Lead engineers, Xiaobo Yin and Ronggui Yang.
Image credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU-Boulder
According to Forbes, engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder have created a new material that works like an air conditioning system for structures—cooling rooftops with zero energy consumption.
The material, about the same thickness as aluminum foil, is rolled across the surface of a rooftop, reflecting incoming solar energy back into space while simultaneously purging its own heat. Adding to its appeal, the material is adaptable and cost-effective for use in large-scale residential and commercial applications, as it can be manufactured on rolls.
Xiaobo Yin, co-director of the research and an assistant professor at CU Boulder’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, says that by applying the material to the surface of a solar panel as much as one to two percent in solar efficiency can be recovered.
The breakthrough material was made possible by a three million dollar grant awarded by the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) that supports research in high-impact energy technologies.
The lead engineers, Xiaobo Yin and Ronggui Yang, aren’t alone in their quest to improve energy technology.
Here are the top five most-downloaded Journal of The Electrochemical Society articles in batteries and energy storage, all available free to read!
Batteries and Energy Storage
The Development and Future of Lithium Ion Batteries | George E. Blomgren- Oxygen Release and Its Effect on the Cycling Stability of LiNixMnyCozO2 (NMC) Cathode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries | Roland Jung, Michael Metzger, Filippo Maglia, Christoph Stinner, and Hubert A. Gasteiger
- Review—Practical Challenges Hindering the Development of Solid State Li-Ion Batteries | Kian Kerman, Alan Luntz, Venkatasubramanian Viswanathan, Yet-Ming Chiang, and Zhebo Chen
- Calendar Aging of Lithium-Ion Batteries: I. Impact of the Graphite Anode on Capacity Fade | Peter Keil, Simon F. Schuster, Jörn Wilhelm, Julian Travi, Andreas Hauser, Ralph C. Karl, and Andreas Jossen
- Review—SEI: Past, Present and Future | E. Peled and S. Menkin
Want more? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a complete list of the top five most-downloaded journal articles in each TIA during the fourth quarter of 2018 (October through December).
