carbon nanotube Archives – The Green Optimistic

Carbon Nanotubes-Based EV Batteries Don’t Heat Up, Last Longer

Annika Tostengard — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 18:13:52 +0000

Researchers in Germany have found a way to use carbon nanotubes to heat cars in cold weather, meaning that electric vehicle batteries won’t be responsible for providing that extra energy. That means more miles driven before charging and since the nanotubes can change temperature immediately, drivers won’t need to wait for their cars to heat up […]

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Flexible Supercapacitor Could be Woven into Cloth

Benji Jerew — Wed, 14 May 2014 15:32:40 +0000

Researchers collaborating between Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, Tsinghua University (TUC), China, and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), US, believe they have developed the highest-capacity carbon-based supercapacitor to date, and it’s thin enough to use as thread. Because capacitors can be cycled thousands of times without degrading, supercapacitors could be the next step in practically […]

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New Carbon Nanotube-Based Thermoelectric Material Could Be a Game Changer

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:29:43 +0000

A new thermoelectric material has been invented at the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at wake Forest University. It’s been called Power Felt, and its creators hope that one day it will revolutionize the way we power small appliances and devices like cell phones by using temperature differences. Power Felt is made from carbon nanotubes […]

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MIT Researchers Increase Ultracapacitor Performance by 45 Percent

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:55:41 +0000

Yi Cui and Zhenan Bao from the University of Stanford have developed an electrode manufacturing technique that could improve the capacity of ultra-capacitors by 20 to 45 percent and make them compete with much more expensive batteries currently used in electric cars. The two researchers and the team they led used managanese oxide electrodes (MnO), […]

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Transparent Solar Cells Made Cheap, Efficient and Flexible With Carbon Nanotubes

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:54:37 +0000

A new discovery coming the Northwestern University could make solar cells embeddable in clothes and various fabrics. It involves changing tin, an important element of solar cells, with carbon nanotubes, considered more flexible and efficient. For a solar cell to be transparent and still function, it has to have several layers, of which a transparent […]

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MIT Engineered Virus Could Make Solar Cells More Efficient

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:52:42 +0000

Viruses are mostly seen as the bad side of nature, the fallen creation or just that unwanted flu during those sunny days when you were supposed to go play outside. For Angela Belcher viruses are working tools, since she and her MIT colleagues have just found a way to guide some of them so they make solar cells more efficient, by as much as a third.

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Blend Aluminum Nanoparticles and Biodiesel to Get Fewer Emissions, Study Says

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:38:40 +0000

A study performed at the National Institute of Technology in Tiruchirappalli, India has revealed that aluminum nanoparticles inserted in biofuels could enhance their burning properties. That would drastically reduce the emissions of nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide, also creating less smoke.

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Solar Cells Featuring Carbon Nanotube Antennas Concentrate Light 100 Times

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:27:05 +0000

These days, MIT chemical engineers have come up with a new approach to concentrate solar power by 100 times without needing any lenses, mirrors or anything else than the solar cell itself.

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Nanotube-Based Water Purifier From Stanford Filters Water Quicker, Kills Bacteria

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:24:35 +0000

Dangerous bacteria can often hide in the water you drink, but they're not harmful until they reach a certain number to become active inside your body. Regular water purifying technologies consume a lot of power, but a team of Stanford researchers have developed a new low-cost, high-speed filter that works differently than other purifiers.

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Thermopower Waves: MIT's Invention That Could Change Batteries and Devices Forever

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:10:02 +0000

Thermopower waves are a phenomenon that happens when powerful waves of energy shoot through carbon nanotube wires, creating electricity. The researchers from MIT are responsible for this discovery, thus opening a new area of rare energy research.

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Nanotube Ink-Treated Office Paper Could Make Batteries More Potent

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:47:23 +0000

Yi Cui, a researcher from Stanford and his team have succeeded making office paper into an electrode by dipping it into nanotube ink. The resulted dipped paper becomes a strong, flexible and highly conductive material that could be incorporated into lightweight batteries or serving as an electrode in high-energy ultracapacitors. The nanotube-treated paper can store much more energy than classic batteries.

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

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:29:28 +0000

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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Imperfecting Carbon Nanotubes Makes Them Very Good Fast-Charging Batteries

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:30:15 +0000

Prabhakar Bandaru, a professor in the UCSD Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, along with graduate student Mark Hoefer, have discovered that artificially introducing defects in carbon nanotubes would increase their energy storage capacity.

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Nanotube-Based Solar Powered Boat Built by Berkeley Researchers

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:36:29 +0000

There have already been successful experiments involving solar powered boats, and there have already been people sailing them in the last ten years. Still, all of them have something in common: they use photovoltaic cells as an intermediate between the sunlight the mechanical work.

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Avalanche Process Doubles the Current Carried by Carbon Nanotubes

Cristi — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:35:19 +0000

Researchers from the University of Illinois have experimented with carbon nanotubes by pushing them close to their breaking point. They saw a huge increase in the current-carrying capacity of the nanotubes, considerably more than what was previously thought possible.

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Carbon Film Nanotubes to Be Used in Storing High Amount of Charge

Cristi — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:43:39 +0000

Films of carbon nanotubes could be used to store lithium or liquid electrolytes in future battery electrodes. The capacitance of the films is one of the highest ever measured for carbon nanotubes.

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Graphene-Based Hydrogen Storage Tanks Open New Limits

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:35:05 +0000

Not only US and Japan can take initiatives in this area, and here's the proof: a couple of researchers from Greece designed a material that almost meets the 2010 standards set by the US Department of Energy (DOE) for hydrogen storage, in terms of weight/pressure supported.

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