New solar cell self-repairs like natural plant systems

New solar cell self-repairs like natural plant systems: "Researchers are creating a new type of solar cell designed to self-repair like natural photosynthetic systems in plants by using carbon nanotubes and DNA, an approach aimed at increasing service life and reducing cost. 'We've created artificial photosystems using optical nanomaterials to harvest solar energy that is converted to electrical power,' said Jong Hyun Choi, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.

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New highly stable fuel-cell catalyst gets strength from its nano core

New highly stable fuel-cell catalyst gets strength from its nano core Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new electrocatalyst that uses a single layer of platinum and minimizes its wear and tear while maintaining high levels of reactivity during tests that mimic stop-and-go driving.The newly designed catalysts are composed of a single layer of platinum over a palladium (or palladium-gold alloy) nanoparticle core. Their structural characterization was performed at Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials and the National Synchrotron Light Source.

YouTube - Tough Realities of Renewable Energy, by Craig Shields

YouTube - Tough Realities of Renewable Energy, by Craig Shields

Silicon strategy shows promise for batteries: Lithium-ion technique for electric cars, large-capacity storage

Silicon strategy shows promise for batteries: Lithium-ion technique for electric cars, large-capacity storage ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2010) — A team of Rice University and Lockheed Martin scientists has discovered a way to use simple silicon to radically increase the capacity of lithium-ion batteries.

Fuel cells in operation: A closer look

Fuel cells in operation: A closer look ScienceDaily (Oct. 7, 2010) — Measuring a fuel cell's overall performance is relatively easy, but measuring its components individually as they work together is a challenge. That's because one of the best experimental techniques for investigating the details of an electrochemical device while it's operating is x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Traditional XPS works only in a vacuum, while fuel cells need gases under pressure to function.

Crude Alternatives: Energy Industry Heavyweights Debate Fuels of the Future: Scientific American

Crude Alternatives: Energy Industry Heavyweights Debate Fuels of the Future: Scientific American With the world's energy demands expected to increase more than three-fold over the next century, ExxonMobil and Shell executives acknowledge the necessity (and difficulty) of unseating inexpensive and efficient crude oil and coal
By Larry Greenemeier September 28, 2010 0

Reverse Combustion: Can CO2 Be Turned Back into Fuel? [Video]: Scientific American

Reverse Combustion: Can CO2 Be Turned Back into Fuel? [Video]: Scientific American In the 1990s a graduate student named Lin Chao at Princeton University decided to bubble carbon dioxide into an electrochemical cell. Using cathodes made from the element palladium and a catalyst known as pyridinium—a garden variety organic chemical that is a by-product of oil refining—he discovered that applying an electric current would assemble methanol from the CO2. He published his findings in 1994—and no one cared.