At the moment, industry is lacking in robust sensors that can withstand extremely high temperatures and pressures. Eight Fraunhofer Institutes have now developed a technology platform for building this type of sensor systems as part of the “eHarsh” lighthouse project. These are even capable of monitoring the insides of turbines and deep boreholes for geothermal systems. They sense disruptive vibrations, issue warnings when a machine is running hot and are able to identify damaged components on a production line. Sensors…
Crucial in the design of any semiconductor device is how to inject and extract an electrical current, and now a KAUST-led team has reviewed ways to do this without damage to the device. A basic metal-semiconductor interface can create a potential energy barrier to the efficient flow of electrons, depending on the electronic properties of the two materials. It is vital to make a careful choice of contact material and the process by which this material is deposited onto the…
Novel color photography using a high-efficiency probe can super-focus white light into a 6-nanometer spot for nanoscale color imaging. Scientists have developed new materials for next-generation electronics so tiny that they are not only indistinguishable when closely packed, but they also don’t reflect enough light to show fine details, such as colors, with even the most powerful optical microscopes. Under an optical microscope, carbon nanotubes, for example, look grayish. The inability to distinguish fine details and differences between individual pieces…
Rice lab finds 2D perovskite compound has the right stuff to challenge bulkier products. Rice University engineers have achieved a new benchmark in the design of atomically thin solar cells made of semiconducting perovskites, boosting their efficiency while retaining their ability to stand up to the environment. The lab of Aditya Mohite of Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering discovered that sunlight itself contracts the space between atomic layers in 2D perovskites enough to improve the material’s photovoltaic efficiency by up to 18%, an…
Small (hybrid) electric planes just like the conceptualized 19-passenger commuter aircraft are about to change regional air travel in the future. The apparent benefits of the commuter aircraft are their fuel efficiency and the fact that they can be employed on routes that are geographically or economically far-fetched, compared to other means of transportation. Moreover, the global scientific and industrial communities are seeing aircraft electrification as one potential solution to reduce gaseous and noise emissions. Researchers at Mälardalen University, Sweden…
Two-dimensional MXene has been a rising star in the energy world as they can store energy fast. But their unstable voltage output limits their applications. A collaborative research team led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has recently developed battery-like electrochemical Nb2CTx MXene electrodes with stable voltage output and high energy density by using a high-voltage scanning strategy. These latest findings may lead to a breakthrough in inventing the powerful battery of the next generation. The research was…
E-mobility shapes the life of more and more people, and e-bikes and e-scooters play an essential role in it. The employed rechargeable batteries become smaller and lighter, the efficiency of the electrified drive train and the cruising range increase. The battery chargers, however, struggle to keep pace with this development. Scientists at the Institute of Robust Power Semiconductor Systems (ILH) and the Institute of Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ILEA) at the University of Stuttgart have now developed a charger…
Researchers reveal that aluminum implantation doping in p-type bipolar semiconductors creates defects many layers deeper than the implantation site. Silicon carbide (SiC) unipolar semiconductors are in wide commercial use, but their operations are limited by a trade-off relationship between breakdown voltage and specific resistance of the drift layer, or specific on-resistance. Including a super junction structure, which refers to an arrangement of n and p layers in trenches in the drift layer, or enabling bipolar operation in the device provides…
To produce a cost-effective redox flow battery, researchers based at the South China University of Technology have synthesized a molecular compound that serves as a low-cost electrolyte, enabling a stable flow battery that retains 99.98% capacity per cycle. They published their approach on August 14 in the Energy Material Advances. Comprising two tanks of opposing liquid electrolytes, the battery pumps the positive and negative liquids along a membrane separator sandwiched between electrodes, facilitating ion exchanges to produce energy. Significant work…
Novel optical resonator can track the movement of nanoparticles in space. Conventional microscopes produce enlarged images of small structures or objects with the help of light. Nanoparticles, however, are so small that they hardly absorb or scatter light and, hence, remain invisible. Optical resonators increase the interaction between light and nanoparticles: They capture light in smallest space by reflecting it thousands of times between two mirrors. In case a nanoparticle is located in the captured light field, it interacts thousands…
Scientists at ETH Zurich have built a plant that can produce carbon-neutral liquid fuels from sunlight and air. The next goal will be to take this technology to industrial scale and achieve competitiveness. In a paper published in the scientific journal “Nature”, researchers from Zurich and Potsdam describe how this novel solar reactor functions and outline a policy framework that would provide incentives to expand the production of “solar kerosene”. Carbon-neutral fuels are crucial for making aviation and maritime transport…
Using pyrolysis, dewaxing catalyst to upcycle plastic waste into fuel source. More than 300 million tons of plastic waste are produced annually, which causes serious environmental issues because of plastic’s life cycle and the difficulty of eliminating it. Consequently, most plastic waste ends up in either a landfill or the ocean. A significant number of plastics break down into microplastics, which are ingested by fish and other marine life causing havoc to marine ecosystems. In Journal of Renewable and Sustainable…
UBCO researchers cook up jet fuel with graphene nanomaterials. The goal of creating a cleaner fuel for aircraft engines is creating a spark at UBC Okanagan. A team of researchers studying the burning rate of nanomaterials in liquid fuels believe they have created a recipe for a clean-burning, power-boosting aircraft fuel. The project is a collaboration between the School of Engineering’s Combustion for Propulsion and Power Laboratory (CPPL) and its Nanomaterials and Polymer Nanocomposites Laboratory. Inside the CPPL, researchers watch…
Why when walking in the city we do not enter blind alleys, or at least it happens to us very rarely, rather only when we lose our train of thought? Thanks to our perception (i.e., seeing appropriate signs and assessing distances) we are able to predict that there is an obstacle in front of us – we do not have to check it at all while walking to the end of the street. We are able to move onto the…
A team of engineers at the University of South Florida has invented new technology that could forever change the manufacturing of wearable, electronic sensors. They’ve figured out a way to speed up production without having to use polymer binders – the industry standard in printing flexible sensors, which are often used to monitor vital signs in health care settings. Their technology, featured on the cover of the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, prints electronic skin, or “e-skin,” by using…
Scientists developed an efficient generator… Thermoelectric generator of new generation is ten times more efficient than its analogues. Researchers from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) in collaboration with an industrial partner elaborated thermoelectric generator of new generation, which is ten times more efficient than its analogues currently available on the market. The final product will be implemented by an industrial partner at the end of 2021. The project is conducted within the framework of the program World class…
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