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Category: sustainability – Page 7

Battery made from natural materials could replace conventional lithium-ion batteries

What if the next battery you buy was made from the same kinds of ingredients found in your body? That’s the idea behind a breakthrough battery material made from natural, biodegradable components. It’s so natural, it could even be consumed as food.

A team of researchers at Texas A&M University, including Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Dr. Karen Wooley and Professor of Chemical Engineering Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus, has developed a biodegradable battery using natural polymers. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wooley’s research group in the College of Arts and Sciences has spent the past 15 years shifting toward natural products for the construction of sustainable and degradable plastics materials. Lutkenhaus, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering, has been using organic materials to design a better battery. She suggested collaboration to combine Wooley’s naturally sourced polymers with her battery expertise.

Organic semiconductor molecule set to transform solar energy harvesting

In a discovery that bridges a century of physics, scientists have observed a phenomenon, once thought to be the domain of inorganic metal oxides, thriving within a glowing organic semiconductor molecule. This work, led by the University of Cambridge, reveals a powerful new mechanism for harvesting light and turning it into electricity. This could redefine the future of solar energy and electronics, and lead to lighter, cheaper, and simpler solar panels made from a single material.

The research focuses on a spin-radical organic semiconductor molecule called P3TTM. At its center sits a single, unpaired electron, giving it unique magnetic and electronic properties. This work arises from a collaboration between the synthetic chemistry team of Professor Hugo Bronstein in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry and the semiconductor physics team led by Professor Sir Richard Friend in the Department of Physics. They have developed this class of to give very efficient luminescence, as exploited in organic LEDs.

However, the study, published in Nature Materials, reveals their hidden talent: When brought into close contact, their unpaired electrons interact in a manner strikingly similar to a Mott-Hubbard insulator.

New Sodium Battery Design Works Even at Subzero Temperatures

A new technique stabilizes a metastable form of sodium solid electrolyte, enabling all-solid-state sodium batteries to maintain performance even at subzero temperatures. All-solid-state batteries are considered a safe and powerful option for running electric vehicles, electronics, and even storin

Nanoscale slots enable room-temperature hybrid states of matter in perovskite

Atoms in crystalline solids sometimes vibrate in unison, giving rise to emergent phenomena known as phonons. Because these collective vibrations set the pace for how heat and energy move through materials, they play a central role in devices that capture or emit light, like solar cells and LEDs.

Agrivoltaics: Electricity and Agriculture

Agrivoltaics describes a process for the simultaneous use of agricultural land for food production and PV power generation. The technology enables the efficient dual use of agricultural land: photovoltaics on open spaces can be substantially expanded without significantly using up valuable resources of fertile arable land. Targeted light management optimizes the yields from PV and photosynthesis. In addition, value creation in the region and rural development are promoted, as agrivoltaic projects are ideally suited to be supported in a decentralized by farmers, municipalities and small and medium-sized enterprises. This results in new, economically viable farming options for agriculture.

We are working on the implementation and further development of agrivoltaics in industrial and research projects.

Opportunities in Agrivoltaics.

Agrivoltaics offers great opportunities for agriculture and climate protection. In their foreword, the two Federal Ministers Anja Karliczek and Julia Klöckner support the promising concept of combining agricultural production and renewable electricity generation on the same land.

The guideline provides information on the possibilities and advantages of agrivoltaics, offers an overview of its potential and the current state of technology, and presents practical advice for agriculture businesses, municipalities and companies.

Aside from more efficient land use, agrivoltaics can help reduce water consumption in agriculture, generate stable additional sources of income for farms, and make many farms more resilient against harvest losses. The early involvement of local citizens is a key criterion for success in the concrete implementation of agrivoltaics. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/agrivo…ition.html

Continue reading “Agrivoltaics: Electricity and Agriculture” | >

Termite observations reveal their sophisticated technique to prevent contamination in fungal crop

Some species of termites are known to cultivate their own crops of fungus within their nests, similar to the way humans maintain farms to feed people. One such species is Odontotermes obesus, which cultivates the fungus Termitomyces. The relationship between these termites and the fungus can be thought of as a sort of symbiotic one. In this case, Termitomyces feeds the termites, and the termites protect the fungus from an invasive “weed-like” fungus called Pseudoxylaria can quickly overrun Termitomyces if left to its own devices.

A new study, published in Science, sheds some light on the methods these insects use to protect their crops, which was previously unclear. The research team investigated these methods through a series of experiments in which Pseudoxylaria was introduced into the termite’s crop of Termitomyces combs.

In the first part of the experiment, only a small amount of weed was placed on a comb, and the termites’ responses were observed and compared to the response to an uninfected comb. Then, a highly infected comb was introduced next to a healthy comb, and termite responses were observed. Finally, the team attached a healthy comb to an infected comb to find out how the termites responded. Then, the boluses, which were used by the termites to cover certain pieces of comb, were analyzed for microbial content and fungistatic properties using sequencing and inhibition assays.

AI Cracks the Code for the Next Generation of Solar Power

Rising global energy demands are pushing the limits of solar technology. Scientists in Sweden have now taken a major step toward unlocking the potential of halide perovskites. Global demand for electricity is climbing at a fast pace, making it essential to find sustainable ways to meet future nee

Piecing together the puzzle of future solar cell materials

Global electricity use is increasing rapidly and must be addressed sustainably. Developing new materials could give us much more efficient solar cell materials than at present; materials so thin and flexible that they could encase anything from mobile phones or entire buildings.

Using computer simulation and , researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now taken an important step toward understanding and handling halide perovskites, among the most promising but notoriously enigmatic materials.

Electricity use is constantly increasing globally and, according to the International Energy Agency, its proportion of the world’s total energy consumption is expected to exceed 50% in 25 years, compared to the current 20%.

Cathode overcomes key challenges in water electrolysis for clean energy

A new kind of cathode that is more resistant to power fluctuations can render (sea)water electrolysis more sustainable, cost-effective, and more suited for coupling with intermittent renewable energy in real-world applications, according to scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK).

Direct grid connection technology provides fast charging solution for electric vehicles

With the surging popularity for electric vehicles (EVs), rapid charging is a challenge as it requires power delivery exceeding 1 MW (which can power about 1,000 homes). Conventional charging stations rely on bulky line frequency transformers (LFTs), which are expensive due to extensive use of copper and iron. These stations also have multiple conversion stages involving stepping up or down current, or converting AC to DC and vice versa. This can greatly increase cost and reduce efficiency.

To solve this problem, researchers at the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in collaboration with Delta Electronics India, have developed a novel cascaded H-bridge (CHB)-based multiport DC converter that directly connects to the medium-voltage AC (MVAC) . This eliminates the need for large and expensive LFTs.

Published in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, the study shows that such converters can help address the growing power demands of fast-charging EV stations, crucial for scaling up India’s EV infrastructure.

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