Kylie Catchpole (image), from the Australian National University in Canberra, working to make thin film solar cells more efficient, discovered that nanoparticles of silver deposited on the surface of a thin-film solar cell would not reflect the incident light back, but instead it would deflect the photons so they bounce back and forth withing the cell, allowing longer wavelengths to be absorbed.
Until now, graphene could have theoretically been incorporated into the dye used to make the Graetzel cell to improve its efficiency, but what stopped the scientists to do that was that it always clumped together, forming graphite, which is of no use for a solar cell.
The microbial fuel cell is meant to use naturally occurring fuels and oxidants in the sea to power ships, replacing batteries and fossil fuels.
While pointless as a way to really change something in the course of pollution reduction, a Danish hotel found a way to both motivate their customers to go green by pedaling and give them a free $36 meal voucher.
Any resemblance between the machinery on the right and the puffin on the left? None? Well, there may be some resemblance, considering their sizes - almost anybody wouldn't see them flying... but they do.
To greenify their car-supported existence, Nissan has taken the decision to recycle all the old batteries from electric cars by giving them to wind farm developers - of course, at a low price.
Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found a way to use a ceramic material made from bismuth, iron and oxygen (bismuth ferrite) to fabricate solar cells in a fashion that nobody ever tried to do. They even have results yielding high voltages out of their material.
Their system consisted of a lens, a dichroic mirror, and two two-cell stacks sponsored by the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), achieving probably "the highest efficiency yet measured for the experimental conversion of sunlight to electricity by any means."
The contraption has been found in the UK, somewhere in Surrey, by antiques dealer Fred Nickson (owning Chiltern Antiques in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire), who bought it from a distant relative of the builder, who is still unknown.
Cement is made by heating limestone with clay at high temperatures, and is responsible for 5 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions, with a ton of CO2 released for every ton of cement produced. To reduce that figure, a team of researchers from the University of Dundee in UK, developed an environmentally-friendly cement made of waste organic materials, such as rice husks.
