A newly created material may have the capacity to double the efficiency of solar cells.

Conventional solar cells are at most one-third efficient, a limit known to scientists as the Shockley-Queisser Limit. The new material, a crystalline structure that contains both inorganic materials (iodine and lead) and an organic material (methyl-ammonium), boosts the efficiency so that it can carry two-thirds of the energy from light without losing as much energy to heat.

In less technical terms, this material could double the amount of electricity produced without a significant cost increase, according to the new study in Science.

Enough solar energy reaches the earth to supply all of the planet’s energy needs multiple times over, but capturing that energy has been difficult—as of 2013, only about 1 percent of the world’s grid electricity was produced from solar panels.

The new material, called a hybrid perovskite, would create solar cells thinner than conventional silicon solar cells, and is also flexible, cheap, and easy to make, says Libai Huang, assistant professor of chemistry at Purdue University.

(more…)

A new mathematical model may help researchers design new materials for use in high-power batteries. According to the research team, the model could benefit chemists and materials scientists who typically rely on a trial and error method when developing new materials for batteries and capacitors.

“The potential here is that you could build batteries that last much longer and make them much smaller,” says Daniel Tartakovsky, co-author of the study. “If you could engineer a material with a far superior storage capacity than what we have today, then you could dramatically improve the performance of batteries.”

Demand for affordable, efficient energy storage continues to increase as more entities transition toward renewable energy. While there are many researchers working in the area of energy storage, the team behind this development is looking at the field in a new light.

(more…)

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan has developed a self-healing, water-repellant coating that is hundreds of times more durable than its counterparts.

The researchers believe this development could help enable waterproof vehicles, clothing, rooftops, and other surfaces – something that current hydrophobic coatings struggle with due to their fragility.

“Thousands of superhydrophobic surfaces have been looked at over the past 20 or 30 years, but nobody has been able to figure out how to systematically design one that’s durable,” says Anish Tuteja, co-author of the study. “I think that’s what we’ve really accomplished here, and it’s going to open the door for other researchers to create cheaper, perhaps even better superhydrophobic coatings.”

(more…)

Access to adequate water and sanitation is a major obstacle that impacts nations across the globe. Currently 1 in 10 people – or 663 million – lack access to safe water. Due to the global water crisis, more than 1.5 billion people are affected by water-related diseases every year. However, many of those disease causing organisms could be removed from water with hydrogen peroxide, but production and distribution of hydrogen peroxide is a challenge in many parts of the world that struggle with this crisis.

Now, a team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have develop a small device that can produce hydrogen peroxide with a little help from renewable energy sources (i.e. conventional solar panels).

“The idea is to develop an electrochemical cell that generates hydrogen peroxide from oxygen and water on site, and then use that hydrogen peroxide in groundwater to oxidize organic contaminants that are harmful for humans to ingest,” says Chris Hahn, a SLAC scientist.

(more…)

Tiny crystals called quantum dots are used in LCD TVs to enhance color and image quality. A few years ago, scientists discovered a new type of crystal called nanoplatelets.

Like quantum dots, these two-dimensional structures are just a few nanometers in size, but have a more uniform flat, rectangular shape. They are extremely thin, often just the width of a few atomic layers, giving the platelets one of their most striking properties—their extremely pure color.

Now scientists have solved the mystery of out how these platelets form—and then created them in the lab using pyrite.

“We now know that there’s no magic involved in producing nanoplatelets, just science,” says David Norris, a materials engineering professor at ETH Zurich.

(more…)

A team of scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory is using the precision of an electron beam to instantly adhere cathode coatings for lithium-ion batteries. This new development, as reported in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, could lead to a leap in efficiency that saves energy, reduces production cost, and eliminates the use of toxic solvents.

This from ORNL:

The technique uses an electron beam to cure coating material as it rolls down the production line, creating instantaneous cross-links between molecules that bind the coating to a foil substrate, without the need for solvents, in less than a second.

Read the full article.

“Typical curing processes can require drying machinery the length of a football field and expensive equipment for solvent recovery,” says David Wood, co-author of the study. “This approach presents a promising avenue for fast, energy-efficient manufacturing of high-performance, low-cost lithium-ion batteries.”

Read the full paper, “Electron Beam Curing of Composite Positive Electrode for Li-Ion Battery.”

Every four years since 1987, scientists and engineers have been gathering in Honolulu, HI for the Pacific Rim Meeting on Electrochemical and Solid State Science, better known as PRiME. ECS has been committed to holding PRiME in Hawaii since its establishment to provide a central location for researchers from around the world, from the U.S. to Japan, to gather and discuss that latest scientific developments.

Because of his extensive experience in organizing PRiME and various other meetings across Latin American and Europe, ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo was invited to speak at the East Meets West Spring Education Tour, which is a meeting of executive directors, CEOs, and meeting planners, both of nonprofit and for profit companies, to discuss holding international conferences.

Hawaii’s talk show, Think Tech, reached out to Calvo during his most recent trip to Hawaii for the East Meets West Spring Education Tour to discuss electrochemistry, the clean energy movement, and open science. Watch the interview below.

A team of researchers at the University of Manchester – where graphene was first discovered and won the Nobel Prize – created a graphene-oxide membrane for desalination. The newly developed sieve can turn seawater into drinking water, demonstrating graphene’s ability to filter common salts from water, leading to affordable desalination technology.

Prior to this research, graphene-oxide molecules have garnered significant attention from the scientific community, demonstrating their potential to filter our small nanoparticles, organic molecules, and even large salts. However, researchers have not been able to use a graphene-oxide membrane in desalination technologies, which require very small sieves, until this development.

This from the University of Manchester:

Previous research at The University of Manchester found that if immersed in water, graphene-oxide membranes become slightly swollen and smaller salts flow through the membrane along with water, but larger ions or molecules are blocked.

The Manchester-based group have now further developed these graphene membranes and found a strategy to avoid the swelling of the membrane when exposed to water. The pore size in the membrane can be precisely controlled which can sieve common salts out of salty water and make it safe to drink.

(more…)

William (Bill) David Brown, age 73, passed away on Thursday, March 30, 2017 in Fayetteville, AR.

As an advocate of education, Brown spent many years working as a professor. He started his career in academia at the University of New Mexico (1975-1977), followed by the University of Arkansas (1977-2008), where he served as Distinguished Professor, Head of the Electrical Engineering Department, and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering.

Brown joined The Electrochemical Society in 1983. Throughout his life, he dedicated himself to ECS, serving as the Society’s president (2010-2011), vice president (2007-2010), and treasurer (1998-2000). Additionally, he served as the secretary, vice chair, and chair of the ECS Dielectric Science and Technology Division; and chaired the Society’s Education Committee (1994-2002), where he was instrumental in the initiation of the highly successful Student Poster Session held at each ECS meeting.

“Bill Brown was one of the Society’s finest leaders and a great teacher and mentor to me, and to many scientists and engineers in his field,” says Roque Calvo, ECS executive director. “He held an incredible number of top leadership positions in ECS but his work involving the Society’s Centennial and Free the Science fundraising campaigns could be his most notable contributions. He will be remembered for his contributions to our science and technology but more so for the character, integrity, and camaraderie that he brought to the Society.”

Brown also served on ECS’s Technical Affairs Committed (2007-2009), Ways and Means Committee (2007-2010), Finance Committee (1998-2002), Financial Policy Advisory Committee (1998-2007), and the Audit Subcommittee (2006-2007).

(more…)