Energy

Designing Li-S battery cathodes: Polarity rather than conductivity leads to long-term cycling stability

By Lisa McDonald / September 29, 2020

Highly conductive carbon materials are frequently investigated as host materials for sulfur in lithium-sulfur batteries, but such cathodes struggle with loss of sulfur due to the carbon surface being nonpolar. An international team of researchers explored if using polar silica instead as the host material may improve cycling stability, even though silica is nonconductive.

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Video: Battery-free computing restores retro gaming device

By Lisa McDonald / September 16, 2020

When restoring old technology, sometimes substituting modern alternatives for original parts can improve the classic design. Researchers at Northwestern University and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands created a clone of the 8-bit Nintendo Game Boy using an energy-aware gaming platform.

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An ‘udder’ way to make money: Sorbent-based purification may make biogas production economically feasible for farmers

By Lisa McDonald / August 21, 2020

Farmers are in the midst of an economic crisis. Production of methane fuel from biogas, a natural byproduct of organic wastes, may be a way to turn a profit, but the current processing methods are too expensive for small farmers. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed a composite sorbent that may make the production process economically feasible.

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Maximize production of electricity and crops—tinted semitransparent solar panels for agrivoltaics

By Lisa McDonald / August 18, 2020

Agrivoltaics, the practice of co-locating photovoltaic infrastructure and agriculture, can lead to reduced crop yield if the solar panels block too much light. Researchers in the United Kingdom and Italy investigated using tinted semitransparent solar panels that selectively absorb certain wavelengths and found a substantial overall financial gain compared with classical agriculture.

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A real power brick—polymer-coated bricks store energy

By Lisa McDonald / August 14, 2020

Construction and refractory applications are main uses of bricks, but unusual applications show up in academic journals as well. In a recent paper, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis explain how they made ordinary bricks capable of storing energy like a battery.

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Storing charge in sodium-ion batteries: Study supports “three-stage” model for hard carbon anodes

By Lisa McDonald / July 28, 2020

In developing sodium-ion batteries, hard carbon is the material most often used for the anode, but unknowns concerning the charge storage mechanism in this material hinder further development. Researchers have proposed several models to explain the charge storage mechanism, and a recent study lends support for the three-stage “adsorption-intercalation-adsorption” process.

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Pursuing a cobalt-free future: Nickel-manganese-aluminum cathodes for lithium-ion batteries

By Lisa McDonald / July 17, 2020

Many electric vehicles today use lithium-ion batteries that contain cobalt, an element with high ethical and environmental costs to its production. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin explored the potential of a cobalt-free lithium-ion battery that features a nickel-manganese-aluminum cathode and found promising results.

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Women in Glass: Moving toward the energy of tomorrow

By Jonathon Foreman / June 30, 2020

The “Women in Glass” special issue of IJAGS contains 17 top-quality works led by women researchers. Take a closer look at some of the articles in today’s CTT—and read them all for free through the end of July!

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Unblock your learning potential: Jenga teaches students how lithium-ion batteries work

By Lisa McDonald / June 26, 2020

Lithium-ion batteries are abundant in many everyday devices, but the resources available to teach children how these batteries work and why they are important are limited. A team of researchers from the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemistry developed a unique and fun approach to explaining Li-ion battery operation using tower block games like Jenga.

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Butter-like ceramic interlayer may solve interface instability of solid-state batteries

By April Gocha / June 19, 2020

Scientists at Chalmers University of Technology and Xi’an Jiaotong University developed a new ceramic interlayer—a butter-like mixture of glass-ceramic nanoparticles within an ionic liquid—that provides adequately high ionic conductivity, high thermal stability, and low interfacial resistance to potentially make solid-state batteries a commercial reality.

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