CHARGING YOUR BATTERY IN ONLY MINUTES IS POSSIBLE

A diagram of a lithium-ion battery constructed using Braun’s nanostructured bicontinuous cathode (left), and a scanning electron microscope image of the nanostructure (right)
(Image: Paul Braun, University of Illinois)

Of all the criticisms of electric vehicles, probably the most commonly-heard is that their batteries take too long to recharge – after all, limited range wouldn’t be such a big deal if the cars could be juiced up while out and about, in just a few minutes. Well, while no one is promising anything, new batteries developed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign do indeed look like they might be a step very much in the right direction. They are said to offer all the advantages of capacitors and batteries, in one unit.

“This system that we have gives you capacitor-like power with battery-like energy,” said U Illinois‘ Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering. “Most capacitors store very little energy. They can release it very fast, but they can’t hold much. Most batteries store a reasonably large amount of energy, but they can’t provide or receive energy rapidly. This does both.”

The speed at which conventional batteries are able to charge or discharge can be dramatically increased by changing the form of their active material into a thin film, but such films have typically lacked the volume to be able to store a significant amount of energy. In the case of Braun’s batteries, however, that thin film has been formed into a three-dimensional structure, thus increasing its storage capacity.

Batteries equipped with the 3D film have been demonstrated to work normally in electrical devices, while being able to charge and discharge 10 to 100 times faster than their conventional counterparts.

To make the three-dimensional thin film, the researchers coated a surface with nanoscale spheres, which self-assembled into a lattice-like arrangement. The spaces between and around the spheres were then coated with metal, after which the spheres were melted or dissolved away, leaving the metal as a framework of empty pores. Electropolishing was then used to enlarge the pores and open up the framework, after which it was coated with a layer of the active material – both lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries were created.

The system utilizes processes already used on a large scale, so it would reportedly be easy to scale up. It could also be used with any type of battery, not just Li-ion and NiMH.

The implications for electric vehicles are particularly exciting. “If you had the ability to charge rapidly, instead of taking hours to charge the vehicle you could potentially have vehicles that would charge in similar times as needed to refuel a car with gasoline,” Braun said. “If you had five-minute charge capability, you would think of this the same way you do an internal combustion engine. You would just pull up to a charging station and fill up.”

Braun and his team believe that the technology could be used not only for making electric cars more viable, but also for allowing phones or laptops to be able to recharge in seconds or minutes. It could also result in high-power lasers or defibrillators that don’t need to warm up before or between pulses.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

from raw sewage

Here’s something rather important that you might not know: there may be a worldwide phosphorus shortage within the next few decades. The majority of the world’s phosphorus is currently mined from non-renewable phosphate rock deposits, and widely used in crop fertilizers. Scientists have begun to question just how much more phosphorus is left, and what the agriculture industry will do once it runs out. The answer – or some of it, at least – could be bobbing in a pool of raw sewage. Ostara, a Canadian nutrient recovery company, has developed a method for harvesting phosphorus from municipal wastewater and converting it to fertilizer.

The Process

Ostara’s PEARL Nutrient Recycling Process, developed at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia, utilizes something called a proprietary fluidized bed reactor. The cone-shaped device is installed in a wastewater treatment plant, where it removes ammonia and most of the phosphorus from untreated sewage. Magnesium is added within the reactor, creating a concrete-like substance known as struvite. This struvite, in turn, is processed into a nitrogen/phosphorus/magnesium slow-release fertilizer sold as Crystal Green. Ostara claims that numerous trials have proven the fertilizer to be safe, and because of its slow-release properties, it stays in the soil instead of running off into waterways.

Cleaner water

The removal of so much phosphorus, needless to say, makes the wastewater that much cleaner when it finally returns to the natural environment. Hopefully, Ostara’s system should decrease the occurrence of toxic blue-green algae blooms, which can occur when wastewater containing too many nutrients enters a body of water such as a river. While wastewater treatment plants already remove much of the phosphorus and other nutrients, the installation of a reactor would greatly reduce the bioload on the plant, allowing it to save a poopload (sorry) of power and operating costs.

Less blockages

While struvite is produced on purpose inside reactors, it also occurs naturally when phosphorus and nitrogen combine with magnesium in a wastewater treatment plant’s sludge stream. This unasked-for struvite clogs lines and valves, reduces flow rates, and has to be removed either mechanically, or by running acid through the lines. By harvesting most of the phosphorus, a reactor is said to virtually eliminate struvite build-up, further lowering the plant’s operating costs, and increasing its capacity.

The system in use

With the combination of reduced operating costs, extra processing capacity, and revenue generated by fertilizer production, Ostara claims that a wastewater treatment plant utilizing a PEARL reactor could exceed $1 million in net savings per year. And it isn’t all just theoretical, either – Edmonton, Alberta’s Gold Bar wastewater treatment plant has been using a reactor since 2007, and has seen good results. Every day, the reactor extracts over 80% of the phosphorus and 15% of the ammonia from 500,000 liters of sludge (20% of the plant’s total sludge stream), and converts it to 500 kg (1,102 lbs) of ready-to-use Crystal Green. Pilot plants have also proven successful in British Columbia, Virginia and Oregon.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Researchers at the University of Twente’s MESA Institute for Nanotechnology has allowed for the direct placement of solar cells onto microelectronics

In a new, more efficient approach to solar powered microelectronics, researchers have produced a microchip which directly integrates photovoltaic cells. While harnessing sunlight to power microelectronics isn’t new, conventional set-ups use a separate solar cell and battery. What sets this device apart from is that high-efficiency solar cells are placed straight onto the electronics, producing self-sufficient, low-power devices which are highly suitable for industrial serial production and can even operate indoors

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

One estimates that half of the energy consumed by data centres goes toward cooling computer processors, with most of the removed hot air simply being blown into the atmosphere. Instead, IBM sees that heat being captured & used to warm the air in other areas of the building, to heat water, or to be converted into usable electricity. The company has already developed an on-chip water-cooling system for computer clusters, which is being demonstrated on the Swiss Aquasar supercomputer. It utilizes a network of microfluidic capillaries inside a standard heat sink, attached to the surface of each chip. Water flows within a few microns of the semiconductor material, picking up heat from it, then piping the warm water to a heat exchanger – from there, the cooled water returning to the computers, using a closed loop system.

As with last year’s list, given that all of these technologies are already in experimental use, it’s a very good bet that they will indeed one day find their way into our lives. Whether that day is within the next five years, however, is another thing-time will tell

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Because conventional photovoltaic panels produce electricity directly from sunlight, the energy they generate must either be used as it is produced or stored – either in batteries or by using the electricity to produce a fuel that acts as a storage medium for the energy. Now U.S. and Swiss researchers have developed a prototype device that directly converts the Sun’s rays into fuels that can be stored, allowing the energy to be used at night or transported to locations where it is needed. Read More

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Mexico’s street vendors go solar (1:55)

Dec 20 – Roadside food vendors in Mexico’s Oaxaca are re-fitting gas-powered food stalls with solar technology. It’s all thanks to efforts of a Swiss solar cooking pioneer who wants to change the world one street cart at a time.

Click here below to watch video

Breakthrough solar reactor makes fuel from sunlight

Because conventional photovoltaic panels produce electricity directly from sunlight, the energy they generate must either be used as it is produced or stored – either in batteries or by using the electricity to produce a fuel that acts as a storage medium for the energy. Now U.S. and Swiss researchers have developed a prototype device that directly converts the Sun’s rays into fuels that can be stored, allowing the energy to be used at night or transported to locations where it is needed. Read More

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

RavenSkin insulation stores up daytime heat for release when temperatures drop

RavenBrick, the company that brought us the smart tinting RavenWindow, has added to its folio of temperature regulating building materials with RavenSkin. Unlike traditional insulation that blocks all heat equally, this innovative wall insulation material absorbs heat during the day to keep the interior cool and slowly releases the stored heat at night to warm the building when the sun goes down. Read More

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha