The new hybrid sol-gel material provides an electrical energy storage capacity rivaling some batteries.
Image: John Toon/Georgia Tech

The future of electric vehicle and defibrillator technologies depend largely on new, innovative energy storage research and improving device power densities. With the high demand for more powerful, efficient energy devices, the researchers from Georgia Tech believe they may have developed what could be the answer to powering large-scale devices.

The team has developed a new capacitor dielectric material. This capacitor—developed from a hybrid silica sol-gel material and self-assembled monolayers of common fatty acid—has the potential to surpass some of today’s conventional batteries in the field of energy and power density.

If the researchers can scale up their current laboratory sample, the new capacitors will be able to provide large amounts of current quickly to large-scale applications.

This from Georgia Tech:

The new material is composed of a silica sol-gel thin film containing polar groups linked to the silicon atoms and a nanoscale self-assembled monolayer of an octylphosphonic acid, which provides insulating properties. The bilayer structure blocks the injection of electrons into the sol-gel material, providing low leakage current, high breakdown strength and high energy extraction efficiency.

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The high-speed hydrogen fuel cell ferry boat is set to hit the waters of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Image: Green Car Reports

Diesel burning vehicles in the U.S. alone emit pollutants that lead to 21,000 premature deaths each year and act as one of the largest drivers of climate change. The traditional ferry typically burns around one million liters of diesel fuel each year—producing 570 tons of carbon dioxide. In order to help combat this issue, Sandia National Laboratories and the Red and White Fleet ferry company are joining forces to create the first hydrogen fuel cell ferry boat to hit the waters of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Currently in the early stages of development, the boat is set to be named SF BREEZE—an acronym for “San Francisco Bay Renewable Energy Electric vessel with Zero Emissions.” As far as consumption goes, the researchers believe it will take about 1,000 kilograms (2,204 pounds) of hydrogen per day to power the ship.

ICYMI: Listen to Subhash Singhal, a world-leader in the study of fuel cells, talk about the future of energy and climate change.

To satisfy this demand, the construction of the world’s largest hydrogen fueling station will begin off shore and will have the ability to service both sea and land vehicles.

But this isn’t Siemens first take on zero emission ferries. Earlier this year, the lab developed the technology for the world’s first electrically-powered ferry in Norway. This ship has already hit the water successfully, causing no carbon dioxide emissions.

PS: We’re currently accepting abstracts for the 229th ECS Meeting in San Diego! Submit today!

It’s all about repurposing. At least, that looks to be the case for Japan’s energy grid.

Beth Schademann, ECS’s Publications Specialist, recently came across a Business Insider article detailing Japan’s initiative to turn abandoned golf courses into solar power plants.

Japan’s Kyocera Corporation is taking the unused green space and making clean, renewable solar farms. They’re starting off big with a 23 megawatt solar plant that will produce enough energy to power around 8,100 households.

And they’re not stopping there. After their first project goes live in 2017, the company will go full force into their 92 megawatt solar plant project that is expected to power over 30,000 households.

Japan’s abandoned golf courses are prime real estate for solar farms, and there’s no shortage of potential here.

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The development of ultralight, ultrathin solar cells is on the horizon due to a new semiconductor call phosphorene.

A team of researchers from Australian National University have developed an atom-thick layer of black phosphorus crystals through a process that utilizes sticky tape.

“Because phosphorene is so thin and light, it creates possibilities for making lots of interesting devices, such as LEDs or solar cells,” said lead researcher Dr. Yuerui (Larry) Lu.

The fabrication of this phosphorene is similar to that of graphene, bringing the new material to a thickness of just 0.5 nanometers. With phosphorene’s novel properties, doors are opening for a new generation of solar cells and LEDs.

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Lithium-air batteries are—in theory—an extremely attractive alternative for affordable, efficient energy storage for electric vehicles. However, as researchers explore this technology, they are met with many critical challenges. If researchers can overcome these challenges, there is a great likelihood that the lithium-air battery will surpass the energy density of today’s lithium-ion battery.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California, Berkley feel like they may have part of the answer to this critical challenge, which could propel the practicality of the lithium-air battery. The team, which included researchers from Bryan McCloskey and Venkat Viswanathan‘s laboratories, has found a way to both increase the capacity while preserving the recharge ability of the lithium-air battery by blending different types within the battery’s electrolytes.

“The electrolytes used in batteries are just like Gatorade electrolytes,” says Venkat Viswanathan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon. “Every electrolyte has a solvent and a salt. So if you take Gatorade, the solvent would be water and the salt would be something like sodium chloride, for instance. However, in a lithium air battery, the solvent is dimethoxyethane and the salt is something like lithium hexafluorophosphate.”

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There is currently a strong incentive among the scientific community to research clean, renewable energy sources to address challenges in sustainable global development. Through solar fuels, scientists can convert solar energy to chemical energy stored in chemical fuels such as clean-burning hydrogen.

Solar fuels started to really accelerate in 1972 when Akira Fujishima and Kenichi Honda developed a titanium dioxide-based photoelectrochemical cell to split water to generate hydrogen.

Now, researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology have discovered a new way to improve upon this process through the novel way of processing the material gallium phosphide (GaP).

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Labs and manufacturers across the globe are pushing forward in an effort to develop a completely clean hydrogen-powered car. Whether it’s through the plotting of more fueling stations or new vehicle prototypes, many manufactures are hoping to bring this concept into reality soon.

However, there is still one very important aspect missing – the science and technology to produce the best and most efficient hydrogen fuel cell.

In ACS Central Science, two teams have independently reported developments in this field that may be able to get us one step closer to a practical hydrogen-powered car.

ICYMI: Listen to our podcast with Subhash C. Singhal, a world-leader in fuel cell research.

The catalysts currently used to produce the proper chemical reaction for hydrogen and oxygen to create energy is currently too expensive or just demands too much energy to be efficient. For this reason, these two teams – led by Yi Cui at Sanford University, and combining the scientific prowess of James Gerken and Shannon Stahl at the University of Wisconsin, Madison – are seeking a new material that could cause the same reaction at a lower price point and higher efficiency.

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Potential technical applications of printable functional inks.

The videos and information in this post relate to an ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology focus issue called: Printable Functional Materials for Electronics and Energy Applications.

(Read/download the focus issue now. It’s entirely free.)

Printing technologies in an atmospheric environment offer the potential for low-cost and materials-efficient alternatives for manufacturing electronics and energy devices such as luminescent displays, thin-film transistors, sensors, thin-film photovoltaics, fuel cells, capacitors, and batteries. Significant progress has been made in the area of printable functional organic and inorganic materials including conductors, semiconductors, and dielectric and luminescent materials.

These new printable functional materials have and will continue to enable exciting advances in printed electronics and energy devices. Some examples are printed amorphous oxide semiconductors, organic conductors and semiconductors, inorganic semiconductor nanomaterials, silicon, chalcogenide semiconductors, ceramics, metals, intercalation compounds, and carbon-based materials.

A special focus issue of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology was created about the publication of state-of-the-art efforts that address a variety of approaches to printable functional materials and device. This focus issue, consisting of a total of 15 papers, includes both invited and contributed papers reflecting recent achievements in printable functional materials and devices.

The topics of these papers span several key ECS technical areas, including batteries, sensors, fuel cells, carbon nanostructures and devices, electronic and photonic devices, and display materials, devices, and processing. The overall collection of this focus issue covers an impressive scope from fundamental science and engineering of printing process, ink chemistry and ink conversion processes, printed devices, and characterizations to the future outlook for printable functional materials and devices.

The video below demonstrates Printed Metal Oxide Thin-Film Transistors by J. Gorecki, K. Eyerly, C.-H. Choi, and C.-H. Chang, School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University.

Step-by-step explanation of the video:

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Researchers believe that as work continues in relation to this study, battery technology will accelerate forward.
Image: Stony Brook University

A collaborative group of six researchers from Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory are using pioneering x-ray techniques to build a better and more efficient battery.

The researchers—four of whom are active ECS members, including Esther Takeuchi, Kenneth Takeuchi, Amy Marschilok, and Kevin Kirshenbaum—have recently published their internal mapping of atomic transformations of the highly conductive silver matrix formation within lithium-based batteries in the journal Science.

(PS: You can find more of these scientists’ cutting-edge research by attending the 228th ECS Meeting in Phoenix, where they will be giving presentations. Also, Esther Takeuchi will be giving a talk at this years Electrochemical Energy Summit.)

This from Stony Brook University:

In a promising lithium-based battery, the formation of a silver matrix transforms a material otherwise plagued by low conductivity. To optimize these multi-metallic batteries—and enhance the flow of electricity—scientists need a way to see where, when, and how these silver, nanoscale “bridges” emerge. In the research paper, the Stony Brook and Brookhaven Lab team successfully mapped this changing atomic architecture and revealed its link to the battery’s rate of discharge. The study shows that a slow discharge rate early in the battery’s life creates a more uniform and expansive conductive network, suggesting new design approaches and optimization techniques.

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The United States has focused the majority of its solar energy efforts on solar and wind power for the grid. For the first time ever, wave power is being utilized in the U.S. to power homes off the coast of Hawaii.

Waves are being turned into electricity through the Azura prototype, which captures the complex motion of waves to more efficiently capture wave movement for better electricity generation.

The device, which was deployed last month, will be monitored for one year to measure effectiveness and efficiency. If all goes as well as researchers predict, a larger version will hit the seas in 2017.

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