Sunlight offers a potential solution in the search for an energy source that does not harm the planet, but this depends on finding a way to efficiently turn electromagnetic energy into electricity. Researchers from KAUST have shown how a known herbicide can improve this conversion in organic devices. While solar cells have traditionally been made from inorganic materials such as silicon, organic materials are starting to break through as an alternative because they are light, flexible and relatively inexpensive to…
Graphene hybrid material reaches power density of batteries A team working with Roland Fischer, Professor of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University Munich (TUM) has developed a highly efficient supercapacitor. The basis of the energy storage device is a novel, powerful and also sustainable graphene hybrid material that has comparable performance data to currently utilized batteries. Usually, energy storage is associated with batteries and accumulators that provide energy for electronic devices. However, in laptops, cameras, cellphones or vehicles,…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a new family of cathodes with the potential to replace the costly cobalt-based cathodes typically found in today’s lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and consumer electronics. The new class called NFA, which stands for nickel-, iron- and aluminum-based cathode, is a derivative of lithium nickelate and can be used to make the positive electrode of a lithium-ion battery. These novel cathodes are designed to be fast charging, energy dense, cost effective, and…
Research team develops new material system to convert and generate terahertz waves. On the electromagnetic spectrum, terahertz light is located between infrared radiation and microwaves. It holds enormous potential for tomorrow’s technologies: Among other things, it might succeed 5G by enabling extremely fast mobile communications connections and wireless networks. The bottleneck in the transition from gigahertz to terahertz frequencies has been caused by insufficiently efficient sources and converters. A German-Spanish research team with the participation of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR)…
By using small networks of Rössler systems, a locomotion controller enables a brain-machine interface for a six-legged antlike robot. Researchers in Japan and Italy are embracing chaos and nonlinear physics to create insectlike gaits for tiny robots — complete with a locomotion controller to provide a brain-machine interface. Biology and physics are permeated by universal phenomena fundamentally grounded in nonlinear physics, and it inspired the researchers’ work. In the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing, the group describes using the Rössler…
Electronics are increasingly being paired with optical systems, such as when accessing the internet on an electronically run computer through fiber optic cables. But meshing optics — which relies on particles of light called photons–with electronics–relying on electrons — is challenging, due to their disparate scales. Electrons work at a much smaller scale than light does. The mismatch between electronic systems and optical systems means that every time a signal converts from one to the other, inefficiency creeps into the…
Complete removal of microbial contaminant layer accumulated on the membrane surface by sunlight irradiation. Providing a foundation for the development of new membrane materials on the convergence between water treatment and photocatalyst technologies. Membrane technology is widely used in various water treatment processes such as water desalination, sewage treatment, and advanced water treatment for producing clean tap water. The membrane filtration technology is a method that can significantly improve water quality and has been suggested as an alternative that can…
The SABATLE project coordinated by TU Graz focuses on the sustainability and safety of redox flow technologies, which are of immanent importance for the stabilization of the power grid. The increasing use of battery technologies in the mobility sector and in stationary applications has been leading to increasing efforts in battery research of operational safety and battery recycling. The group led by Stefan Spirk at the Institute of Bioproducts and Paper Technology at TU Graz is now also devoting itself…
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have found that graphene-based heat pipes can help solve the problems of cooling electronics and power systems used in avionics, data centres, and other power electronics. “Heat pipes are one of the most efficient tools for this purpose, because of their high efficiency and unique ability to transfer heat over a large distance,” says Johan Liu, Professor of Electronics Production, at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers. The results, which also…
A new polymer-based, solid-state transistor can more sensitively detect a weed killer in drinking water than existing hydrogel-based fluorescence sensor chips. The details were published in Chemistry-A European Journal. The sensor is a specially designed organic thin-film transistor based on semiconducting molecules of carboxylate-functionalized polythiophene (P3CPT). What’s special about this particular device is that, unlike other conjugated polymer-based sensors, this one is a solid-state device that can conduct an electric current when placed inside a fluid. The device, designed by…
For use as an at-home IoT biosensor. Associate Professor Kazuhiro Takahashi and Assistant Professor Yong-Joon Choi of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology have developed a chip that can sense antigens at one part per quadrillion molar mass. The chip was created using semiconductor micromachining technology. Antigens derived from diseases and present in blood and saliva were adhered onto the surface of a flexibly deformable nanosheet. The amount of force generated during the…
Battery in Focus They are about the size of a shoebox, high-tech, and soon tens of thousands of them will be orbiting the earth – so called nano-satellites. They can, for example, take high-resolution photos of our planet, or reinforce telecommunications networks. However, these actions take energy and this resource is scarce in the compact high-tech devices. Computer scientists at Saarland University now show how the energy consumption of satellites can be planned in such a way that they always…
The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Dresden is part of the initiative “HySpeedInnovation”, which brings together a number of leading organisations in research and technology (RTOs) that offer pro-posals to speed up the development of water electrolysis as a green energy technology. Green hydrogen produced by electrolysis using renewable sources such as the sun and the wind plays a crucial role in the energy transition. But much remains to be done to produce this clean…
European project “Spartacus” launched Faster charging, longer stability of performance not only for electric vehicles but also for smartphones and other battery powered products. What still sounds like science fiction today might be feasible in the future, not least thanks to innovations the recently started “Spartacus” research project wants to achieve. By utilizing advanced sensors and cell management systems, “Spartacus” aims to reduce charging times by up to 20 percent without compromising the reliability and service life of batteries. The…
What if we didn’t have skin? We would have no sense of touch, no detection of coldness or pain, leaving us inept to respond to any situation. The skin is not just a protective shell for organs, but rather a signaling system for survival that provides information on the external stimuli or temperature, or a meteorological observatory that reports the weather. Tactile receptors, tightly packed throughout the skin, feel the temperature or mechanical stimuli – such as touching or pinching…
The demand for lithium is rapidly growing, but Europe’s conventional resources are limited. Connecting European circular economy to global networks, the EIT RawMaterials Innovation Community and leading European research institutions initiated the European Lithium Institute eLi. The virtual institute will gather relevant stakeholders along the whole lithium battery value chain to generate focused international cooperation. eLi started its operational work and welcomes industrial actors as partners and members as well. European energy transition and electric mobility transition leads to a…
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