Cool Future Technologies

A newly published study reveals how scientists used a solar cell and a photo anode made of a metal oxide to achieve a solar hydrogen production breakthrough.

The experts were able to develop a rather elegant and simple system for using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

This process, called artificial photosynthesis, allows solar energy to be stored in the form of hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be used as a fuel either directly or in the form of methane, or it can generate electricity in a fuel cell.

One rough estimate shows the potential inherent in this technology: At a solar performance in Germany of roughly 600 Watts per square meter, 100 square meters of this type of system is theoretically capable of storing 3 kilowatt hours of energy in the form of hydrogen in just one single hour of sunshine. This energy could then be available at night or on cloudy days.

In a recent paper in the new journal Energy Technology, postdoctoral researcher and lead author Mohan Manoharan and colleagues report on experiments with various alkali-free glass compositions and thicknesses, comparing their energy density and power density to commercial polymer capacitors currently used in electric vehicles to convert energy from the battery to the electric motor.

Because polymer capacitors are designed to operate at lower temperatures, they require a separate cooling system and a larger safety factor, which adds to their bulk.

In his research, Manoharan identified 10-micron thick glass from Nippon Electric Glass (NEG) as having an ideal combination of high energy density and power density, with high charge-discharge efficiency at temperatures up to 180 °C and, in more recent experiments, even higher.

Electricity generation from renewable sources worldwide will exceed that from gas and be twice that from nuclear power by 2016 says the International Energy Agency.

The IEA says renewable power is expected to jump by 40% in the next five years and will make up almost a quarter of the global power mix by2018. The prediction is in the IEA’s second annual Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report... 

Richard Aho of MIST Energy Systems has been working for years on the idea that hydrogen bond energy could be harnessed. He went on working where others had abandoned the field because they knew it "couldn't be done".

In his Mist Energy System, water is pressurized by a commercially available high pressure pump, it is then released through a nozzle into an impact chamber, where the jet hits a metal target. Heat is released and the water instantly transforms into steam.

The energy spent to pressurize the water and pre-heat the impact chamber is about one tenth of the energy contained in the steam that is produced. 

Researchers have come up with various electrode materials to improve the performance of supercapacitors, focussing mostly on porous carbon due to its high surface areas, tunable structures, good conductivities, and low cost.

"We were able to achieve this by employing a biomass precursor with a unique structure – hemp bast fiber," Zhi Li, a post doc researcher in David Mitlin's group at the University of Alberta, tells Nanowerk. "The resultant graphene-like nanosheets possess fundamentally different properties (pore size distribution, physical interconnectedness and electrical conductivity) as compared to conventional biomass-derived activated carbons."

Beyond the energy and cost savings, new types of lighting are now envisioned as ways to heal, soothe, invigorate or protect people.

Strapped with a special engine and scuba tank, this motorcycle is speeding its way toward a James Dyson Award.

A team of Virginia Tech researchers has discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant, a breakthrough that has the potential to bring a low-cost, environmentally friendly fuel source to the world.

To liberate the hydrogen, Virginia Tech scientists separated a number of enzymes from their native microorganisms to create a customized enzyme cocktail that does not occur in nature. The enzymes, when combined with xylose and a polyphosphate, liberate the unprecedentedly high volume of hydrogen from xylose, resulting in the production of about three times as much hydrogen as other hydrogen-producing microorganisms.

The energy stored in xylose splits water molecules, yielding high-purity hydrogen that can be directly utilized by proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. Even more appealing, this reaction occurs at low temperatures, generating hydrogen energy that is greater than the chemical energy stored in xylose and the polyphosphate. This results in an energy efficiency of more than 100 percent — a net energy gain. That means that low-temperature waste heat can be used to produce high-quality chemical energy hydrogen for the first time. 

You might think that as one of the world's top oil producing nations, the United Arab Emirates would have little use for solar energy. But that hasn't stopped the Middle East state from unveiling the largest concentrated solar power plant in operation anywhere in the world. 

The 100-megawatt solar-thermal project in Abu Dhabi will power thousands of homes in the country and, it is hoped, displace approximately 175,000 tons of CO2 per year.

Access to steady supplies of clean water is getting more and more difficult in the developing world, especially as demand skyrockets.

Lockheed Martin's Perforene, on the other hand, is made from single atom-thick sheets of graphene. Because the sheets are so thin, water flows through them far more easily than through a conventional TFC.

Filters made through the Perforene process would incorporate filtering holes just 100 nm in diameter—large enough to let water molecules through but small enough to capture dissolved salts. It looks a bit like chicken wire when viewed under a microscope

The University of Colorado at Boulder has designed a hydrogen plant that uses an array of mirrors to focus sunlight onto a huge tower. The tower heats up to 1,350 °C - enough to liberate hydrogen from steam.

‘We have designed something here that is very different from other methods and frankly something that nobody thought was possible before,’ said lead scientist Professor Alan Weimer, from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

‘Splitting water with sunlight is the Holy Grail of a sustainable hydrogen economy.’

Hydrogen could be used as a fuel for road transport, distributed heat and power generation, and for energy storage.

Chemists with the University of Texas and the University of Marburg havedevised a method of using a small electrical field that will remove the salt from seawater.

Incredibly this technique requires little more than a store-bought battery.

Called electrochemically mediated seawater desalination (EMSD) this technique has improved upon the current water desalination method.

A comprehensive study into the potential for compressed air energy storage in the Pacific Northwest has identified two locations in Washington state that could store enough wind energy to power about 85,000 homes each month.

A visionary idea called STRAWSCRAPER, the first project to come out of the  business called Belatchew Labs. STRAWSCRAPER is an extension of the south tower on Södermalm in Stockholm with a new energy-producing shell covered with hairs that can extract wind energy.

Belatchew Architects want to give South tower its original proportions and at the same time explore new technologies to create the future of urban wind farming.

By using piezoelectric technology a large number of thin ribs produce electricity only through the small movements generated by the wind. The result opens up possibilities for how buildings can produce energy in the future. Surfaces on both existing and new buildings can suddenly be converted into energy producing units.

Swedish TVs show "Vetenskapens Värld" (The World of Science) Documentary about Cold Fusion and Andrea Rossi.

We get to see interviews with Andrea Rossi, Mats Lewan, Sven Kullander, Hanno Essen, Magnus Holm.

A team of IBM researchers is working on a solar concentrating dish that will be able to collect 80% of incoming sunlight and convert it to useful energy.

The High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal system will be able to concentrate the power of 2,000 suns while delivering fresh water and cool air wherever it is built.

As an added bonus, IBM states that the system would be just one third the cost third of current comparable technologies.

Nocera, leader of the research team, explained that the “leaf” mimics the ability of real leaves to produce energy from sunlight and water. The device, however, actually is a simple catalyst-coated wafer of silicon, rather than a complicated reproduction of the photosynthesis mechanism in real leaves.

Dropped into a jar of water and exposed to sunlight, catalysts in the device break water down into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. Those gases bubble up and can be collected and used as fuel to produce electricity in fuel cells.

“Surprisingly, some of the catalysts we’ve developed for use in the artificial leaf device actually heal themselves,” Nocera said. “They are a kind of ‘living catalyst.’ This is an important innovation that eases one of the concerns about initial use of the leaf in developing countries and other remote areas.”

Free Tesla Energy is possible says Muammer Yildiz at the university of Delft, as he presents an all-magnet motor deriving its energy from magnetism

The wind turbine would convert wind to energy without any moving parts.

Digital fabrication will change the course of the future

"Digital fabrication will allow individuals to design and produce tangible objects on demand, wherever and whenever they need them."

Three-dimensional printers are already old hat to the professor. "The revolution," he writes, "is ... the ability to turn data into things and things into data. ... Scientists in a number of labs (including mine) are now working on the real thing, developing processes that can place individual atoms and molecules into any structure they want.

Unlike 3-D printers today, these will be able to build complete functional systems at once, with no need for parts to be assembled. The aim is to not only to produce parts for a drone, for example, but build a complete vehicle that can fly straight out of the printer. ...