LiBinfinity project aims to develop an energy-efficient recycling concept for lithium-ion batteries – kit will evaluate recyclates. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is largely involved in a new battery recycling project. LiBinfinity focuses on a holistic concept for recycling materials of lithium-ion batteries. A mechanico-hydrometallurgical process without energy-intensive process steps will be transferred from the lab to an industry-relevant scale. KIT will then check whether the recycled materials are suited for the manufacture of new batteries. The Federal Ministry for…
Highly sensitive electronic components are the drivers of our digitalized world. Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) open up new possibilities for miniaturization in wide-ranging application areas. With its state-of-the-art 200 mm clean room, Fraunhofer IPMS offers the complete value chain for MEMS as well as optical components MOEMS (Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical Systems). The range of services extends from consulting on feasibility through initial demonstration at wafer level to pilot fabrication with manufacturing capacities of more than 1100 waferstarts per month. Under the motto “Intelligent…
An international team led by researchers at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) has engineered a system for creating remote controlled cyborg cockroaches, equipped with a tiny wireless control module that is powered by a rechargeable battery attached to a solar cell. Despite the mechanic devices, ultrathin electronics and flexible materials allow the insects to move freely. These achievements, reported in the scientific journal npj Flexible Electronics on September 5, will help make the use of cyborg insects a…
New laser charging system could offer safe cordless power for mobile devices and sensors. Imagine walking into an airport or grocery store and your smartphone automatically starts charging. This could be a reality one day, thanks to a new wireless laser charging system that overcomes some of the challenges that have hindered previous attempts to develop safe and convenient on-the-go charging systems. “The ability to power devices wirelessly could eliminate the need to carry around power cables for our phones…
Researchers create organic molecules that spontaneously align on a surface to generate controlled electric fields that could improve OLED performance and lead to new devices. In a molecular feat akin to getting pedestrians in a scramble crosswalk to spontaneously start walking in step, researchers at Kyushu University have created a series of molecules that tend to face the same direction to form a ‘giant surface potential’ when evaporated onto a surface. The researchers hope to utilize the approach to generate…
H2Mare is one of three hydrogen flagship projects, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with a total of up to 740 million euros. In H2Mare, the production of green hydrogen and a range of different secondary products with offshore wind power, will be investigated together with around 32 partners from science and industry, over the four year lifetime of the project. With four of its institutes, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon supports technology development for sustainable and…
Made from inexpensive, abundant materials, an aluminum-sulfur battery could provide low-cost backup storage for renewable energy sources. As the world builds out ever larger installations of wind and solar power systems, the need is growing fast for economical, large-scale backup systems to provide power when the sun is down and the air is calm. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are still too expensive for most such applications, and other options such as pumped hydro require specific topography that’s not always available. Now,…
Adaptive control helps realize more stable lifting of particles from surfaces. Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have successfully enhanced technology to lift small particles using sound waves. Their “acoustic tweezers” could already lift things from reflective surfaces without physical contact, but stability remained an issue. Now, using an adaptive algorithm to fine-tune how the tweezers are controlled, they have drastically improved how stably the particles can be lifted. With further miniaturization, this technology could be deployed in a vast range…
Researchers have developed floating ‘artificial leaves’ that generate clean fuels from sunlight and water, and could eventually operate on a large scale at sea. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, designed ultra-thin, flexible devices, which take their inspiration from photosynthesis – the process by which plants convert sunlight into food. Since the low-cost, autonomous devices are light enough to float, they could be used to generate a sustainable alternative to petrol without taking up space on land. Outdoor tests…
German-New Zealand project on water electrolysis. The production of “green hydrogen” by electrolysis from renewable electricity is a key technology in the energy transition. One unsolved problem so far has been the need for expensive, hard-to-find precious metals. This is where the “HighHy” project, launched on 1 August 2022, comes in, in which the University of Bayreuth collaborates with Fraunhofer IFAM and three universities in New Zealand. Together, the partners want to develop a cost-effective and resource-saving process for water…
Study debunks accepted assumptions of charging mechanism in rechargeable aqueous zinc-manganese battery cells. While scientists have hoped that rechargeable zinc-manganese dioxide batteries could be developed into a viable alternative for grid storage applications, engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago and their colleagues identified the reasons these zinc-based fuel systems fail. The scientists reached this conclusion after leveraging advanced electron microscopy, electrochemical experiments and theoretical calculations to look closer at how the zinc anode works with the manganese cathode in…
Scientists have created a novel technology that can help to tackle climate change and address the global energy crisis. Northumbria University’s Dr Shafeer Kalathil is among a team of esteemed academics behind the project, which uses a chemical process that converts sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into acetate and oxygen to produce high-value fuels and chemicals powered by renewable energy. As part of the process, bacteria are grown on a synthetic semiconductor device known as a photocatalyst sheet, which means…
Wafer bonding technology improves photovoltaics. Solar cell technologies have been improving incrementally over the decades, but energy conversion has remained less than optimal. Now, researchers at Kyoto University have developed a novel wafer bonding technology using an optical upconversion material that transforms sunlight to shorter-wavelengths. This new semiconductor process utilizes the interface’s optical function for bond formation. The team created a stacked structure consisting of a thin silicon film mimicking the upper subcell of a multi-junction solar cell and a…
Findings could pave the way for a cost-efficient, high-performing calcium-ion battery. Concerns regarding scarcity, high prices, and safety regarding the long-term use of lithium-ion batteries has prompted a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to propose a greener, more efficient, and less expensive energy storage alternative. In research published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), corresponding author Nikhil Koratkar, the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at Rensselaer, and his team,…
Just add a drop of water. The battery, devised by Gustav Nyström and his team, is made of at least one cell measuring one centimeter squared and consisting of three inks printed onto a rectangular strip of paper. Salt, in this case simply sodium chloride or table salt, is dispersed throughout the strip of paper and one of its shorter ends has been dipped in wax. An ink containing graphite flakes, which acts as the positive end of the battery…
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are promising solar technologies. Although low-cost wet processing has shown advantages in small-area PSC fabrication, the preparation of uniform charge transport layers with thickness of several nanometers from solution for meter-sized large area products is still challenging. Recently, a research group led by Prof. LIU Shengzhong from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed a facile surface redox engineering (SRE) strategy for vacuum-deposited NiOx to match the slot-die-coated perovskite, and fabricated high-performance…
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