Oct
31
Tri-Alpha Energy Comes Out With Boron Fuel News
October 31, 2012 | 2 Comments
Tri-Alpha Energy has allowed a bit of its research out into the world with a 79 page pdf document rich in background, results of the efforts early research, and a surprise about how the potential fuel, Boron (pB11) would react in a fusion reaction. Hat tip to Brian Wang’s Next Big Future. Tri-Alpha’s position is, [...]
Oct
30
The Lithium Ion Battery May Be Having a Revolution
October 30, 2012 | 2 Comments
California Lithium Battery (CLB), a finalist in Department of Energy’s 2012 Start Up America’s Next Top Energy Innovator challenge, has announced the record-setting performance of its new lithium ion battery anode. Called the “GEN3” the anode is a silicon graphene composite material engineered with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) over the past eight months. Independent test [...]
Oct
29
Experiment Shows How Heat Moves
October 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment
A research team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has developed a novel system showing heat move by examining and measuring nanoscale thermal conductance at the interface between two materials. The UIUC team’s system starts with a substrate base of quartz crystal, upon which the researchers place molecular chains that are 12 carbon [...]
Oct
26
Recycling Magnets for the Rare Earth Elements
October 26, 2012 | 2 Comments
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory is working to more effectively remove the neodymium, a rare earth element, from the mix of other materials in a magnet. The initial results show the recycled material maintains the properties that made rare-earth magnets useful in the first use. The potential is important because rare earth prices [...]
Oct
25
The First Wood Refinery Goes to Pilot Scale
October 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment
The Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes (CBP) has a very different take on using wood. Refine it into the main component parts similar to what is done with crude oil. Fraunhofer working jointly with 12 partners from industry and research institutions recently developed a process that enables them to use 80 to 90 percent of [...]
Oct
24
A Two Step Pyrolysis For Making Fuels
October 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Iowa State University (ISU) engineers Song-Charng Kong, left, and Nicholas Creager are studying and refining a new bio-oil gasifier where heat and pressure vaporize bio-oil to produce a combination of (mostly) hydrogen and carbon monoxide that’s called synthesis gas. The new gasifier is a second step in a two-stage pyrolysis process. The ISU team starts [...]
Oct
23
A Startup To Convert Methane to Liquid Fuels
October 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment
The startup company Calysta Energy was formed in 2011 as a spinout of DNA2.0, the largest US-based provider of synthetic genes for industrial and academic customers. The new firm’s goal is for engineered organisms to use methane as a feedstock in producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels and high value chemicals that are cost-effective, scalable and reduce [...]
Oct
22
A Solar Cell Breakthrough
October 22, 2012 | 2 Comments
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has engineered silicon solar cells using a new nanotechnology technique for an efficiency of 18.2% by cutting light reflection of the silicon solar cell surface. The “best” and most efficient solar cells are still built from silicon. But the costs have just crushed the buying interest even in the [...]
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