Crude oil imported to the United States costs more than $100 billion per year. As these reserves become depleted, synthetic alternatives may provide the best opportunities to displace these imports with indigenous products, including ethanol from corn, bio-diesel from vegetable oils, and oil from coal. However, it has been difficult to bring this new alternative fuel technology to the United States. A new study by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found that by changing existing roadbloc

Infra-red cameras that automatically count people in cars could soon be a feature on the UK’s motorways, making it easier to enforce priority lanes for car sharing to ease congestion and cut journey times.

The unique patented technology to detect human faces in moving cars without distracting drivers was developed by Laser Optical Engineering (LOE), a spin out company from Loughborough University. Together with commercial, research and civic partners, it has developed a prototype came

Background noise that interferes with cellphone conversations could be a thing of the past thanks to a dual microphone system developed at the University of Toronto.

“In typical environments there is background noise and reverberations that make it hard to carry on a cellphone conversation,” says lead researcher Professor Parham Aarabi of U of T’s Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “This system employs two microphones that, just like the two human ears,

A research team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created a new type of reflector that has dramatically improved LED (light-emitting diodes) luminance. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded the research team a three-year, $210,000 grant to move the patented omni-directional reflector to market.

“We have developed an omni-directional reflector (ODR) for LEDs that will accelerate the replacement of conventional lighting used for a multitude of applications, such as lig

James Bond-style technologies such as cell phones the size of earpieces and invisible sensors sprinkled about to detect toxins are closer to reality. University of Michigan researchers have figured out how to build wireless systems even smaller while still retaining range and power efficiency.

One obstacle to further shrink small wireless devices has been trying to fit all the components onto one chip but U-M researchers have built a tiny silicon-compatible antenna and frequency resonator

UH researchers developing efficient, practical power source alternatives

As temperatures soar this summer, so do electric bills. Researchers at the University of Houston are striving toward decreasing those costs with the next revolution in power generation.

Imagine a power source so small, yet so efficient, that it could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete while lowering your electric bill. A breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is curren

The GAIKER Technological Centre and the ANTOLIN GROUP, a world leader in the design and production of a wide variety of components for the automobile industry, have designed a research project aimed at improving the assessment of residues created in the manufacture of automobile roofs.

It is currently estimated that a plant manufacturing these roofs can generate something like 2000 t of different residues per year, some of which are very complex in their structure and composition and end up

Scientists at the University of Chicago have discovered a better way to measure a confounding property of microscopic high-tech particles called quantum dots.

Quantum dots, also called nanocrystals, emit light in a rainbow of colors and are used in lasers, biological studies and other applications, but their tendency to blink hinders their technological value. Imagine the annoyance caused by a randomly flickering light bulb.

“A quantum dot might blink for just a millionth of a sec

Add a deceptively simple twist to a tiny fiber of glass and you get a versatile new class of optical devices to filter light; sense changes in temperature, pressure or other environmental factors; or transmit information via powerful, inexpensive lasers, according to researchers at Chiral Photonics Inc. of Clifton, N.J. Writing in the July 2 issue of Science, the company describes a new class of devices called chiral gratings that were developed with support from the Advanced Technology Program at t

’we can supply a group of previously unavailable materials to the nanotechnology community’

A University of Southern California engineer has discovered a way to manufacture composite “nanocables” from a potent new class of substances with extraordinary properties called Transition Metal Oxides (TMOs).

Chongwu Zhou, an assistant professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Department of Electrical Engineering, is creating dense arrays of ultrafine wires made of magn

Polystyrene foam is widely used in a variety of applications, including building insulation, packaging and drinking cups. These different types of foam are all commercially produced from a single starting material – high-density spherical beads of expandable polystyrene (EPS).

The beads are expanded and moulded by the end product manufacturers using a blowing agent. Currently, pentane is used, but it is an inflammable, volatile organic compound (VOC) and up to half remains in the EPS after

Researchers from the Area of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering at the Universitat Jaume I (UJI), Spain, have devised a quicker method to evaluate the systems used in the automotive industry to protect the metal chassis of vehicles against corrosion. This new technique allows the time required to carry out such tests to be reduced from two months to just one day.

The metal chassis of automobiles are under constant exposure to environmental conditions (high ambient relative hum

Aluminium is a metal widely used in industry; therefore the more that is known about it, the more effectively it can be used. Researchers at Risø National Laboratory in Denmark and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France have filmed in 3D the changes in the bulk of deformed aluminium after annealing. Thanks to the uniqueness of the synchrotron light at the ESRF, this kind of experiment could take place for the first time ever. The results give a new insight into this metal and c

As previously informed, Vestas has experienced a series of problems with the operation of the offshore project Horns Reef located in the North Sea, 15 kilometres off the shore near Esbjerg located on the Danish west coast.

Harsh environment

The environment at Horns Reef is harsh and it has been ascertained that all transformers and a number of generators had to be changed. In close and constructive collaboration with the customer, the Danish utility Elsam, Vestas and ABB a

The Airbus A380 will be the world’s biggest passenger airplane and it is already a perfect example of global cooperation. The Fraunhofer IML has ensured that the Stade plant near Hamburg will benefit from an optimal material flow and logistics concept.

555 passengers on two decks will be able to travel for 14,800 kilometers non-stop in the Airbus A380 – almost from one end of the Earth to the other. The air route from Berlin to Wellington in New Zealand, for example, covers a distance of abo

Airplanes generate trailing wake vortices which can be dangerous for following aircraft, especially on takeoff and landing. An onboard laser measuring device scans the air space in front of the plane, recognizes turbulence and will inform the pilot.

The volume of air traffic is constantly rising – many air routes are already overloaded. Frequent delays are encountered when machines are taking off and landing at major airports. The frequency of aircraft cannot be increased because they have t