Composite Nanomaterial Could Transform The Car’s Body Into a Battery

Composite Nanomaterial Could Transform The Car's Body Into a Battery

The interesting fact is that the material resembles a fabric, and can be shaped into different objects, so maybe in the future mobile phone users won’t have to have a battery in their cellphone, just because its case will do the job.

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Salicornia Biofuel for Jet Engines Could Compete With Petrol Fuels and Emit Zero CO2

Salicornia Biofuel for Jet Engines Could Compete With Petrol Fuels and Emit Zero CO2

Salicornia is an alga that grows in salty waters and whose seeds can produce biofuels abundantly. Masdar Institute researchers, along with several companies like Boeing, Etihad Airways, and UOP Honeywell devised a method of growing salicornia for getting biofuels out of it and keeping the CO2 balance in proper equilibrium.

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EMC Launches Affordable Electric Vehicle Based on Dacia Logan

EMC Launches Affordable Electric Vehicle Based on Dacia Logan

The world’s first electric Pick-up, EMC (Electric Motor Cars), built on a Dacia Logan platform, brought to the U.S. by Envision Motor Co., has been presented by Des Moines Motors, an ex-Chrysler dealer.

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Self-Powered Solar Circuit Could Help Computing Become Greener and Faster

Self-Powered Solar Circuit Could Help Computing Become Greener and Faster

A team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have developed the world’s first circuit powered by solar energy that can power itself, as long as it’s left in a beam of sunshine. It could eventually power a new line of consumer devices or even model the human brain.

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Japanese Thermoelectric Modules Aim Reaching Record of 11% Efficiency

Japanese Thermoelectric Modules Aim Reaching Record of 11% Efficiency

A new test will be performed by Showa Denko on Feb. 15, 2010. The thermoelectric device is designed to be attached to the exhaust pipe of a car and supply electricity to the car’s air conditioner, thus improving the fuel mileage.

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Astounding Discovery: Marine Algae Using Quantum Mechanics Principles for Light Harvesting

Astounding Discovery: Marine Algae Using Quantum Mechanics Principles for Light Harvesting

Professor Greg Scholes, the lead author of the study published recently in Nature, says: “There’s been a lot of excitement and speculation that nature may be using quantum mechanical practices. Our latest experiments show that normally functioning biological systems have the capacity to use quantum mechanics in order to optimize a process as essential to their survival as photosynthesis.”

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Sixtron’s Antireflective Coatings Solve Safety and Efficiency Issues in Solar Cell Technology

Sixtron's Antireflective Coatings Solve Safety and Efficiency Issues in Solar Cell Technology

Up to now, the most used antireflective coating method has been the vapor deposition of a silicon nitride film by using a highly-flamable silane gas, which can ignite when exposed to air. Transporting, storing, ventilating silane gas and other safety-keeping operation make the process very expensive.

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Electric Field Induced Hydrogen Storage: A New Step Forward

Electric Field Induced Hydrogen Storage: A New Step Forward

Scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University, Peking University in Beijing and the Chinese Academy of Science in Shanghai made a discovery that could help other researchers build hydrogen containers that could make the gas compete with petrol-based fuels in terms of energy density and availability.

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Newly Discovered TiO2-Coated Nanotubes Could Build Better Li-Ion Battery Electrodes

Newly Discovered TiO2-Coated Nanotubes Could Build Better Li-Ion Battery Electrodes

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) by itself makes up a very low performance electrode, because the electrons move very slowly through it (can take years until you could fill a millimiter-thick TiO2 piece). When you reduce its thickness, though, TiO2 acts like a very good electrode.

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Levitating Magnet: MIT’s New Approach to Nuclear Fusion

Levitating Magnet: MIT's New Approach to Nuclear Fusion

University of Columbia researchers, along with their colleagues from MIT, have some results in reproducing the Earth’s magnetic fields for developing nuclear power plants based on nuclear fusion – the ultimate dream of scientists that uses the same principle that the Sun operates on.

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SOccket – A Soccer Ball That Generates and Stores Renewable Energy

SOccket - A Soccer Ball That Generates and Stores Renewable Energy

A group of students at the Harvard University have come up with an ingenious idea that could change the lives of African people. They have developed an energy harvesting soccer ball called sOccket that is able to produce electric energy when being kicked around.

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Ene Pocket: A Radio-Controlled Toy Car Fueled by Sugar

Ene Pocket: A Radio-Controlled Toy Car Fueled by Sugar

Takara Tomy is a Japanese toy maker that recently developed a radio-controlled toy car called “Ene Pocket”. The thing is equipped with a Sony bio-battery fueled by sugars like those in sodas and fruit drinks.

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New Piezoelectric Flexible Nanoribbons Prove 80% Efficient Conversion

New Piezoelectric Flexible Nanoribbons Prove 80% Efficient Conversion

Pacemaker owners all over the world and other people in need of a reliable, small current source will surely be glad when they’ll hear that Princeton University scientists have developed an ultra-efficient (80%) piezoelectric system, able to transform mechanical work into electricity.

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USAF Solar Project to Generate up to 500MW of Green Electricity

USAF Solar Project to Generate up to 500MW of Green Electricity

The partnership that took place a few days ago between United States Air Force and Fotowatio Renewable Ventures of San Francisco could lead to the construction of United State’s largest solar project that will be able to produce 500MW of green electricity.

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Highly Mismatched Alloys – Solution for Really Efficient Thermoelectrics

Highly Mismatched Alloys - Solution for Really Efficient Thermoelectrics

Thermoelectric devices convert heat into electricity, and are of great use in recovering wasted heat from thermal engines and transforming it into electricity, thus increasing the engine’s overall efficiency, mostly when used in hybrid cars, who have high capacity onboard batteries.

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Algae Biofuel Production Emits More CO2 Than Algae Absorb, Says Study

Algae Biofuel Production Emits More CO2 Than Algae Absorb, Says Study

Biofuels do their job as a carbon-saver only if they swallow more carbon than they emit. Choosing biofuels with a positive carbon output looks to me like wasted money.

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Scientists Hack Tobacco Plants to Grow Synthetic Photovoltaic Cells

Scientists Hack Tobacco Plants to Grow Synthetic Photovoltaic Cells

A group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a way to produce artificial photovoltaic and photochemical cells by infecting the tobacco plants with a genetically engineered virus. Unlike traditional methods of making solar cells, this new technique is more environmentally friendly (because the cells are biodegradable) and cheap.

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Weidlinger’s Hybrid Roof Solar Panels Delivering Both Electricity and Heat

Weidlinger's Hybrid Roof Solar Panels Delivering Both Electricity and Heat

Usually, heat and light cannot be separated, because heat is a also a form of energy that we can’t ignore. Weidlinger Associates, a NY-based company, received a $150,000 grant this week to develop better, more durable hybrid solar roof panels.

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Lowering Antarctic Ozone Layer Hole Could Increase Melting of Glaciers

Lowering Antarctic Ozone Layer Hole Could Increase Melting of Glaciers

The much-feared ozone layer hole over the Antarctic is slowly but steadily closing, but scientists realized that while it had been open, it kept the carbon-induced heat from melting the Antarctic glaciers.

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A New $6 Billion Renewable Power Plant Complex Built by Samsung and Kepco

A New $6 Billion Renewable Power Plant Complex Built by Samsung and Kepco

Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) and Samsung C&T have signed a contract to build a new $6 billion renewable power plant complex in a small village near Toronto in southern Ontario.

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