Archive for category New Inventions

Hygroelectricity: A New Type Of Alternative Energy, Extracted From Air’s Electrical Charge

Posted by Ovidiu in Energy news, New Inventions on August 26, 2010

In their search of alternative energy resources, scientists have stopped at a phenomenon that, although known for ages, brought them surprises. They want to harvest electricity by profiting from the fact that air is loaded with electric charges, and work on a prototype for such a harvester.

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New Mitochondria Fuel Cells Could Generate Electricity From Sugar or Fats

Posted by Ovidiu in Experiments, New Inventions on August 25, 2010

Mitochondria, also called “the cells’ powerhouses”, may one day replace batteries as we know them. Scientists from the University of Missouri invented and developed a new fuel cell based on these also called “organelles” (the internal organs of cells). The fuel cell is able to feed on sugars and fats, just like mitochondria in the organisms do.

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Blest Can Turn World’s Scrap Plastic Into Usable Oil Having Lower CO2 Output

Posted by Ovidiu in New Inventions, Video on August 23, 2010

Plastics are made from gas, extracted from oil fields. Through a specific process, the gas is transformed into what we know as bottles, coffee cups and toys. The bad part is that each of them ends up in a landfill, eventually.

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Textiles That Generate Electricitiy Under Development at Southampton

Posted by Mike in New Inventions on August 23, 2010

A team of researchers at the University of Southampton are about to develop a new technology that may allow people to power mobile phones, MP3 players and other gadgets through their movement, without the need to change the batteries.

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Magic Sticker Makes Solar Cells Up to 12 Percent More Powerful

Posted by Ovidiu in New Inventions, Solar Power on August 14, 2010

Genie Lens Technologies has developed the easiest solution yet: a sticker that applied to the solar cell, will direct the incoming light onto the light-sensitive surface, greatly reducing reflections and improving the efficiency.

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Researchers Found An Enzyme That Could Get Gasoline From Thin Air

Posted by Mike in Experiments, New Inventions on August 8, 2010

“This organism is a very common soil bacteria that is very well understood and has been studied for a long time. But while we were studying it, we realized that the enzyme has some unusual behavior”, said Markus Ribbe, a scientist at the University of California.

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Solar Roadways Reinventing How We Build Our Paths That Charge Our Cars

Posted by Ovidiu in New Inventions, Solar Power on August 5, 2010

The world struggles to make a place for solar panels on the planet, and it looks like there’s not enough space for that. A team of visionaries have planned what they call the next big thing in alternative energy: solar powered roadways. Here’s a short introductory video about what these guys do with the $200 [...]

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Organic Photovoltaic Solar Cells: A New Graphene-Based, Flexible Kind of Cell

Posted by Ovidiu in New Inventions, Solar Power on July 26, 2010

A team of researchers from the University of Southern California has published a paper in the most recent journal ACS Nano, revealing a new approach to solar cells. Specifically, they combined graphene, one of the most recent and studied materials discovered, and organic (Graetzel) solar cells. Their project has produced organic photovoltaic cells (OPV).

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Bumpy Nanoparticle Treatment of Solar Cells Making Them More Efficient

Posted by Ovidiu in New Inventions, Solar Power on July 26, 2010

Yi Cui, a researcher from Stanford University, about whom we’ve been talking about many times lately, has discovered how nanoscale wires, pores, bumps and other material textures can improve the performance of solar cells dramatically. They could even serve as self-cleaning coatings, because of their highly hydrophobic properties.

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Sewage Power Plants Could Produce 20 Times More Electricity Thanks to New Discovery

Posted by Ovidiu in New Inventions on July 22, 2010

Sewage treatment plants represent an interesting source of electricity. Oregon State University (OSU) have studied and developed a new type of coating that, if applied on the positive electrodes of microbial electrochemical cells used in such plants would raise the electricity production by about 20 times.

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