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http://www.fcci.com.au/2011/08/1246/

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

The heat given off by electronics, automobile engines, factories and other sources is a potentially huge source of energy, and various technologies are being developed in order to capture that heat, and then convert it into electricity. Thanks to an alloy that was recently developed at the University of Minnesota, however, a step in that process could be saved – the new material is able to convert heat directly into electricity.

The multiferroic alloy, with the catchy name Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10, was created by combining its various elements at the atomic level. Multiferroic materials are known for having unique elastic, magnetic and electric properties, and in the case of this alloy, that takes a form of an usual phase change. When heated, the non-magnetic solid material suddenly becomes a strongly magnetic solid.

In a lab test, upon becoming magnetic, the material absorbed heat in its environment and proceeded to produce electricity in an attached coil. Although some of the heat energy is lost in a process known as hysteresis, the U Minnesota researchers have developed a method of minimizing that energy loss.

“This research is very promising because it presents an entirely new method for energy conversion that’s never been done before,” said aerospace engineering and mechanics professor Richard James, who led the research team. “It’s also the ultimate ‘green’ way to create electricity because it uses waste heat to create electricity with no carbon dioxide.”

The research was recently published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Of all the things that people traditionally discard, one that most of us likely think the least about repurposing is human feces and urine. Sure, we recycle our plastic and paper, and compost our fruits and veggies, but … that stuff? Actually, there are various worldwide projects aimed at using municipal raw sewage for things such as fertilizer or as a power source. While those projects only come into play once the waste has been flushed, however, the UK’s Loowatt system gets users involved from the bottom up (sorry), collecting waste directly from the toilet and using it to create biogas and fertilizer.

The Loowatt toilet itself is waterless and chemical-free, and is intended for use at outdoor events, campsites and other remote locations – pretty much the same places that a Porta Potty or outhouse would be used. Feces and urine drop into what is described as an “odorless” sealed cartridge, which incorporates a biodegradable liner. Once or twice a week, that cartridge is removed, and the liner and its contents are dumped into a nearby anaerobic digester.

The digester (which is also part of the system) utilizes microorganisms in an oxygen-free environment, to consume the waste and convert it into methane and carbon dioxide gas. That gas can then be burned for fuel, at which point it reverts back to CO2 and water vapor. Another by-product of the digester is a semi-liquid manure, in which the nutrients have already been homogenized, making them more accessible to plants. This can be separated into liquid plant food, and a more solid manure.

A pilot project is currently operating at a houseboat marina in West London. It consists of five toilets and a small-scale digester, and is apparently working well. “The toilets were successful and we are now in discussions with numerous potential customers,” Loowatt’s Virginia Gardiner told us. “The digester is producing a steady supply of biogas which we have hooked up for cooking.”

The company was recently awarded a US$100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop the technology further. Anyone interested in trying the system out at their location is invited to contact Loowatt.

A similar system is in place at Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Park Spark project, in which anaerobically-digested dog feces are used to fuel a gas lamp in an urban dog park.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Xiao Lan Wang discusses the company history and launch of the Dow Filmtec HR LE-440i element, which features a high rejection rate but low energy requirements, helping to reduce energy by 33%. This can be used for the removal of boron and nitrates for certain applications such as the electronics industry. Other announcements including improved ultrafiltration membranes as a pre-treatment for RO.
www.dowwaterandprocess.com

Dow Water & Process Solutions
Shanghai,
China

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

boost solar cell efficiency

Last year, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that they had successfully used carbon nanotubes for “funneling” and concentrating electrons in photovoltaic cells – this meant that smaller solar cells created using the nanotubes could produce as much or more electricity than larger conventional cells. Now, the efficiency of these nanotube solar cells is being boosted further … with the help of a virus.

One of the reported problems with the nanotubes has been their tendency to clump together and short each other out. To address that problem, a team of MIT scientists called upon a genetically-engineered version of a virus known as M13. When introduced to the nanotube “forest,” the virus’ peptides (polymers made from amino acids) bonded tightly with the nanotubes, both holding them in place AND apart from one another. One virus is capable of holding five to ten nanotubes, allotting about 300 peptide molecules to each tube.

Once the virus had performed that service, the scientists then changed the acidity of its environment, causing it to produce titanium dioxide (TiO2) and coat each nanotube with the substance. As the solar cells being tested were of the dye-sensitized variety, utilizing TiO2 as their active layer, this also helped the devices to better covert solar energy to electricity.

Between the superior alignment and the production of TiO2, the virus-assisted nanotubes increased the solar cells’ power conversion efficiency by about a third, from 8 percent to 10.6. While the technology was tested on dye-sensitized solar cells, the scientists say that it should also improve the performance of other types of solar cells, such as quantum-dot and organic.

Additionally, the virus makes the nanotubes water-soluble, which allows for them to be introduced to cells via a water-based, room temperature process. The scientists believe that it would be relatively easy to add such a procedure to the solar cell production process.

The MIT research is published online this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

to more efficiently harness wasted heat

Thermoelectric materials offer the potential to harness electricity from otherwise wasted heat. Continuing research in the field could yield applications scavenging energy from vehicle exhaust systems, industrial processes and equipment, and even sunlight. Now researchers have created a material with a higher energy conversion efficiency that could make such systems more feasible.

Researchers at Northwestern University created the new material by dispersing nanocrystals of rock salt (SrTe) into lead telluride (PbTe). While this kind of nanoscale inclusion in bulk material had previously been shown to improve the energy conversion efficiency of lead telluride, it also increased the scattering of electrons, which reduced the material’s overall conductivity. The Northwestern team’s study offers the first example of using nanostructures in lead telluride to reduce electron scattering and increase the energy conversion efficiency of the material. The researchers say the resultant material is expected to enable 14 percent of waste heat to electricity.

“It has been known for 100 years that semiconductors have this property that can harness electricity,” said Mercouri Kanatzidis, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry in The Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “To make this an efficient process, all you need is the right material, and we have found a recipe or system to make this material.”

Vinayak Dravid, professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science adds, “we can put this material inside of an inexpensive device with a few electrical wires and attach it to something like a light bulb. The device can make the light bulb more efficient by taking the heat it generates and converting part of the heat, 10 to 15 percent, into a more useful energy like electricity.”

Kanatzidis says any industry that uses heat to make products, such as the automotive, chemical, brick and glass industries, could use the material to make their system more efficient. But maybe the researchers aren’t thinking big enough. An estimated 90 percent of the world’s electricity is generated by heat energy that typically operates at 30 to 40 percent efficiency, losing roughly 15 terawatts of power in the form of heat to the environment. Harnessing 10 to 15 percent of this currently wasted heat energy would translate to a substantial amount of electricity.

The results of the Northwestern University team’s study are published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Less is more for cost-efficient wind farming

A wind tunnel on the Homewood campus the researchers used to experiment with variables such as the correct spacing of wind turbines

(Image: Will Kirk/Homewoodphoto.jhu.edu)

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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Received & published by Henry Sapiecha