Phys.org November 9, 2021 Polyaniline (PANI) is conductive and can be used as the electrode in a supercapacitor device, storing charge by trapping ions. To maximize energy storage, an international team of researchers (UK, Brazil) developed a novel method of depositing a thin layer of PANI onto a forest of conductive carbon nanotubes. This composite material makes an excellent supercapacitive electrode. However, as the composite is made up of different materials, it is difficult to separate and fully understand the complex processes which occur during charging and discharging. The researchers used Distribution of Relaxation Times analysis technique to examine complex […]
Tag Archives: energy harvesting
Woven nanotube fibers turn heat into power
Phys.org August 16, 2021 Invisibly small carbon nanotubes aligned as fibers and sewn into fabrics become a thermoelectric generator that can turn heat from the sun or other sources into energy. An international team of researchers (USA – Rice University, Japan) made custom nanotube fibers and test their potential for large-scale applications. They fabricated a textile thermoelectric generator based on these carbon nanotube fibers, which demonstrated high thermoelectric performance, weavability, and scalability. The power factor they observed make these fibers strong candidates for the emerging field of thermoelectric active cooling, which requires a large thermoelectric power factor and a large […]
New quantum research gives insights into how quantum light can be mastered
Phys.org July 22, 2021 Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory propose that modulated quantum metasurfaces can control all properties of photonic qubits, a breakthrough that could impact the fields of quantum information, communications, sensing and imaging, as well as energy and momentum harvesting. They developed a metasurface that looked like an array of rotated crosses, then proposed to shoot a single photon through the metasurface, where the photon splits into a superposition of many colors, paths, and spinning states generating quantum entanglement meaning the single photon can inherit different properties at once. According to the researchers by manipulating these properties, […]
Discovery of 10 faces of plasma leads to new insights in fusion and plasma science
Phys.org July 13, 2021 Researchers at Princeton University systematically mapped out all the topological phases of cold magnetized plasmas and established the bulk-edge correspondence. They found that for the linear eigenmodes, there are 10 topological phases in the parameter space of density n, magnetic field B, and parallel wavenumber kz, separated by the surfaces of Langmuir wave-L wave resonance, Langmuir wave-cyclotron wave resonance, and zero magnetic field. For fixed B and kz, only the phase transition at the Langmuir wave-cyclotron wave resonance corresponds to edge modes. A sufficient and necessary condition for the existence of this type of edge modes […]
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 […]
Carbon-neutral ‘biofuel’ from lakes
Science Daily March 31, 2021 Although the greenhouse gas methane is less well known and much rarer in the atmosphere, its global warming potential is 80 to 100 times greater per unit. Methane from lakes and water reservoirs makes up about 20% of global natural methane missions. Researchers in Switzerland outline the potential and theoretical possibilities for using methane from lakes and other freshwater bodies for sustainable energy production. The feasibility of up-scaled adsorption-driven technologies to capture and refine aqueous Biogenic CH4 is mostly generated from biomass produced through atmospheric CO2 uptake. Its exploitation in freshwaters can thus secure large […]
Wireless device makes clean fuel from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water
TechXplore August 24, 2020 An international team of researchers (UK, Japan) has developed a technology that integrates lanthanum- and rhodium-doped SrTiO3 (SrTiO3:La,Rh) and molybdenum-doped BiVO4 (BiVO4:Mo) light absorbers modified by phosphonated Co(II) bis(terpyridine) and RuO2 catalysts onto a gold layer. The monolithic device provides a solar-to-formate conversion efficiency of 0.08 ± 0.01% with a selectivity for formate of 97 ± 3%. It produced almost no by-products. The new technology is more robust and produces clean fuel that is easier to store and shows potential for producing fuel products at scale…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Device turns wasted heat into clean electricity, scientists say
Phys.org June 24, 2020 The practical efficiency of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) deployed under real environments is still not more than a few percent. A team of researchers in the US (Virginia tech, Penn State) provide fundamental insight on the operation of TEGs in realistic environments by illustrating the combined effect of thermoelectric material properties, device boundary conditions, and environmental thermal resistivity on their performance in conjunction with the module parameters. They demonstrated the existence of a critical heat transfer coefficient that dramatically affects the design and performance of TEGs. The TEGs they demonstrated generated up to 28% higher power and […]
Using the ‘shadow effect’ to generate electricity
Techxplore May 21, 2020 Researchers in Singapore used Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy to experimentally validated that a shadow-effect energy generator (SEG) scavenges the illumination contrast that arises on the device from shadow castings, and generates a direct current, simply by placing a part of the generator in shadow. The SEG is capable of harvesting energy from illumination contrasts arising under weak ambient light. Without any optimization, the generator has a power density of 0.14 μW cm−2 under indoor conditions 0.001 sun, where shadows are persistent. It performs 200% better than that of commercial silicon solar cells under the effects of […]
Turning water into watts
Physics World March 3, 2020 Most approaches to harvesting mechanical energy from ocean waves rely on finding a way to move a conducting wire through a magnetic field to generate electricity. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology designed triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) in small plastic spheres, about the size of oranges, that float in water. As the waves jostle the sphere, material inside bumps against the outer shell, generating charges. Th charges then flow through an attached wire. In lab tests each sphere could generate about 10 mW of power enough for powering small devices such as sensors on buoys used […]