The flexible, thin-film device has the potential to make any surface into a low-power, high-quality audio source. MIT engineers have developed a paper-thin loudspeaker that can turn any surface into an active audio source. This thin-film loudspeaker produces sound with minimal distortion while using a fraction of the energy required by a traditional loudspeaker. The hand-sized loudspeaker the team demonstrated, which weighs about as much as a dime, can generate high-quality sound no matter what surface the film is bonded…
A major challenge for producers of electricity from solar panels and wind turbines is akin to capturing lightning in a bottle. Both solar and wind increasingly generate electricity amid little demand, when market prices are too low to cover costs. At noon on sunny days, for example, wholesale power prices in areas with high quantities of solar and wind occasionally fall below zero. Some renewable energy producers store their excess electricity as green hydrogen, using the electricity to produce hydrogen…
Measuring system opens up new perspectives for additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing processes continue to grow in the automotive, aerospace and other industries. When complex components or unique parts need to be produced, an increasing number of companies are turning to industrial 3D printing. However, the run-in curves can still be quite long, especially for small batches, and the reject rates may be high at the beginning. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS Dresden therefore develops modern measurement…
Fraunhofer ILT inaugurates new research platform. The success of the energy transition is closely linked to continued research into hydrogen technologies. A major goal of Fraunhofer ILT is to make the fuel cell ready for series production. To this end, the Aachen researchers are setting up a hydrogen laboratory on more than 300 square meters of laboratory space: Here, a wide range of laser technology test facilities will offer public projects and industrial cooperation a research platform that is unique…
The design could someday enable a fully decarbonized power grid, researchers say. Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. Their new demonstrations show that it converts heat to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency — a performance better than that of traditional steam turbines. The heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat…
The researchers behind an energy system that makes it possible to capture solar energy, store it for up to eighteen years and release it when and where it is needed have now taken the system a step further. After previously demonstrating how the energy can be extracted as heat, they have now succeeded in getting the system to produce electricity, by connecting it to a thermoelectric generator. Eventually, the research – developed at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden – could…
A new material created by University of California, Berkeley, researchers could reduce the energy required to control advanced silicon transistors. Computers may be growing smaller and more powerful, but they require a great deal of energy to operate. The total amount of energy the U.S. dedicates to computing has risen dramatically over the last decade and is quickly approaching that of other major sectors, like transportation. In a study published online this week the journal Nature, University of California, Berkeley,…
Diesel generators often provide the local power supply in developing and emerging economies – emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. To minimize these emissions in the future, a research team from Fraunhofer IPA, together with CBC GmbH & Co. KG and the University of Bayreuth, is currently developing an electricity generator that runs on hydrogen. In Germany, it is taken for granted that every household is connected to the power grid and power outages are a…
A new study by Chinese researchers demonstrates a novel approach to enhancing the storage performance of batteries and capacitors. The researchers developed a simple yet efficient way to produce a material with excellent performance for use in devices that rely on lithium-ion storage. They published their findings in Nano Research on April 1. Why lithium? Energy storage technologies are increasingly important as the world shifts toward carbon neutrality, looking to further electrify the automotive and renewable energy sectors. Lithium-ion technology is critical…
As the Major League Baseball season gets underway, a burning question for many fans of the third most popular sport in the United States is how many homeruns they will see this season. A new laboratory method uses a high-accuracy ball delivery device and speed measurement system to provide better clues on exactly how high and far some of those baseballs will fly. Reporting in the journal, Applied Sciences, Washington State University and Delft University of Technology researchers describe the new technique, which…
New technologies for use in next-generation photovoltaic inverters are in development and undergoing practical testing as part of the GaN-HighPower project. Photovoltaics (PV) is becoming increasingly relevant as a sustainable and affordable supply of energy in the wake of the global energy transition. In addition to the ongoing need for cost reductions, there is also a growing requirement for the increased functionality of devices against this backdrop. By way of example, technological solutions are required for this, which — alongside…
Droplet manipulation has important applications in areas such as heat management, water harvesting, and chemical reactions. A research team from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) developed a multi-functional electrostatic droplet tweezer that can precisely “trap” liquid droplets and remotely guide their motion on flat and tilted surfaces, and in oil mediums. Experiments showed that the tweezer can manipulate droplets of different volumes and with different components. It has potential applications in areas such as high-throughput biological and chemical analysis. The…
A team co-led team by the University of Surrey has successfully increased the levels of energy absorbed by wafer-thin photovoltaic panels by 25%. Their solar panels, just one micrometre thick (1μm), convert light into electricity more efficiently than others as thin and pave the way to make it easier to general more clean, green energy. In a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s Photonics journal, the team detail how they used characteristics of sunlight to design a disordered honeycomb…
… for long-duration energy storage. Flow batteries are promising for energy storage due to their high safety, high reliability, long cycle life, and high efficiency. The development of commercial-scale flow batteries for long-duration energy storage requires to reduce the cost of flow batteries, especially the cost of ion-exchange membranes. Recently, a research group led by Prof. LI Xianfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) realized pilot-scale synthesis and roll-to-roll manufacturing of hydrocarbon membranes with…
System testing underway to resume normal operations. Workers at Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor have completed an 11-month outage for a core overhaul that occurs about every 10 years to maintain peak performance. During the overhaul, operators and maintenance teams replaced components that wear out over time — akin to rebuilding the engine of a high-performance car. ATR is the world’s largest, most powerful and flexible materials test reactor. Its distinctive cloverleaf core design provides a range of capabilities…
Quantum charging will cut the charging time of electric vehicles from ten hours to three minutes. Whether it’s photovoltaics or fusion, sooner or later, human civilization must turn to renewable energies. This is deemed inevitable considering the ever-growing energy demands of humanity and the finite nature of fossil fuels. As such, much research has been pursued in order to develop alternative sources of energy, most of which utilize electricity as the main energy carrier. The extensive R&D in renewables has…
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