Home 2009
Yearly Archives: 2009
Hydraulic Regenerative Braking Saving 52.7% Fuel in BMW 530i
Who said a car has to be electric to be called a "hybrid"? Artemis Intelligent Power has converted a BMW 530i to mechanically capture the energy resulted from braking (aka "regenerative braking"), and use it in an electrically-hybridized car fashion.
Small Methanol Fuel Cells Powering Soldiers’ Equipment
Germans have introduced this week a wearable fuel cell which is based on the award-winning unipolar stack technology design. Called Jenny 600S, the fuel cell delivers 25W for up to 20h. Jenny 600S uses replaceable liquid methanol fuel cartridges and can be worn in a vest.
IBM Helping Denmark Develop Country-Wide Electric Car Network
I was saying the other year that Denmark is powered mostly by its wind farms, and that the energy generated by these wind farms is in excess. They want to build an electric car network that would operate across the country and that would use the excess energy and transport it to propel people from here to there, cheaply and in an environmentally friendly fashion.
Flat Solar Concentrator: Cheap, Durable, 30% Efficient
Nicolas Morgan, the director of a Toronto-based firm, named "Morgan Solar", helped by his brother, John Paul Morgan, has invented a solar concentrator that gives a different approach to solar concentrators, by making them more appealing both as price and as durability/efficiency.
New Metal-Organic Substance Giving Better Hydrogen Tanks
UK researchers from the University of Nottingham and General Motors from Warren, Michigan, have invented a hydrogen tank material that could replace the current heavy and inefficient pressurized tubes used in today's hydrogen-powered cars.
Cheaper Hydrogen Obtained with Stainless-Steel Brush Cathode
Scientists seem to have found a way to obtain hydrogen from organic matter without the us of the expensive platinum metal. They developed a stainless-steel brush that can help in the microbial electrolysis process reducing the costs in this way up to 80 %.
Chery S18: High-Range Chinese Electric Car
The car is called S18 (Chinese people like coding the names, like they did to the BYD F3DM electric car), and, if the promises are kept until the launch, its price will be reasonable and the performance will also be suited for a family car.
Genepax (Japanese Water Car Company) Shut to Silence
In June last year, everyone may have heard the buzz about a japanese water car. The buzz was about Genepax, a company from Japan who had claimed that they invented a revolutionary system that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and then uses a fuel cell to recombine it and generate electricity. That electricity would have driven a car, fact that they demonstrated in front of the press at that time.
Knut Karlsen`s Self-Rechargeable Solar Batteries
I have always liked the idea of rechargeable batteries, because they only cost a fraction of what they're worth as normal batteries, but now I see a different innovation that I had never thought of, even it was obvious: putting solar cells onto the rechargeable battery, and having it charged for free, and most importantly, anywhere!
Iron Pyrite Used for Cheaper Solar Panels
Many of today's solar panels use silicon for transforming solar energy into electrical energy. But this is not only quite expensive, but also can be in shortage.
The study the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has performed and recently published tells us that there are many cheaper and abundant alternatives to silicon. One of them is iron pyrite, a quite common resource.
