Scientists to retrofit large shipping vessels with ultramodern sails in efforts to cut carbon emissions University of Southampton initiative will investigate how modern vessels perform on the ocean when fitted with the wing-sails Funding from Innovate UK to investigate the potential of the technology and decarbonise the UK’s maritime sector SHIPS of the future could once again be powered by wind if a pioneering project which retrofits large vessels with ultramodern wing-sails proves successful in cutting carbon emissions. Scientists from…
Perhaps, but we must decide how to evaluate them. A ‘best practice’ protocol for researchers developing piezoelectric materials has been developed by scientists – a first in this cutting-edge field of technology. The protocol was developed by an international team led by physicists at University of Bath in the UK, in response to findings that experimental reports lack consistency. The researchers made the shocking discovery that nine out of 10 scientific papers miss experimental information that is crucial to ensure the…
In February, the Estonian-based startup New Standard Oil successfully commissioned their first industrial-scale prototype for drying and torrefaction of biogenic feedstock operating with superheated steam at atmospheric pressure. The energy-efficient process was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart, Germany, and produces valuable raw materials for the chemical and energy industries: basic chemicals, biocoal and water. Plant biomass is considered a climate-friendly alternative to fossil raw materials. For material and chemical use, renewable raw…
EU project SUNREY: Making perovskite solar cells more sustainable, efficient and durable – these are the goals pursued by 13 European partners in the project SUNREY. The project aims to further push the development of highly-efficient solar cells based on non-critical raw materials and to strengthen the innovation potential of the European industry. SUNREY is funded by the European Union’s research and innovation program Horizon Europe within the framework of the Green Deal Initiative with 4.25 Million Euro. The three-year…
Published on Scientific Reports, the robotics prototype takes inspiration from earthworms. It is 45 cm long and weighs 605 grams and it is the first robot build by replicating the morphology and the functioning of real earthworms. Researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) in Genoa has realized a new soft robot inspired by the biology of earthworms,which is able to crawl thanks to soft actuators that elongate or squeeze, when air passes through them or is drawn out….
Weather reports, climate models or rocket launches – they all need precise data from the atmosphere. To acquire such data, scientists can use LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) systems to shoot laser beams into the sky. The backscattered light can be used to calculate wind and temperature data at altitudes of up to 100 km. A team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT and the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics IAP has developed a portable LIDAR system that…
One challenge facing the widespread adoption of renewable energies is the fluctuating output of photovoltaic systems — for energy-intensive companies, this means that their distribution networks are rapidly becoming inadequate. Fraunhofer researchers have developed a solution that combines power from renewable sources with electricity from the public grid and uses batteries to compensate for fluctuations. This approach will particularly benefit companies that aim to invest in sustainability with photovoltaics — and reduce their energy costs in the process. A living…
Lines in natural gas grids have to be maintained and serviced regularly. This entails using flares to vent the natural gas. With FlareSimulator, research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF have developed an assistive tool that calculates the correct distance of flares to houses, trees and other nearby objects. This makes it easy to maintain minimum distances and prevent potential hazards and explosions. Natural gas is one of the safest energy carriers. Accidents rarely occur,…
Using green light and a double-layered cell, Riccardo Ollearo of the Eindhoven University of Technology has come up with a photodiode that has sensitivity that many can only dream of. Solar panels with multiple stacked cells are currently breaking records. Remarkably, a team of researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology and TNO at Holst Centre have now managed to make photodiodes – based on a similar technology – with a photoelectron yield of more than 200 percent. You would think…
– just got a lot more efficient. University of Rochester researchers use substrates of metal and dielectrics to boost the light conversion efficiency of perovskites by 250 percent. Silicon, the standard semiconducting material used in a host of applications—computer central processing units (CPUs), semiconductor chips, detectors, and solar cells—is an abundant, naturally occurring material. However, it is expensive to mine and to purify. Perovskites—a family of materials nicknamed for their crystalline structure—have shown extraordinary promise in recent years as a…
Fraunhofer ISE Hands Over Plant to Local NGO. In the SolCoolDry project, funded by the German Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE), the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, together with the company Innotech Ingenieursgesellschaft mbH and Kenyan partners, has developed a system that uses solar thermal and photovoltaic energy to generate drying heat and produce ice. The lack of electricity in rural areas makes it difficult for fishermen and farmers in Africa to preserve or refrigerate their…
A newly developed system for gaseous fuels makes it possible to inject hydrogen directly into the combustion chamber. A special control system can increase torque by 20 percent. The system is particularly suitable for large engines such as those of heavy commercial vehicles, construction machinery or locomotives. Zero-emission hydrogen engines, like all internal combustion engines, require a mixture formation system, i.e. a system for metering the fuel, in this case hydrogen gas. The most promising approach is a low-pressure direct…
Many industrial processes produce waste heat that is often released unused into the environment. With rising energy prices, waste heat recovery and storage are becoming increasingly attractive for companies as a substitute for fossil fuels. In the Fenopthes project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection BMWK, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE worked with industrial partners to develop and optimize low-cost fillers for thermal storage systems. Fillers as additives in storage media…
The system’s simple repeating elements can assemble into swimming forms ranging from eel-like to wing-shaped. Underwater structures that can change their shapes dynamically, the way fish do, push through water much more efficiently than conventional rigid hulls. But constructing deformable devices that can change the curve of their body shapes while maintaining a smooth profile is a long and difficult process. MIT’s RoboTuna, for example, was composed of about 3,000 different parts and took about two years to design and build….
Researchers at Purdue University have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of thermal radiation, uncovering a new method for generating spinning thermal radiation in a controlled and efficient manner using artificially structured surfaces, known as metasurfaces. The team, led by Zubin Jacob, Purdue’s Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has published findings in the journal Science Advances, titled “Observation of non-vanishing optical helicity in thermal radiation from symmetry-broken metasurfaces.” Thermal radiation, which originates from random fluctuations in materials,…
The EU infrastructure project NextGenBat has ambitious goals: to significantly increase the performance of mobile energy storage devices such as batteries by employing new materials and laser-based manufacturing processes. To reach these goals, the partners are using an approach that will run laser machining processes in parallel. With special optics, up to several hundred partial beams can be generated, which can then be used to significantly increase productivity through parallel processing. However, only a handful of specialist companies such as…
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