Electronics

AES Energy Storage scores $17.1M loan guarantee for grid-scale A123 batteries

By / August 2, 2010

The DOE announced today that it would provide AES Energy Storage a $17.1 million loan guarantee for a 20 megawatt energy storage–energy conditioning system built around an a A123 lithium-ion…

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Corning’s Gorilla Glass wins one of ACerS’ corporate achievement awards, wide media attention

By / August 2, 2010

Screenshot from video of Gorilla Glass 2M ‘ball drop’ test: 1.18 lb ball, dropped from 1.8 meters at 13.6 mph. Credit: Corning Inc. We’ve written before about the inroads Corning…

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Solar sail uses smart glass to steer through cosmos

By / July 27, 2010

Artist’s conception of solar sail. (Credit: JAXA.) Japan has successfully deployed a solar sail on a spacecraft, demonstrating for the first time that such technology can be used to convert…

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Rare earth’s brick wall

By / July 25, 2010

This falls into the “must read” category. A few weeks back, I posted on major cuts in China rare earth exports. Science magazine’s  Robert F. Service provides more context: “.…

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Materials stories that didn’t make the cut this week

By / July 23, 2010

At the end of each week, I end up with a list of a bunch of stories I started to write about, or started to investigate or didn’t even get…

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50 R&D 100 Awards given to national labs

By / July 22, 2010

Ultrasensitive Nanomechanical Transducers Based on Nonlinear Resonance, one of ORNL’s 2010 R&D 100 award winners. (Credit: ORNL.) R&D Magazine awarded DOE and other federal labs with 50 of its R&D…

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Because lithium has worked so very well for Bolivia’s economy

By / July 20, 2010

I hope a PIO is to blame for this too-clever headline: “Lithium could be gold mine for Afghanistan.” But, the premise of this story is false and is emerging as…

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DOE announces availability of $30M for small business materials-oriented tech commercialization

By / July 14, 2010

Materials folks – are you already working on a Phase II SBIR or STTR grants project and itching to take it to the next level? The DOE just announced that…

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ARPA-E announces $92M in advanced energy science, materials awards

By / July 12, 2010

DOE’s ARPA-E program today announced it would be funding 43 new high-risk, high-reward energy projects to the tune of $92 million. The funding is grouped into three areas: Grid-scale modular…

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Bad news for advanced ceramic & glass world: China enforcing new rare earths export restrictions

By / July 12, 2010

According to new reports in BusinessWeek and Metal-Pages, China is cutting export quotas for the rare earths and metals – required in many advanced ceramic and glass applications – by…

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