Science Daily April 9, 2018 Using mathematical modeling, an international team of researchers (China, USA – University of Delaware, Boston University, Utah State University) fabricated a membrane made of tiny wires of porous silicon nitride that measured less than one millionth of a meter each, to suppress the initiation and growth of dendrites. They integrated this membrane into lithium metal cells in a battery and ran it for 3,000 hours without growing dendrites. The principle may also extend to other battery systems, such as zinc or potassium-based batteries… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Category Archives: Energy
Building lithium-sulfur batteries with paper biomass
Science Daily April 2, 2018 A major byproduct in the papermaking industry is lignosulfonate, a sulfonated carbon waste material. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have demonstrated the potential of using lignosulfonate to design sustainable, low-cost electrode materials for lithium-sulfur batteries. In its elemental form, sulfur is nonconductive, but when combined with carbon at elevated temperatures, it becomes highly conductive, allowing it to be used in novel battery technologies. They have created a lithium-sulfur battery prototype that is the size of a watch battery, which can cycle about 200 times. The next step is to scale up the prototype to markedly […]
Generating energy from fluctuations of light
Phys.org March 27, 2018 Researchers in Sweden have developed a method and a material that generates an electrical impulse when the light fluctuates from sunshine to shade and vice versa. They created a tiny optical generator by combining the small antennas consisting gold nanodiscs placed on a substrate and coated with a polymeric film to create the pyroelectric properties. The antennas generate heat that is then converted to electricity with the aid of the polymer. The degree of polarisation of the polymer affects the magnitude of the generated power, while the thickness not to have any effect at all. Applications […]
MIT and newly formed company launch novel approach to fusion power
MIT News March 9, 2018 Commonwealth Fusion Systems will support MIT to develop the world’s most powerful large-bore superconducting electromagnets. Once the magnets are developed MIT and CFS will design and build a compact and powerful fusion experiment, called SPARC, using those magnets. The device will demonstrate key technical milestones needed to ultimately achieve a full-scale prototype of a fusion power plant that could set the world on a path to low-carbon energy. The compact device is expected to be capable of generating 100 million watts, or 100 megawatts (MW), of fusion power. Goal is for research to produce a […]
New transistor concept, solar cell included
Physorg March 6, 2018 Researchers in Spain propose a compact self-powered transistor that incorporates the energy source and a transistor into the same slim unit. They used ferroelectric oxide to create the heterojunction needed for solar functionality. It harnesses the switchable polarisation of the ferroelectric layer to achieve off and on states –1s and 0s– in the flow of electrons harvested by the organic semiconductor. Coined the “solaristor”, this game-changing concept combines the best of solar cells and the best of transistors into a single device the size of a biological cell… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Sunlight funnel collects light from all directions
Physorg March 1, 2018 Researchers in Germany modeled the new light-harvesting funnels on nature’s design. The devices consist of many randomly oriented “donor” pigments that can absorb light from nearly all incident angles and funnel it onto a smaller number of “acceptor” molecules that are all oriented in a single direction to direct the light onto a photoconversion device. This concept can reduce the intrinsic losses of previous solar concentrators to below 10%. In tests the solar concentrator absorbed approximately 99% of the incident light, with minimal losses due to reabsorption and reflection. The device also has a light redirection […]
Contact lenses with built-in biofuel cells as power supply
Nanowerk March 6, 2018 Enzymatic biofuel cells (EBFCs) are bioelectronic devices that utilize enzymes as the electrocatalysts to catalyze the oxidation of fuel and/or the reduction of oxygen or peroxide for energy conversion to electricity. Researchers in Ireland placed the electrodes between two commercially available contact lenses to avoid direct contact with the eye and tested them in a solution of artificial tears as well as one containing phosphate buffer solution. Hydrophilic silicon-hydrogel contact lenses contain microchannels that enable the transport of solutions and oxygen to the EBFC. This flexible EBFC holds potential as an autonomous power supply for wearable […]
Charging ahead to higher energy batteries
TechXplore February 26, 2018 The low rate capabilities and low energy densities of the all-solid-state batteries are partly due to a lack of suitable solid-solid heterogeneous interface formation technologies. Researchers in Japan grew garnet-type oxide solid electrolyte crystals in molten LiOH on a substrate that bonded the electrode into a solid state as they grew. They were able to control the thickness and connection area within the cubic layer, which acts as a ceramic separator. Each crystal is connected to neighboring ones. The new technique of stacking solid electrolyte layer could be an ideal ceramic separator with a dense thin-interface […]
MIT Engineers Have Built a Device That Pulls Electricity Out of Thin Air
Science Alert February 27, 2018 Researchers at MIT designed materials that maximize the thermal effusivity by impregnating copper and nickel foams with conformal, chemical-vapor-deposited graphene and octadecane as a phase change material. These materials are ideal for ambient energy harvesting in the form of thermal resonators to generate persistent electrical power from thermal fluctuations over large ranges of frequencies. The harvestable power is proportional to the thermal effusivity of the dominant thermal mass. With 18-degree Fahrenheit temperature difference between night and day, a small sample of material produced 350 millivolts of potential and 1.3 milliwatts of power, which is enough […]
Innovative diode design uses ultrafast quantum tunneling to harvest infrared energy from the environment
Phys org February 5, 2018 Researchers in Saudi Arabia have designed a device, rectenna, that can tap into the infrared radiation in the environment and waste heat from industrial processes and transform quadrillionth-of-a-second wave signals into useful electricity. Tunneling devices, such as metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes, rectify infrared waves into current by moving electrons through a small barrier. They used a ‘bowtie-shaped’ nano-antenna that sandwiches the thin insulator film between two slightly overlapped metallic arms to generate the intense fields needed for tunneling… read more.