New technology developed by researchers at the University of Michigan has been designed with the intention of preventing fires caused by lithium-ion battery malfunctions.

Researchers are making this possible by creating an advanced barrier between the electrodes in the lithium-ion battery. The barrier is made with nanofibers extracted from Kevlar – the material known for its use in bulletproof vests. The Kevlar nanofibers stifle the growth of metal tendrils that can become unwanted pathways for electrical current.

“Unlike other ultra strong material such as carbon nanotubes, Kevlar is an insulator,” said Nicholas Kotov, the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Engineering. “This property is perfect for separators that need to prevent shorting between two electrodes.”

Short-circuiting happens in these batteries when holes in the membranes are too big and dendrites poke through to the membrane. They create a path for electrons within the battery, shorting it out.

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Image: Antalexion

With climate change being a continually rising global dilemma, many scientist have turned their attention to research in the area of renewable energy sources. Even with some of the most brilliant minds working on improving efficiency and price of solar cells, they are still not widely used due to the high cost of materials used to develop the them. Now, a scientist may be on the path to cracking the code on material prices of solar cells by using nanotechnology.

Elijah Thimsen, assistant professor at the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, worked in conjunction with a team of engineers at the University of Minnesota to develop a technique to increase the performance of electrical conductivity.

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The flexible material created at Rice University has the potential for use in electronics or for energy storage.
Image: Tour Group/Rice University

James Tour and his group at Rice University have developed and tested a flexible, three-dimensional supercapacitor with the potential to be scaled up for commercial applications.

In this study, the researchers advanced what they had already developed in laser-induced graphene (LIG) by producing and testing the stacked, three-dimensional supercapacitors.

Their prior findings showed that firing a laser at an inexpensive polymer burned off other elements and left a film of porous graphene, which has the potential to be the perfect electrode for supercapacitors or electronic circuits.

The researchers began by making vertically aligned supercapacitors with laser-induced graphene on both sides of a polymer sheet.

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The OmniProcessor is the ultimate example of that old expression: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Image: YouTube/Gates Notes

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working to turn poop into drinking water with this ingenious new machine.

As part of their effort to improve sanitation in poor countries, the Gates Foundation has helped give flight to an OmniProcessor that burns human waste to produce water and electricity.

How does it work? Check out the video to see the process.

But here’s the big question – why do we need to turn waste into drinking water and electricity?

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Toyota is looking to propel the future of the fuel cell vehicle with the recent announcement that they will be granting royalty-free use to thousands of their patents.

“I’m happy and extremely proud to announce to you today that Toyota will grant royalty-free use of all 5,680 of our fuel cell patents, including pending patents,” said Senior Vice President of Toyota’s Automotive Operations, Bob Carter, on January 5 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The patents are to be used by companies manufacturing and selling fuel cell vehicles. Carter stated that these patents – which are critical to the development and production of fuel cells vehicles – will be available through 2020.

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An aircraft with a parallel hybrid engine – the first ever to be able to recharge its batteries in flight – has been successfully tested in the UK, an important early step towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel.
Credit: University of Cambridge

The United Kingdom is taking an important step towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel with the first successfully tested airplane with a parallel hybrid-electric engine. The novel aircraft is the first of its kind due to the ability to recharge its batteries while in flight.

This development comes out of the University of Cambridge in conjunction with Boeing, where they have worked to successfully develop a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system for an aircraft that will use up to 30 percent less fuel than a comparable plane with a petrol-only engine.

To create the plane, the researches used the same basic principals as in a hybrid car. The aircraft uses a 4-stroke piston engine and an electric motor/generator. When maximum power is required – i.e. during takeoff – the engine and electric motor work together to power the plane. Once cruise height is reached, the motor switches to generator mode to recharge its batteries.

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Collecting this energy is enough to power lights and other small devices for minutes at a time from a mere one hundred or so footfalls.
Credit: Pavegen

When we look at the kinetic energy that people produce from things such as footfalls or climbing steps, it just makes sense that we begin to move toward harnessing energy from human activity.

That is the mantra of the company Pavegen – the developer of power-generating systems for pavements, football fields, and even school corridors.

The technology for innovations such as this already exists, with the piezoelectric effect dating back more that 130 years.

Now, we have the ability to place these piezoelectric devices in unlikely places. When Pavegen applied this technology to a football field, they were able to produce up to 7 watts of energy with each step.

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The heterostructures is based on 2D atomic crystals for photovoltaic applications.
Image: University of Manchester

Researchers from the University of Manchester in conjunction with the National University of Singapore have discovered an exciting new development with the wonder material graphene.

The researchers have been able to combine graphene with other one-atom thick materials to create the next generation of solar cells and optoelectronic devices.

With this, they have been able to demonstrate how multi-layered heterostructures in a three-dimensional stack can produce an exciting physical phenomenon exploring new electronic devices.

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A comparison of the basic ring structure of the carbon compound graphene with that of a similar hydrogen-based structure synthesized by Carnegie scientists.
Credit: Carnegie Science

A new study shows remarkable parallels between hydrogen and graphene under extreme pressures.

The study was conducted by Carnegie’s Ivan Naumov and Russell Hemley, and can be found in the December issue of Accounts of Chemical Research.

Because of hydrogen’s simplicity and abundance, it has long been used as a testing ground for theories of the chemical bond. It is necessary to understand chemical bonding in extreme environments in order to expand our knowledge of a broad range of conditions found in the universe.

It has always been difficult for researchers to observe hydrogen’s behavior under very high pressure, until recently when teams observed the element at pressures of 2-to-3.5 million times the normal atmospheric pressure.

Under this pressure, it transforms into an unexpected structure that consists of layered sheets, rather than close-packed metal – which had been the prediction of scientists many years ago.

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This achievement represents one of the highest photovoltaic research cell efficiencies achieved across all types of solar cells.
Credit: NREL (Click to enlarge)

Improvements in solar power are being developed all around the world, with scientist and researchers continuously attempting to apply electrochemistry and other sciences to solar cells in order to improve efficiency. Recently, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has reported one of the highest photovoltaic cell efficiencies achieved across all types of solar cells.

Researchers at the NREL have demonstrated a 45.7 percent conversion efficiency for a four-junction solar cell at 234 suns concentration.

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