#Wireless power system charges devices up to 20 feet away A plethora of firms are racing to develop a feasible method for delivering power wirelessly,
A company called Energous is on hand at CES with a demo of its new wireless power system known amusingly as Wattup.
a device twice as far away from a source only gets one-quarter of the energy.
If youe got a wireless power base station that can blast energy 20 feet away (improved from 15 feet last year),
However, the energy routers will probably be a substantial investment, especially considering most homes would need more than one
Electron movement is controlled via quantum wells (a quantum well is a layer of material that constricts the movements of electrons to particular dimensions to ensure energy arrives where it meant to go).
and converts it to electrical energy reportedly enough to power a small electronic device, like a wearable.
Electricity The power generates thanks to the triboelectric effect which is when certain types of materials can become electrically charged through contact and friction with another material in this case,
Thanks to the triboelectric effect creating the device is easier as well the skin is one of the triboelectric layers that helps produce the effect,
so that layer doesn need to be built into the device itself, saving time, money, and materials. It also removes something that can go wrong with the device having one less layer built in means that one less part that can Break in the researcherstest,
this type of generator could remove the need for batteries in certain mobile devices your smartwatch
Who knows one day this type of generator could even generate enough energy to power your smartphone,
perhaps even removing the battery entirely, which is one of the biggest constraints to smartphone development and design o
#New aluminum air battery could blow past lithium-ion runs on water As battery technologies go,
On the one hand, breakthroughs in Li-ion designs and construction are responsible for the Tesla Model S, new installations, green energy research,
The company is claiming that its new aluminum-air batteries can run for up to two weeks and be refilled with normal water.
How an aluminum-air battery works First, some basics. The problem with battery technology isn whether or not we can build better batteries as the chart below shows,
we can build batteries that blow traditional lithium-ion out of the water. Keep in mind that the chart below is exponential,
meaning that fuel cell technology has 10 times the energy density of a typical cobalt-Li ion battery.
The various etal-Airbatteries including zinc-air, aluminum-air, and lithium-air, have some of the highest energy densities its possible to build.
The difficulties with aluminum-air construction, in particular, has been rapid degradation of the anode and, in early models of Al-Air, the release of hydrogen gas.
The studies in question are aimed all at enhancing the performance of Al-air batteries while extending their useful lifetimes typically,
creating a secondary aluminum-air battery adjacent to the primary buffered the accumulation of byproducts that normally prevent the battery from working properly over the long term.
The echargabilityof Al-air batteries requires some explanation. Al-air batteries are primary cells, which means they can be recharged via conventional means.
As the aluminum anode is consumed by contact with oxygen, hydrated aluminum forms as a byproduct.
which is why the batteries are referred to as rechargeable. Periodically, the aluminum anode will have to be replaced it not clear how often the Fuji Pigment battery would need servicing of this sort.
Could Al-air be the next big thing? New battery technologies and announcements are a dime a dozen,
but there reason to think that a workable Al-air technology could deploy within the next 2-5 years.
Al-air batteries have actually been used in specialized military applications for years, which is important it means there some preexisting expertise
The hydrated aluminum oxide solution produced during the battery normal operation would need to be recycled in some fashion
(and the weight of the aluminum anode in these batteries is unknown), but the team that performed that analysis noted that proper recycling would put Al-air in the same cost range as conventional internal combustion engines.
#New microprocessor claims 10x energy improvement As power consumption has become one of the most important metrics of CPU design,
the total amount of energy a chip leaks can result in higher power consumption than would result
can deliver power consumption equivalent to a Cortex-M0+part without compromising its M4 with FPU performance.
In other words, a subthreshold version of the Cortex-M4 with Cortex-M0 power consumption would be embedded an chip that meshed the best of both worlds incredible power efficiency
and make all-day smartwatch battery life a reality in the long run t
#Lasers create surface so hydrophobic that water bounces off like a ball In the study of hydrophobic surfaces,
#This cloudy-day black silicon solar cell can hit a record 22.1%efficiency When most people think of solar power,
or black, solar cell. They accomplished this by overlaying a thin, passivating film on the nanostructures by a process known as atomic layer deposition,
Black solar cells work really well on cloudy days. his is an advantage particularly in the north,
black cells generate considerably more electricity than traditional cells, even though both cells have identical efficiency values. sing the aforementioned process,
the black silicon isn limiting energy conversion efficiency. And thanks to the inherent properties of black solar cells, they can capture solar radiation at low angles,
generating more electricity over the full duration of a day as compared with traditional cells. ur record cells were fabricated using p-type silicon,
which is known to suffer from impurity-related degradation. There is no reason why even higher efficiencies could not be reached using n-type silicon or more advanced cell structures
The data shows the use of black silicon can result in a 3%increase in daily energy production
when the electronic energy levels of the material are plotted against the applied magnetic field. Originally proposed by Douglass Hofstadler in 1976,
The timed light waves are delivered then to tiny array elements within a grid on the chip.
The light is projected then from each array in the grid, the individual array beams combining coherently in the air to form a single light beam and a spot on the screen. herefore, thanks to the complexity of the task at hand,
Similar to a coil or rail gun, a Gauss gun linearly accelerates an object using electromagnetic fields.
It can also be configured to store potential energy in the positions of objects inside its bore,
and then amplify the kinetic energy of an incoming particle by converting that potential energy into a larger kinetic energy added to an exiting object.
and delivers vibrant color Light-emitting diodes (LEDS) are prevalent in everything from digital clocks to solar panels, traffic lights, electronic banners and signs, Christmas decorations,
but consume more energy and lead to higher energy bills. LEDS are more expensive up-front, with some costing as high as $70 a piece,
but conserve energy and money later on. Quantum dots are nanocrystals that emit light when xcitedbased on their size,
spun an idea with French physicists who decided to make the ground its own elastic buckling device and drill holes that proved earthquake-resistant and absorbed impact energy.
#irigamistretchable batteries could herald flexible electronics era Fitness trackers and smartwatches aren known for their battery life,
and it may have something to do with the inflexible, fixed-shape cell packs inside. A new experiment bears testimony to the idea that,
and flexible batteries should become more flexible, too. Arizona State university and China Jinan University have teamed up to create
what could become the first flexible batteries inside wearable electronics. The secret to these tretchable batteriesconsists of a traditional Japanese fold-and-cut practice of kirigami (which derives from origami.
and then replaced the 300mah battery inside Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch with the coated kirigami-cut aluminum foil.
To test out the new battery, the researchers connected the aluminum foil with two pliers, attached it to both the Gear 2 smartwatch
and stretched the lithium-ion battery to 150%of its original size. The result? The wearer bent
%the kirigami battery remained intact, and the Gear 2 smartwatch continued its video playback. ASU leader Dr. Jiang says that the kirigami-based design is the secret to the future of flexible electronics. he kirigami-based methodology can be expanded readily to other applications to develop highly stretchable devices
The goal behind stretchable batteries is to create mobile computing devices that are fully flexible devices that need not sacrifice elegance for functionality Flexible batteries will allow devices to become thinner, lighter,
and more formal while leaving room for two batteries to be placed inside a device instead of just one.
The Gear 2 300mah battery, as stated in the report, could become a 600mah battery that keeps a smartwatch
or smart fitness band alive for twice as long on a single charge f
#Evaporation engines using artificial muscles made from bacteria A team of researchers from the US have created evaporation-driven engines that can power common tasks like locomotion and electricity generation.
These engines start and run autonomously when placed at airater interfaces. They are made from biologically inspired artificial muscles
Evaporation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the natural environment and a dominant form of energy transfer in the Earth climate.
Engineered systems rarely use naturally occurring evaporation as a source of energy, despite a vast number of examples in the biological world.
yet the process carries a significant amount of energy. The breakthrough here is that near the evaporating surfaces,
in specially designed hydroscopic materials, it possible to convert energy from evaporation to mechanical work.
The engines are able to power an electricity generator to light up LEDS and drive a miniature car as the water evaporates please see the video on this page.
Places where access to electricity is limited to non-exist, would find this technology truly magnificent t
Its achievable bandgap also makes silicon highly absorptive to incoming energy sources like photons, and today most solar cells are based on silicon.
In theory, the success with simple transistors implies that this material could also help continue advances in solar cells.
What most exciting here after graphene has saturated headline space for so long, is that there was only a few months needed to take this purely theoretical 2d substance from a computer simulation to practical, working transistors.
#New material combines photons for big solar energy gains An innovative new approach to solar energy from University of California Riverside could dramatically increase the amount of light available to contemporary solar panel designs.
Rather than widening the absorption spectrum of the solar panels themselves, this new study looked at taking currently inaccessible infrared light and turning it into visible light.
They hope that by directing this newly fabricated light onto conventional solar panels, the efficiency of solar power could be improved greatly, for an affordable price.
Infrared light currently passes straight through most silicon solar cell technologies representing a substantial inefficiency in generating electricity from sunlight.
Much of solar research has worked to directly convert infrared light to electricity, but such technologies change the transistor design,
and thus the manufacturing process for solar panels. Their impacts tend to be limited by cost concerns, more than anything else.
These researchers chose to accept the absorptive abilities of current silicon transistors, and instead looked to make the light conform to the panels.
This photon has almost double the energy of the originals and more importantly, it exists in a form that existing solar panels can absorb.
By changing the incoming sunlight into silicon favorite for absorption, the material could improve solar panel efficiency by as much as 30%.
%And while the costs of the material itself are known not yet, there is huge potential in offering such large improvements without the need to completely reinvent the transistor manufacturing process.
but isn capable of directly passing it into the electricity generating process. Instead, the light moves on to the organic phase of the material,
The resulting, lower-wavelength photons can move on to be absorbed by the transistors of the solar panel as normal,
Infrared radiation accounts for an enormous amount of the energy in direct sunlight, and it is currently being missed by every solar panel outside of a research laboratory.
In general, this sort of research into the manipulation of light could allow a wider rollout of solar power around the world.
Plenty of raw energy is falling on highly clouded days, but the distribution of that energy through the spectrum is different,
and harder for modern solar panels to turn into power. Infrared radiation moves through and overcast sky quite well
however; if its energy could be added to that of the cloud-filtered visible light, solar might start to make good financial sense in less sunny areas than Texas and California.
The ability to accurately convert photons between wavelengths could have a wide range of applications, from medical imaging to optical data storage,
Energy will be one of the defining issues of the next few decades, and while some all-new tech revolution may end up saving the day,
Wi-fi radio broadcasts are a form of energy that a simple antenna can pick up. Until now, Wi-fi receivers have all been designed to harvest the information that these broadcasts carry.
which requires 10.4 millijoules of energy per picture. To store energy, they attached a low leakage capacitor to the camera
which activates when the capacitor is charged and continues operating until the voltage drops to 2. 4 Volts.
In the subsequent tests, the camera performed remarkably well. he battery-free camera can operate up to about five meters from the router,
By adding a rechargeable battery, he increased the distance to seven meters. The router could even power the camera through a brick wall,
and used it to recharge the battery that powered it. sing this, we charge a Jawbone device in the vicinity of the power-over-Wi-fi router from a no-charge state to 41 percent charged state in 2. 5 hours,
Each nti-bacterial, sweat-proofpair features a Bluetooth wireless connection and offers more than four hours of battery life.
Each nti-bacterial, sweat-proofpair features a Bluetooth wireless connection and offers more than four hours of battery life.
#Cooler computers, smartphones using graphene film Almost half of the total energy used in running a computer goes in cooling it down.
and would also lead to a considerable reduction in energy usage, experts said. The film is attachable to electronic components made of silicon
#Wireless power transfer now lets you charge mobile phones from a distance Now, you won have to look for a socket to charge your phone or a laptop.
Researchers have developed a wireless power transfer (WPT) technology that can charge mobile phones from a distance. The WPT technology developed by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) works just as Wi-fi works for Internet connections.
and at night will drift down to 60,000 feet (20 km) to conserve energy. The programme Aquila is geared towards the 10 percent of the population that does not have any Internet access.
and at night will drift down to 60,000 feet (20 km) to conserve energy. The programme Aquila is geared towards the 10 percent of the population that does not have any Internet access.
and at night will drift down to 60,000 feet (20 km) to conserve energy. The programme Aquila is geared towards the 10 percent of the population that does not have any Internet access.
and at night will drift down to 60,000 feet (20 km) to conserve energy. The programme Aquila is geared towards the 10 percent of the population that does not have any Internet access.
Despite reducing the calorie content, Douxmatok's food technologists found a way to retain the same energy content-an important factor for consumers. obody ever says really tired I need some aspartame for energy!
so we kept that as well, aid the CEO. But while taste is essential for consumers,
which saves energy but at the same time also resources, because the part can be eliminated from the rest of the production run. eising said demand for inspection systems is rising. e see there is a lot more to do
it also ensures energy economies, since thanks to the lesser volume needing to be evacuated smaller vacuum pumps can be installed.
Energy & Industryforbes list last year
#China's Climate Pledge Will Include New Commitment To Forests Look for China to make new investments in forestry
and to increase its use of non-fossil-fuel energy sources to 20 percent. But that was only half of China climate strategy,
one is a peaking year around 2030nd we will make our effort to make it happen as early as possiblend the other one is the share of non-fossil-fuel energy,
The government of President Xi Jinping has been calling on Internet companies since last year to"spread positive energy"online.
However Chris Cheetham founder of Soter Advisors a fuel and energy risk management consultancy specializing in the shipping industry said that a number of factors could impact potential savings.
and knock out their electrical grids, plunging the target into darkness and general disconnectedness. The project has been in the works for a few years now,
as it would allow military members to cut off electricity supplies to enemy parties while keeping civilians out of the melee.
Researchers say that this could be useful in the creation of rust-free solar panels that capture the sun energy
and don have to be cleaned as often. ome potential applications for anti-icing surfaces include protection of aerofoils, power transmission lines,
optimized geometry (such as a line grid) on a micrometer scale, which then floats on the surface of a nutrient solution in which the cellulose-producing bacteria grow.
producing a cellulose layer together with a negative replica of the line grid. LIKE RAILLEFOR CELLS The line grid also enables the bacteria to produce an increased number of cellulose strands in approximate alignment with the grid. n principle
human cells have the ability to identify fibers, such as endogenous collagen, as part of the connective tissue, explains Ferrari.
The cellulose strands and the grid pattern provide cells with an orientation along predetermined paths that they can sense. his is of major benefit to wound dressings.
donated tissues are stored within a medical-grade refrigeration unit in sealed bags filled with a standard preservation solution.
Nanowires are extremely thin nanocrystal threads used in the development of new electronic components like transistors and solar cells.
"Currently, the most common nanofiber manufacturing technique, called electrospinning, uses high-voltage electricity and specially designed equipment to produce the polymer strings.
an energy harvesting process that is normally used to recycle damaged organelles and proteins. And autophagy is especially important to cancer cells that have been cut off from nutrient pathways, due to the attacks of cancer drugs such as rampamycin (mtor) inhibitors.
its energy source. The SLU study, which was conducted in animal models and in human tumor cells in the lab, showed that a specific drug can stop cancer cells without causing damage to healthy cells or leading to other severe side effects.
"The Warburg effect ramps up energy use in the form of glucose to make chemicals required for rapid growth
SR9243 suppresses abnormal glucose consumption and cuts off cancer cells'energy supply. When cancer cells don't get the parts they need to reproduce through glucose or fat,
#New record efficiency for black silicon solar cells Researchers at the University of Aalto, Finland have broken the efficiency record for black silicon solar cells a type of cell that can gather sunlight even from tight
allowing solar cells that use it to trap light even when it's coming from very low angles.
This could be a good way to increase the yield of solar cells throughout the day
as they don't need the antireflection coatings used by many other types of solar cells. The main issue that has stifled the progress of black silicon cells is something known as carrier recombination.
When a photon hits a silicon atom inside a solar cell, the excess energy frees up an electron that is later used to generate electricity.
effectively wasting the energy provided by the photon. Recombination is proportional to the surface area of the silicon
black silicon cells can gather three percent more energy than a cell with the same nominal efficiency over the course of the entire day.
#Ricoh develops energy-generating rubber As digital technology becomes more ubiquitous and the Internet of things takes shape,
Japanese technology firm Ricoh is looking at its new"energy-generating rubber"as one solution.
According the company, the new piezoelectric polymer converts pressure and vibration into electric energy with high efficiency,
Piezoelectric materials come in two major forms; ceramics and polymers. Both are based on the principle of using mechanical strain to generate electricity
and are used in electronics to provide power in specialized applications, such as vibration and pressure sensors.
Ceramics convert vibration to energy with high efficiency, but theye heavy, fragile, and often include toxic lead,
According to Ricoh, its new energy-generating rubber combines flexibility and high energy output. It's not only less fragile than ceramics,
but it does say that it's engaged in further research to produce a commercially viable version of the polymer for both sensors and energy applications o
"Our molecular pump is radical chemistry an ingenious way of transferring energy from molecule to molecule,
which it uses to drive molecules out of equilibrium from a low to a high-energy state.
That extra energy is necessary to make it work because the ring-shaped molecules normally repel each other, like magnets with the same polarization."
"The artificial pump is able to syphon off some of the energy that changes hands during a chemical reaction
"The fuel was created by Audi's project partner Global Bioenergies, in France. In late 2014, Global Bioenergies started up the fermentation unit for a pilot program to produce gaseous isobutane from renewable biomass sugars such as corn-derived glucose.
Gaseous isobutane is a sort of raw material for the petrochemical industry that can then be refined into a variety of plastics, fuels and other applications.
"says Global Bioenergies CEO Marc Delcourt.""It is the first time that we have produced real gasoline from plants."
"says Rick Bockrath, vice president for chemical engineering at Global Bioenergies.""It's basically how we're moving away from an oil-based economy towards something that has a renewable, sustainable future to it."
"Audi and Global Bioenergies hope to tweak the production process in the future so that biomass is required no longer
and e-benzin can be created using only water, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and sunlight. We saw a similar project in Europe in 2014 that sought to make jet fuel.
At this point, the reactor exposes the air to electrical discharges separating nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) from the atmospheric air and transforming it into nitrous oxide (N2o),
with Mostofi believing it could find applications in energy efficiency and search and rescue given the near-ubiquity of Wi-fi signals in many areas.
In terms of energy efficiency she suggests the technology could be used to estimate the number of people in a building,
#Engineers create a computer with a water droplet processor From driving water wheels to turning turbines,
water has been used as the prime mover of machinery and the powerhouse of industry for many centuries.
the new fluidic computer uses electromagnetic fields to accurately pump these droplets around a set of physical gates to perform logical operations.
Each alternation of the electromagnetic field amounts to one clock cycle, and each drop moves exactly one step onward with each of these cycles.
#"Origami battery"made from paper and dirty water for just a few cents In the system, explained in the July issue of the journal Nano Energy,
liquid containing bacteria can be used to power a paper-based sensor, which could be especially useful in areas
and situations where access to electricity and resources are scarce. ny type of organic material can be the source of bacteria for the bacterial metabolism,
the engineer who developed the battery. nd we don need external pumps or syringes because paper can suck up a solution using capillary force. he battery can fold down into the size of a matchbook
and utilizes a cheap air-breathing cathode made of liquid nickel sprayed onto one side of a regular
Actual origami techniques were used to create three-dimensional, stackable battery structures from the original, two-dimensional paper batteries.
The system doesn't require specially engineered nanomaterials like those used to make other paper-based batteries in the past.
Creating one of the batteries capable of delivering enough microwatts to run a biosensor in the field costs only five cents.
including local wastewater, biomass or watersheds. Source: Binghamton Universit a
#3d printed flutes hit the right notes Researchers at Australia's University of Wollongong (UOW) have created a number of 3d printed custom flutes that can play microtonal tunings otherwise unachievable with standard flutes,
#Graphene used to create world's thinnest light bulb Researchers and engineers from Columbia University, Seoul National University (SNU),
what is essentially the world's thinnest light bulb, "said James Hone, Professor of Mechanical engineering at Columbia."
so that less energy is needed to attain temperatures needed for visible light emission, "said Myung-Ho Bae, a senior researcher at KRISS."
#Inkless printing manipulates light at the nanoscale to produce colors Using nanometer-size metamaterials, researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have developed a technique to print images that uses the manipulation of light, rather than the application of ink,
This is because their research shows that the periodic holes on the surface of the silver film provides excitation of surface-plasmon polaritons (electromagnetic waves that travel along the surface of a metal-dielectric
or metal-air interface) and create an optical magnetic dipole resonance which results in near-perfect light absorption and negligible reflection in the material.
the printing substrate is also a metamaterial. As such, its unique properties may allow it to be used in ways not previously possible in the areas of nanoscale visual arts,
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