Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: solar power

Patches of chain-like molecules placed across nanoscale particles can radically transform the optical, electronic, and magnetic properties of particle-based materials. Understanding why depends critically on the three-dimensional features of these “polymer nano-patches”—which are tantalizingly difficult to reveal at a scale spanning just billionths of a meter.

Now, scientists have used cutting-edge electron tomography techniques—a process of 3D reconstructive imaging —to pinpoint the structure and composition of the polymer nano-patches. The results, published earlier this month in the journal Nature, “lay the foundation for new nanoscale architectures that could potentially enhance technologies such as self-assembled solar cells and catalysts,” said lead author Eugenia Kumacheva of the University of Toronto.

The scientists tracked the patches formed by different synthetic polymers—versatile and common compounds used in everything from plastics to electronics —on the surface of gold nanospheres thousands of times smaller than the width of a single human hair. To visualize the elusive surface structures, Kumacheva and her team turned to cutting-edge facilities at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Read more

Maanasa Mendu thinks she’s cracked the code on how to make wind and solar energy affordable.

On Tuesday, Mendu, a 13-year-old from Ohio, won the grand prize in the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge for her work in creating a cost-effective “solar leaves” design to create energy. In addition to winning the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist,” she gets $25,000 for her achievement.

The leaves, designed to help developing areas in need of cheaper power sources, cost roughly $5 to make.

Read more

A new design for solar cells that uses inexpensive, commonly available materials could rival and even outperform conventional cells made of silicon.

Writing in the Oct. 21 edition of Science, researchers from Stanford and Oxford describe using tin and other abundant elements to create novel forms of perovskite — a photovoltaic crystalline material that’s thinner, more flexible and easier to manufacture than silicon crystals.

“Perovskite semiconductors have shown great promise for making high-efficiency solar cells at low cost,” said study co-author Michael McGehee, a professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford. “We have designed a robust, all-perovskite device that converts sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of 20.3 percent, a rate comparable to silicon solar cells on the market today.”

Read more

If there is any organization on the planet that has had a closer view of the coming demise of Moore’s Law, it is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Since its inception in the 1960s, the wide range of industry professionals have been able to trace a steady trajectory for semiconductors, but given the limitations ahead, it is time to look to a new path—or several forks, to be more accurate.

This realization about the state of computing for the next decade and beyond has spurred action from a subgroup, led by Georgia Tech professor Tom Conte and superconducting electronics researcher, Elie Track called “Rebooting Computing,” which produces reports based on invite-only deep dives on a wide range of post-Moore’s Law technologies, many of which were cited here this week via Europe’s effort to pinpoint future post-exascale architectures. The Rebooting Computing effort is opening its doors next week for a wider-reaching, open forum in San Diego to bring together new ideas in novel architectures and modes of computing as well as on the applications and algorithm development fronts.

According to co-chair of the Rebooting Computing effort, Elie Track, a former Yale physicist who has turned his superconducting circuits work toward high efficiency solar cells in his role at startup Nvizix, Moore’s Law is unquestionably dead. “There is no known technology that can keep packing more density and features into a given space and further, the real issue is power dissipation. We just cannot keep reducing things further; a fresh perspective is needed.” The problem with gaining that view, however, is that for now it means taking a broad, sweeping look across many emerging areas; from quantum and neuromorphic devices, approximate computing, and a wide range of other technologies. “It might seem frustrating that this is general, but there is no clear way forward yet. What we all agree on is that we need exponential growth in computing engines.”

Read more

Los Alamos is the 1st place where QC Internet was launched.

A research team from Los Alamos National Laboratory published a paper in the journal Nature Energy this week that demonstrates an effective method for scaling up quantum dot solar power technology from production models to full-sized windows that could power a building.

“We are developing solar concentrators that will harvest sunlight from building windows and turn it into electricity, using quantum-dot based luminescent solar concentrators,” lead scientist and leader of the Los Alamos Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) Victor Klimov said.

The Los Alamos paper advances techniques relating to luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) – slabs of transparent glass or plastic into or onto which highly emissive fluorophores are placed in order to create large-area sunlight collectors for photovoltaic cells – examining large LSC windows that were created by using a blade to create a thin, highly uniform film on a surface. The quantum dots used in the Nature Energy study are dual-layered semiconductor spheres that enable control over the two separate layers’ emission spectra.

Read more

Lee Teschler

Executive Editor

@dw_LeeTeschler

The days of launching complete satellites and similar extraterrestrial objects into orbit may be numbered. Instead, orbiting robots will construct them in space. The basic principles of this concept are being perfected by a company called Tethers Unlimited Inc. in Bothell Wash. under a NASA contract. Tethers’ SpiderFab: Architecture for On-Orbit Construction of Kilometer-Scale Apertures, will enable on-orbit fabrication of super-large objects such as antennas, solar panels, trusses, and other multifunctional structures. In ten years, Tethers expects to perfect the technology to a degree that will make possible self-fabricating, self-assembling satellites.

Read more

Batteries in smart phones and other portable electronics often die at inopportune times. Carrying a spare battery is one solution. As an alternative, researchers have tried to create fibers to incorporate in clothing that would power these devices. However, many of these fibers can’t withstand clothing manufacturing, especially weaving and cutting.

Now, in the journal ACS Nano, scientists report the first fibers suitable for weaving into tailorable textiles that can capture and release solar energy.

To collect solar power, Wenjie Mai, Xing Fan and colleagues created two different types of fibers. One contained titanium or a manganese-coated polymer along with zinc oxide, a dye and an electrolyte. These fibers were then interlaced with copper-coated polymer wires to create the solar cell section of the textile. To store power, the researchers developed a second type of fiber. This one was made of titanium, , a thin carbon shell to prevent oxidation and an electrolyte. These were woven with cotton yarn.

Read more

Phototactic behaviour directs some bacteria towards light and others into darkness: This enables them to utilize solar energy as efficiently as possible for their metabolism, or, otherwise, protects them from excessive light intensity. A team of researchers headed by Clemens Bechinger from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of Stuttgart, as well as colleagues from the University of Düsseldorf have now found a surprisingly simple way to direct synthetic microswimmers towards light or darkness. Their findings could eventually lead to minuscule robots that seek out and treat lesions in the human body.

Read more