Jan

31

A Cheaper Super Thin Solar Cell

January 31, 2013 | 1 Comment

Erik Marstein, head of the Norwegian Research Center for Solar Cell Technology, head of Research for the solar cell unit at the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) at Kjeller outside of Oslo, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Oslo (UiO) with Professor Aasmund Sudbø in the Department of [...]

Jan

30

Next – Bugs That Eat Electricity and Make Fuel

January 30, 2013 | 1 Comment

University of Minnesota scientists have developed a way to grow iron-oxidizing bacteria using electricity instead of iron.  The new development opens the possibility for further study that could lead to developing organisms that could one day be used to turn electricity into fuel.  All civilization would need then is an abundance of electrical generating capacity. [...]

Jan

29

Natural Geometry Makes More Efficient Solar Cells

January 29, 2013 | Leave a Comment

Researchers at Northwestern University’s McCormick Department of Mechanical Engineering have developed a new design for organic solar cells that could lead to more efficient, less expensive solar power.  The battle on production expense for silicon cells has an estimated 10 times cost disadvantage to coal, transmission and distribution costs.  So it’s a long climb.  Organic [...]

Jan

28

A New Path to Silicon Production

January 28, 2013 | 2 Comments

A new way of making crystalline silicon could make the crucial ingredient of computers and solar cells much cheaper and greener.  It may also be useful in the topic of the post January 23rd, Nano Silicon Powder Produces Hydrogen Without Energy. Silicon dioxide, that we see as typical sand, makes up about 40 percent of [...]

Jan

25

Lithium Ion Batteries and Aviation Hit A Rough Spot

January 25, 2013 | 4 Comments

No Boeing 787 Dreamliners have crashed or burned to the ground, but lithium ion technology is back in the news with a vengeance.  The lithium ion batteries that are used in the Boeing 787 are not good enough – they have runaway overheating and discharge smoke and fumes.  In flight this would be very alarming [...]

Jan

24

The Four Motor Electric Car Experiment

January 24, 2013 | Leave a Comment

Junmin Wang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and Director of the Vehicle Systems and Control Laboratory at Ohio State leads a team of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral students as well as a few local high school students to make a whole traction and motion control system energy-efficient and fault-tolerant, so if one wheel, motor or [...]

Jan

23

Nano Silicon Powder Produces Hydrogen Without Energy

January 23, 2013 | 4 Comments

Experiments by researchers at the University at Buffalo (UB) found using nano-sized particles of silicon to react with water produces hydrogen almost instantaneously. In a series of experiments, the scientists created spherical silicon particles about 10 nanometers in diameter. When combined with water, these particles reacted to form silicic acid (a nontoxic byproduct) and hydrogen [...]

Jan

22

A Look At Marginal Lands For Biofuel Production

January 22, 2013 | 1 Comment

A team of researchers led by Michigan State University (MSU) is showing how marginal lands represent a huge untapped resource to grow mixed species cellulosic biomass, plants grown specifically for fuel production, which could annually produce up to 5.5 billion gallons of ethanol in the Midwest alone. The research paper has been published in Nature, [...]

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