You are browsing the archives of MIT.

Also in conjunction with it’s Energy Innovations Summit, ARPA-E is promoting a new, brief video about the photosynthesis/photocatalysis  energy storage ideas of MIT’s Daniel Nocera and his company, Sun Catalytix. Nocera has received $4 million form ARPA-E to continue the development of his prototypes.

Nocera’s catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an anode, placed in water. When electricity from a photovoltaic cell is run through the catalyst, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode’s surface, creating oxygen gas. When combined with a cathode capable of producing hydrogen gas from water, the two electrodes create a system that mimics the way plants use sunlight to split water and create energy during photosynthesis. This catalyst works at room temperature

For more information on Nocera’s work see:

Nocera makes more news with electrolysis gains

More about Nocera’s electrolysis catalyst

Catalyst discovery unlocks low-cost solar storage

Credit: Thomas Adams

Two researchers at MIT say they have what will be “the lowest price option” for power generation in the future if a carbon tax is every levied in the United States (as long as the tax is $5 - $15 per metric ton of emitted CO₂).

The duo - Thomas Adams and Paul Barton – have proposed a novel electricity generation process that weds natural gas and solid oxide fuel cells using off-the-shelf technology, and have applied for a patent for their concept. A paper on their work has been printed in the Journal of Power Sources.

Their process contains a steam reformer that prepares the gas for use within the fuel cells. The reformer and water-gas shift reactor creates a fuel mix absent carbon monoxide, thus avoiding the problems created by carbon deposition issues in SOFCs when CO is present. CO₂ is generated, but they say it will be “mostly pure” and can be captured with very little energy penalty using a multistage flash cascade process. High-purity water is another byproduct.

Adams and Barton developed the concept while looking at possible “clean-coal” approaches, and they admit their system could also work with pulverized coal. But, the relatively greater abundance of natural gas and its smaller amount of CO₂ emissions (an MIT news story reports that existing natural-gas power plants produce one-third to one-half the CO₂ of coal-burning plants) provide two strong reasons for using this fuel.

And price - under the right circumstances - could be a third reason. Adams and Barton developed and used a computer simulation methodology to analyze the relative costs and performance of their system versus other existing or proposed generating systems, including natural-gas or coal-powered systems incorporating carbon capture technologies.

They found that even if the cost of fuel cells remains more than double the DOE’s target for 2010, their SOFC system has the lowest lifecycle costs of electricity produced, even though the up-front capital costs could be three to four times greater than for natural gas or coal combustion systems.

The simulation even indicated that the lifecycle cost of this novel system is lower than that of a combined-cycle natural gas plant, even without carbon pricing. They say that even with a carbon tax around $5 to $10 per ton, their system would be cheaper than coal plants, currently the lowest-cost option for electricity generation.

(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering and president emeritus of MIT, was the 2009 Frontiers of Science & Technlogy–Rustum Roy Lecturer at the recent ACerS Annual Meeting and MS&T’09 conference.

“This is the most exciting time for engineering and science in human history. A new generation of engineers will be inspired by the great human challenges of this century. Globalization and the changing nature of science and technology are driving change and opportunity in higher education, R&D and innovation. R&D spending is smeared nearly uniformly around the world, and new players are rapidly emerging. Higher Education is globalizing in both planned and unplanned ways, enabled by information technology and driven by economic and social change. Our innovation system may be due for another major transformation. Do our universities have new responsibilities? Can we pull it off?”

Vest earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University in 1963, and M.S.E. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1964 and 1967, respectively. He joined the faculty of UM as an assistant professor in 1968, where he taught in the areas of heat transfer, thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, and conducted research in heat transfer and engineering applications of laser optics and holography. He became an associate professor in 1972 and a full professor in 1977.

Vest’s administrative duties at UM included associate dean of engineering from 1981 to 1986. He was dean of engineering from 1986 to 1989, when he became provost and vice president for academic affairs. In 1990 he became president of MIT and served in that position until December 2004. He then became professor and president emeritus.

As president of MIT, Vest was active in science, technology and innovation policy; building partnerships among academia, government and industry; and championing the importance of open, global scientific communication, travel and sharing of intellectual resources.

Vest was a director of DuPont for 14 years and of IBM for 13 years, was vice chair of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness for eight years and served on various federal committees and commissions, including the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology during the Clinton and Bush administrations. He serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations and foundations devoted to education, science and technology.

In July 2007 he was elected to serve as president of NAE for six years.

11-seat ultracapacitor bus.

Sinautec Automobile Technologies says tomorrow it will showcase on American University’s campus in Washington, DC., a small bus that the company claims is “America’s first ultracapacitor electric vehicle.”

The eleven-seat minibus, powered only by ultracapacitors, can be recharged by a mobile recharging unit that combines large photovoltaic array and a vertical wind turbine. Sinatec says the bus can be recharged in as little as 5-10 minutes.

Following the demonstration, company and school officials are hosting a panel discussion that includes Joel Schindall, a nanotube ultracapacitor specialist at MIT; Terrance Sankar, a vertical wind turbine specialist at AU; Scott Sklar, president of Sinautec partner Stella Group; Dan Ye, Sinautec CEO. The panel will be moderated by Paul Wapner who researches and teaches global environmental politics at AU.

Sinautec successfully developed a series of ultracapacitor municipal buses that have been in commercial use in the greater Shanghai area since 2006.

The idea of using ultracaps in electric buses may be a little counterintuitive at first, since they can only store a fraction of the energy if a lithium battery. Indeed, the buses couldn’t go far. But according to the Sinautec concept, the ultracap bus would only need to get to the next bus stop, which would have to be relatively close. The key to the Sinautec system is that each bus stop would have an overhead recharging unit that the bus would quickly latch onto. The bus wouldn’t necessarily need a full recharge at each stop. It would need just enough to get it to the next stop/recharging station where it could be boosted again.

Current versions of the bus have a range of 3.5-5.5 miles per full charge, depending on whether the vehicles air conditioner is in use.

The other part of this concept is that each recharging station would generate energy from a renewable source, such as solar or wind power, or both.

Sinautec CEO  claims in a Technology Review story that his buses have several advantages over alternatives. He says his buses regenerative brakes means they use 40 percent less electricity compared to an electric trolley bus. When it comes to a comparison with diesels, Ye says Sinautec buses incur one-tenth the energy cost of a diesel bus and can achieve lifetime fuel savings of $200,000.

“The ultracapacitor bus is also cheaper than lithium-ion battery buses,” says Ye. “We used the Olympics (lithium-ion) bus as a model and found ours about 40 percent less expensive with a far superior reliability rating.” Ye adds that the environmental benefits are compelling. “Even if you use the dirtiest coal plant on the planet, it generates a third of the carbon dioxide of diesel when used to charge an ultracapacitor.”

Sinautec is working on improving the ultracaps. The ones currently in use have an energy density of 6 watt-hours per kilogram. The next generation will have capacitors that boost the density up to 10 watt hours per kilogram. It appears that additional jumps in energy density are possible, which would reduce the need for as many of the combo recharging stations–bus stops.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of physics knows that dark surfaces absorb heat, while white surfaces are more effective at reflecting heat – hence the growing number of experts arguing that people should paint roofs and other parts of buildings white to help tackle global warming.

A team of MIT graduates has developed a new tile that changes color as the temperature changes, producing a white surface when hot and a black surface when it is cold.

Dubbed the Thermeleon, to rhyme with chameleon, the researchers claim that in their white state the tiles reflect about 80 percent of sunlight landing on them, while in their dark state they reflect around 30 percent of the sun’s energy.

The team, which last week won a $5,000 prize as part of MIT’s annual Making and Designing Materials Engineering Contest, is now looking at developing a commercial version of the technology that will be able to cope with harsh outdoor weather conditions.

The current version of the technology uses a common commercial polymer in a water solution, which is then trapped between plastic layers, one of which is colored black. When the temperature drops below a level determined by the nature of the solution the white polymer dissolves revealing the black surface.

Because the materials are common and inexpensive, team members think the tile could be manufactured at a price comparable to that of conventional roofing materials — although that won’t be known for sure until they determine the exact materials and construction of their final version.

MIT said the team is now working on an even simpler and lower cost version of the technology that will effectively integrate the polymer solution into a paint that could then be painted straight onto existing black roofs.

Ceramic tile makers take note. Is this a technology that can find its way into the manufacturing of ceramic tile, or even solar tile panels? Or is poly-resin going to be the next big thing in environmentally-friendly, energy saving technology?