable-after all, there are modulators in every single fibre optic line.
which leads to an increasing energy consumption. A hundredfold energy saving would, therefore, be more than welcome.""Our modulator provides more communication with less energy,
"as the ETH professor puts it in a nutshell. At present the reliability of the modulator is being tested in long term trials,
which is a crucial step towards making it fit for commercial use e
#New Tool Generates Images of Brain Inside at Nanoscale Resolution A new imaging tool developed by Boston scientists could do for the brain
Currently, many energy companies use a technique called time-lapse reflection seismology to monitor offshore oil
"We knew the ambient seismic energy was there, but we didn't know what we could do with it,
The scientists worked with the energy companies BP and Conocophillips to study recordings from existing sensor arrays in the Valhall
Photopic sensors built with nano-optic filters integrated into the AS721X series are designed to help lighting manufacturers address the growing challenges of energy saving lighting mandates including daylighting controls.
Integrating a sensor-based manager into each luminaire optimizes the overall responsiveness and efficiency of the lighting system maximizing energy savings.
and enables multi-year coin cell battery operation. Unlike traditional digital temperature sensors, the Si705x devices maintain their accuracy across the full operating temperature
or embedded MCU temperature sensors suffer from poor accuracy and higher power consumption. Although improved accuracy can be achieved through end-of-line calibration,
With a low 1. 9 V minimum power supply voltage, the Si705x sensors can be connected directly to a battery without the need for an external voltage regulator. emperature is the most pervasive environmental metric that embedded developers need to measure
The underlying circuitry can use more aggressive design rules to lower power consumption as well. The smaller overall footprint supports today#s advanced camera modules that integrate Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and additional data storage in the same module footprint.#
so that to conserve the battery life, which enables the standby time of the display is long to 30 days.
Meanwhile, the mechanical dial keeps telling wearers the time even the display's battery runs out.
thus allowing for extended battery performance. About Omnivision Omnivision Technologies (NASDAQ: OVTI) is a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions.
and network capacity, reduce power consumption, create cheaper devices and enable global roaming. A pioneering team of researchers from the University of Bristol's Communication systems
#New MIT Power Converter Chip Harvests More than 80%of Energy Realizing that vision, however, will require extremely low-power sensors that can run for months without battery changes or, even better,
that can extract energy from the environment to recharge. Last week, at the Symposia on VLSI Technology And circuits, MIT researchers presented a new power converter chip that can harvest more than 80 percent of the energy trickling into it,
even at the extremely low power levels characteristic of tiny solar cells. Previous ultralow-power converters that used the same approach had efficiencies of only 40 or 50 percent.
Moreover the researcherschip achieves those efficiency improvements while assuming additional responsibilities. Where most of its ultralow-power predecessors could use a solar cell to either charge a battery
or directly power a device, this new chip can do both, and it can power the device directly from the battery.
All of those operations also share a single inductor the chip main electrical component which saves on circuit board space
but increases the circuit complexity even further. Nonetheless, the chip power consumption remains low. e still want to have battery-charging capability,
and we still want to provide a regulated output voltage, says Dina Reda El-Damak, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science and first author on the new paper. e need to regulate the input to extract the maximum power,
Ups and downsthe circuit chief function is to regulate the voltages between the solar cell the battery,
and the device the cell is powering. If the battery operates for too long at a voltage that either too high or too low, for instance, its chemical reactants break down,
and it loses the ability to hold a charge. To control the current flow across their chip, El-Damak and her advisor, Anantha Chandrakasan,
since the rate at which it dissipates energy as heat is proportional to the square of the current.
and falls depends on the voltage generated by the solar cell, which is highly variable. So the timing of the switch throws has to vary, too.
whose selection is determined by the solar cell voltage. Once again, when the capacitor fills, the switches in the inductor path are flipped. n this technology space,
because there a fixed amount of energy that consumed by doing the work, says Brett Miwa,
solar panels and transistors, are printed mainly on hard or rigid materials, such as paper or plastics. For wearable devices, materials would need to be soft and stretchy to be comfortable and well fitting
The sensor features nine electrodes that are placed 2 cm apart from one another in a 3 x 3 grid
even down to the level of very small packets of quantum energy (a single photon.
Devices consuming the energy of electromagnetic radiation, such as absorbers and sensors, play an essential role in the using
which convert ultrasonic energy into heat, generating electrical signals which are used eventually to form the ultrasound image.
and the amount of energy emerging is measured using the prototype ultrasound sensor. The ultrasound transmitter array and the receiver are rotated around the breast,
much less how peat smoke chemical properties differ from other kinds of biomass smoke. Yet emerging research offers early clues.
#Sweet source for aviation biofuel Researchers have identified a new way to produce aviation fuel from sugarcane biomass that could deliver substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
the reason being that any oxygen you put in decreases the energy density and as space on an aircraft is at a premium,
and you'd like to pack in as much energy in the form of burnable fuel as possible,
which means it does not cause excessive wear of the turbine components.""It also has to have a very low pour point,
"Prof Bell said that the process to make the aviation biofuel outlined in his team's paper would use waste biomass to generate the energy required operate the refinery,
with excess energy being put into the Brazilian grid system m
#Airbus to build giant satellite network European aerospace giant, Airbus, is going to build the world's largest satellite constellation.
"By contrast, 3d XPOINT works by changing the properties of the material that makes up its memory cells to either having a high resistance to electricity to represent a one
The new machine mimics the pumping mechanism of life-sustaining proteins that move small molecules around living cells to metabolize and store energy from food.
For its food, the artificial pump draws power from chemical reactions, driving molecules step-by-step from a low energy state to a high-energy state--far away from equilibrium.
"Our molecular pump is radical chemistry--an ingenious way of transferring energy from molecule to molecule,
The artificial pump is able to syphon off some of the energy that changes hands during a chemical reaction
but the researchers believe it won't be long before they can extend its operation to tens of rings and store more energy.
"This is non-equilibrium chemistry, moving molecules far away from their minimum energy state, which is essential to life,
"Ultimately, they intend to use the energy stored in their pump to power artificial muscles and other molecular machines.
#A microtubule'roadway'in the retina helps provide energy for vision Fluorescently labeled microtubules extend from the tips of the dendrites (top) into the axon and down into the giant synaptic terminal (bottom) of a single isolated goldfish retinal
Researchers have discovered a thick band of microtubules in certain neurons in the retina that they believe acts as a transport road for mitochondria that help provide energy required for visual processing.
They require a constant supply of energy to mediate the sustained release of the contents of an enormous number of synaptic vesicles,
An intriguing new study of their subcellular structure could help explain how bipolar synaptic terminals meet such excessive energy demands.
The microtubule band appeared to associate with mitochondria--organelles known for providing energy to cells--in the synaptic terminal.
The findings suggest that these previously unknown microtubule structures provide a"roadway"for the transport of mitochondria crucial to maintain energy supplies into the synaptic terminals of these highly active neurons associated with vision.
The brain uses around 20 percent of the energy youe burning each day, but it difficult to get that energy into the brain.
Every bit of brain activity is using some of that, so if you can temporarily suspend some activity in your working memory the energy can be applied to an immediately relevant task.'
'This may mean that working memory is closer to long-term memory in the way it functions. You may be able to remember your tenth birthday,
The recognizable genes suggest that most of the bacteria use a simple process of fermentation to make the energy they need,
Continuous improvements in growth media and cell lines have elevated biomass concentrations in bioprocesses. Therefore, these increasingly higher concentrations place growing challenges on the purification process.
As the system maintains a constant ratio of biomass and filter aid, users will benefit from continuous maximum filter performance.
An electric charge is all that's needed to make these wires tense or relax, meaning the hand can operate without the bulky and cumbersome electronics that often make artificial prosthetic hands impractical.
which the system creates an energy barrier to further motion through elasto-capillary deformation, and then lowers the barrier through diffusive softening,
The team presented its latest findings to the U s. Department of energy's ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington D c. in February this year.
and to use less energy in the manufacturing process A recent Roundtable discussion hosted by the Industrial biotechnology Journal
reduce pollution and energy use, and minimize impact on water quality, according to the participants. Jenny Cross, Global Sustainability Director for Mohawk Industries maker of Smartstrand carpets that use renewable nylons explains:
Industrial biotechnology continues to enable solutions to energy challenges and building a biobased economy is key to reducing dependence on foreign oil enhancing our nation economic and energy security.
Last week, the U s. Navy signed an agreement with biotech company Biodico to collaborate on developing advanced biofuels and bioenergy refineries throughout the globe for the U s. military.
California that will produce biofuels and bioenergy at prices competitive with unsubsidized conventional fuel and power.
The California Energy Commission will partially fund the construction through grants. ur objective is to privately fund sustainable biorefineries at Dod facilities around the world at no cost to the U s. taxpayer,
Progress in biofuel-powered flights and the Navy continued pursuit of alternative energy are great steps to help the United states build a biobased economy
#Say goodbye to your clunky air conditioner this kitchen table uses no electricity to regulate the temperature of your apartment Consisting simply of a surface and legs,
But now, a French design duo has come up with a way to turn the humble table into a means of climate control that doesn't use any electricity.
Paris-based industrial designer Jean-Sébastien Lagrange teamed up with French engineer Raphaël Ménard to create the Zero Energy Furniture table, also known as the ZEF Climatic Table.
and angled legs but it could hold the secret to cutting energy costs by as much as 60%.
and energy issues on a furniture scale, Lagrange told WIRED. Beneath the oak table are a series of phase-changing materials (PCMS) placed between the wood
%which could save a lot of money as well as energy. It a feat of engineering that makes the most sense in homes that don't have climate control.
and using more energy instead of less. Lagrange and Ménard are planning more Zero Energy Furniture in the future.
The pair told WIRED that they are looking into home goods as well as lighting designs in their next project
Now that people can actually buy Homekit-certified smart light bulbs and door locks that you can control with your iphone,
Polymers are poor conductors of electricity and 3d printing is based primarily around a set range of plastics.
such as its lens and battery, are built in to the sheet, keeping assembly as simple as possible.
using a hand crank in place of electricity. Recently, Prakash also developed a computer than runs on water droplets.
It's worth mentioning that there is no battery or power supply in these devices; they're powered by the readers you bring them close to.
Regular Wi-fi has sometimes been blamed as a battery drain in smartphones but the Wi-fi Alliance says Wi-fi Aware operates in a very power efficient way"through a unique process of discovery
including rapidly charging the batteries of electric buses at their route stops. Wood says increasing the frequency of buses
#Imergy Power systems Introduces Grid-Scale ESP250 Series Flow batteries A new ESP250 series of vanadium flow batteries has been introduced by advanced storage systems leader Imergy Power systems.
Multiple batteries can be linked together to create one energy storage platform. When they are linked together, this platform can provide megawatts of power and megawatt-hours of energy.
The ESP250 modules are about the size of two shipping containers. Energy output duration is up to 8 hours.
You can read more details if you like on the ESP250 data sheet. ith the introduction of the ESP250,
From demand response for individual buildings, to frequency regulation for the grid, Imergy has designed a product to meet the market growing demand for low-cost,
high-performance energy storage, explained Bill Watkins, CEO of Imergy Power systems. Both industrial and commercial customers can use these flow batteries for large-scale energy applications.
Microgrid implementation, peaker plant replacement, transmission and distribution investment deferral, backup power system delivery, and renewables management are possible with these new batteries.
So are peak shaving and frequency regulation. In fact Imergy is already collaborating on a California college campus microgrid project not far from the company Fremont headquarters,
and it could become the blueprint for a number of other college microgrids. Like other Imergy flow batteries, they also use vanadium from fly ash and mining slag.
In other words, it is recycled material. The liquid electrolyte doesn degrade over time, so Imergy flow batteries could be used for 20 years or more.
The components of an Imergy flow battery are nontoxic and nonflammable. This is obviously different from lithium batteries,
which have shorter lifespans and can explode. Cleantechnica has reported steadily about Imergy for some time because the company keeps finding ways to succeed.
I imagine wel have another Imergy story up before too long
#EV Batteries Good, Paper EV Batteries 10x Better No matter how fast the cost of oil drops, it just can keep up with the pace of improvements in electric vehicle batteries.
In the latest development, a team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has come up with a paperlike material that could bring in a new generation of high-range batteries.
Now consider that legendary investor and noted wind energy fan Warren Buffett reportedly just ditched his interest in Exxonmobil to the tune of 41 million shares,
and you can see why the prospects for future petroleum dependency are dimming with every advance in EV battery technology.
The new EV battery announcement from the school Bourns College of Engineering, involves a new paperlike material made from silicon in the form of spongy silicon nanofibers.
For those of you new to nanos, a nanometer is one billionth not one millionth of a meter,
So Paper EV Batteries, So What? The silicon apercould replace graphite in conventional lithium-ion EV batteries,
and that where things start to get really exciting. In a conventional battery, the anode (along with the cathode, the anode is responsible for charging
and discharging) is coated with a material based on graphite. Researchers appear to have reached the performance limits of graphite,
its electrical charger per unit weight of the battery is almost 10 times more than graphite.
However and there always a however silicon tends to degrade the battery when it expands.
enabling the battery to cycle hundreds of times without degrading. In the illustration below, you can see the upcycling process at work:
which would help shave down the cost of EV batteries. You can get all the details from the research team article, owards Scalable Binderless Electrodes:
the team will be working on scaling up the technology into a larger format for EV batteries.
Meanwhile, keep your eye on another up-and-coming EV battery material, nanocellulose. What Now, Petroleum? The advantages of EV technology are becoming more and more apparent practically by the minute,
#Imergy Power systems & Geli Awarded College Microgrid Project Advanced energy storage systems leader Imergy Power systems and Growing Energy Labs Inc. Geli) are collaborating on a microgrid project for Chabot-Las Positas Community college District in Livermore, California.
Geli is a designer of energy storage and microgrid solutions. The joint project at Las Positas College will add renewable energy sources,
and allow the district to be more energy independent. Imergy Power Systemseps30 series institutional scale vanadium redox flow batteries will be installed as part of the microgrid.
The total power and energy capacity of these batteries is 250 kilowatts/1 megawatt-hour.
Geli Energy Operating system and Energy management applications will be used to manage the microgrid. Las Positas College in Livermore will be the site of the flow batteries installation,
where there is already a 2. 35 MW solar array that generates about 55%of the campus electricity.
Over 3, 000 tons of ice thermal storage is also operational, as well as ten Level II EV charging stations.
It has been estimated that the new Imergy/Geli smart microgrid will save the district about $75, 000 per year.
but it is actually larger in scope than just one installation at one campus. The project is part of the California Energy Commission $26. 5 million Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program
and universities can use microgrids to better manage their energy and reduce costs. In fact, a document called the Microgrid Blueprint will be published
and businesses around the world get their electricity in the future. Solar, software and storage are making distributed energy possible in the same way that semiconductors,
software applications and digital storage paved the way for distributed computing. With the right storage technology and software the management of microgrids is seamless, safe
and very easy for the customer to manage. Projects like this are setting a template for our industry,
explained Bill Watkins, CEO of Imergy Power systems. Annual revenues from microgrid-enabling technologies have been estimated by Navigant Research to exceed $26 billion by 2023.
Imergy battery systems can be integrated into a number of different situations. Cleantechnica has reported on its energy storage solutions being used at an almond farm in California
and at a restaurant in the Slovenian Alps just to name two. Las Positas College has about 9,
what under the hood apparently just a 1. 0 liter gas generator paired with a 12.2 kilowatt lithium-ion battery integrated with a rear-mounted electric motor
In the world of electric buses, the big name is BYD, a Zayed Future Energy Prize winner,
#Lithium batteries With 200%Typical Energy density Solid Energy, a Boston-based startup, recently said it has developed battery materials that have 200%greater energy density.
The company has created an node-lessbattery prototype with 1200 Wh/L in energy density. Some lithium-ion batteries with graphite anodes provide less than 600 Wh/L a thin sheet of lithium foil was used to replace the more conventional electrode material,
which is graphite. This new battery technology is compatible with existing battery manufacturing capabilities, so it can integrate well with them.
The company has a goal of making materials for about 30 million cell phone batteries by 2016.
Cell phone batteries are notorious for having to be recharged frequently which inconveniences and irritates customers.
Charge duration and recharge times are a significant consideration when people buy new cell phones.
Solid Energy launched in 2012 and has raised $4. 5 million. It is hoping to raise $10 million in a second funding round.
the ARA phone could allow more than one battery, if that was preferred. T he Ara platform is designed to permit hot-swapping of modules
and replace it with a battery whenever you needed a little extra juice. So, if the Ara phone is launched,
could it be possible to have four times the battery life of a current, conventional cell phone?
That Google would choose Solid Energy as a potential partner for such a huge project seems to speak well of the startup new battery materials. he reason wee focusing on the materials side is that it where we can add the most value,
An article in MIT Technology Review says Solid Energy battery technology is appropriate for smartphones, but probably not for electric cars,
Lithium-ion batteries have become more high-profile recently because of the very notable success of the Tesla Model S
and in some cases you can actually see sheep among the solar panels. Modern farming is becoming dual purpose.
and crops. e has nearly 350 kw of solar panels mounted on poles 3 meters above ground
Both the solar panels and the food-bearing plants receive enough sunlight to be productive. It would be nice
Biofuels, clean energy, renewable energy, biofuels, biogas, cow manure, waste diversion, Pixley, Calgren, Regensis, Tulare County, DVO, California Energy Commission, dairy industry, San joaquin valley
The recent launch of the Calgren Ethanol Plant in the Tulare County town of Pixley is a step in helping California meet its clean energy goals while addressing the San joaquin valley terrible air pollution.
Built with the help of a $4. 6 million grant from the California Energy Commission, the plant, according to the coalition of companies that built the facility,
nixing any need to be connected to the local grid. The process starts with a nearby dairy, Four J Farms.
but local officials noticed it was more important step in pushing California closer to its 2020 clean energy goals. lectricity (to power cars)
Apartment buildings are wired only to draw so much power from the grid and it no secret that Level 2 EV chargers use A LOT OF power.
all at the same time, could lead to an energy bottleneck that could require tens of thousands of dollars in service upgrades.
Evercharge intelligently divvies up the available energy between all the electric cars plugged into an apartment building. It also keeps track
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