Science Alert May 26, 2022 The research led by physicists from the Swiss Plasma Center has determined that the maximum hydrogen fuel density is about twice the Greenwald Limit – an estimate derived from experiments more than 30 years ago. The exact value depends on the power. But as a rough estimate, the increase is on the order of a factor of two in ITER. Although scientists had long suspected the Greenwald Limit could be improved upon, it has been a foundational rule of fusion research for more than 30 years, a guiding principle of the ITER design. The key […]
Category Archives: Energy
Calling all ‘fusioneers’! New US fusion energy website launches
Phys.org November 8, 2021 The U.S. fusion community has just completed a two-year strategic planning process to focus on a bold new direction: the construction of a prototype fusion power plant by 2035. Following a recommendation from the consensus reports created by researchers a diverse committee of stakeholders from the U.S. fusion energy community has collaborated to build usfusionenergy.org. The website will feature the latest fusion news and informative articles, events, and resources that will help anyone, anywhere, understand the promise of fusion energy. The National Ignition Facility in California announced a significant step forward for laser-driven fusion this August. […]
‘Charging room’ system powers lights, phones, laptops without wires
Science Daily August 30, 2021 An international team of researchers (Japan, USA – University of Michigan) has shown that multimode quasistatic cavity resonance can provide room-scale wireless power transfer. The approach uses multidirectional, widely distributed currents on conductive surfaces that are placed around the target volume. It generates multiple, mutually unique, three-dimensional magnetic field patterns. They demonstrated the technology in a purpose-built aluminum test room measuring approximately 10 feet by 10 feet. They wirelessly powered lamps, fans and cell phones that could draw current from anywhere in the room regardless of the placement of people and furniture. Devices harness the […]
Physicists Have Successfully Advanced a Key Device For Producing Fusion Power
Science Alert September 2, 2021 An international team of researchers (Germany, Belgium, Spain, USA – Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, MIT, University of Wisconsin, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Auburn University, University of Maryland, Los alamos National Laboratory, Hungary, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, France, Russia, Poland, Japan, Austria, Ukraine, Finland, UK) sought to shape the magnets in W7-X to try and reduce the effects of neoclassical transport. Measurements, taken using an instrument called an X-ray imaging crystal spectrometer (XICS), have shown very high temperatures inside the reactor. These are supported by charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (CXRS) measurements. With both data […]
Making clean hydrogen is hard, but researchers just solved a major hurdle
Phys.org July 19, 2021 To create electrically conductive paths through a thick silicon dioxide researchers at UT Austin used a technique first deployed in the manufacturing of semiconductor electronic chips. By coating the silicon dioxide layer with a thin film of aluminum and heating the entire structure, arrays of nanoscale “spikes” of aluminum that completely bridge the silicon dioxide layer were created. These can be replaced by nickel or other materials that help catalyze the water-splitting reactions. When illuminated by sunlight, the devices efficiently oxidized water to form oxygen molecules while also generating hydrogen at a separate electrode and exhibited […]
Scientists home in on recipe for entirely renewable energy
EurekAlert July 7, 2021 Researchers in Ireland have developed a technique that would enable the future production of entirely renewable, clean energy from which water would be the only waste product. They used an automated combinatorial approach and advanced quantum chemical modelling and found nine earth-abundant combinations of metals and ligands as highly promising leads for experimental investigation. They found chromium, manganese, iron to be especially promising. Thousands of catalysts based around these key components can now be placed in a melting pot and assessed for their abilities as the hunt for the magic combination continues. They have screened 444 and […]
Graphene additive manufacturing for flexible and printable electronics
Phys.org July 2, 2021 As a proof-of-concept researchers at Kansas State University used graphene aerosol gel ink, synthesized via an energy efficient, catalyst-free, and nonhazardous chemical precursor detonation method, such as hydrocarbons (e.g., acetylene) in the presence of controlled oxygen. They used the ink to print microsupercapacitors in interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) geometry on 25-μm thick polyimide substrates using a micro plotter. The microsupercapacitors showed an aerial capacitance of 55 μF/cm2 and volumetric capacitance of 3.25 F/cm3 at a current density of 6.0 microamp/cm2 and 20 milliamp/cm3, respectively. The printed devices did not show a significant distortion in the cyclic voltammetry […]
Scientists demonstrate perfect light absorption by single nanoparticle
Nanowerk June 15, 2021 Previously researchers succeeded in demonstrating the phenomenon of perfect absorption in large bodies of matter that were several times the size of a light beam. But the question remained unsolved was – whether the same was possible for miniature objects. An international team of researchers (Russia, Sweden) calculated the properties of a small object that could completely absorb all incidental light. They succeeded in reducing this complex analytical task to a simpler one – a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. Having solved it, they found the ideal combination of particle and light properties that […]
Saving the climate with solar fuel
EurekAlert June 8, 2021 Synthetic methane is easy to substitute in the vehicle fleet as the existing infrastructure – grid, storage, filling stations and trade mechanisms allow a comparatively fast substitution of fossil natural gas by synthetic methane for light and heavy-duty vehicles. Researchers in Switzerland discussed the direct potential for substitution of parts of the newly registered vehicle fleet with gas vehicles, fueled with synthetic methane, and compared it to the potential of using fuel cell electric vehicles relying on hydrogen. They analyzed the production path of hydrogen and synthetic methane with respect to electricity demand and overall associated […]
Scientists unravel noise-assisted signal amplification in systems with memory
Phys.org May 27, 2021 Signals can be amplified by an optimum amount of noise, but stochastic resonance (SR) is a fragile phenomenon. To investigate the role of memory for this phenomenon an international team of researchers (the Netherlands, UK) used an oil-filled microcavity which, driven by a continuous wave laser, has memory in its nonlinear optical response. Modulating the cavity length while adding noise to the driving laser, they observed a peak in the transmitted signal-to-noise ratio as a function of the noise variance. Through simulations, they reproduced their observations and extrapolated that the SR bandwidth could be approximately 3000 […]