[Image above] Credit: ACerS
ENERGY
First gas–solid hydride ion battery for efficient ambient hydrogen storage
Researchers led by Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the world’s first gas–solid hydride ion prototype battery, which uses hydrogen gas and a metal as the electrodes. The battery can not only power electrical equipment but also enables highly efficient hydrogen storage under ambient temperature and pressure.
Nanoengineered materials can store and release hydrogen at room temperature
Researchers led by Zhejiang University introduced a new nanoengineering strategy that could reliably prompt hydrogenation at room temperature. It relies on the synthesis of new materials that combine ultrafine LiBH4 nanoparticles and very small clusters of nickel atoms.
New catalyst could slash the cost and temperature requirements of hydrogen production
University of Birmingham researchers developed a perovskite-based catalyst that splits water into hydrogen at temperatures between 150–500°C. It could also be regenerated at temperatures ranging from 700–1,000°C, roughly 500oC lower than current approaches.
New catalyst design to improve battery and hydrogen fuel cell performance
Researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology and Seoul National University proposed a new catalyst design strategy to improve the efficiency of key reactions inside batteries and fuel cells. They improved performance simply by adjusting the electrical environment around the catalyst without greatly changing the catalyst itself.
MANUFACTURING
Intrinsic high elasticity in pristine glass via melt-quenching
A researcher from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology successfully used a conventional melt-quenching process to fabricate a colorless, optically transparent oxide glass with a Young’s modulus exceeding 130 GPa, which means it can be readily integrated into existing industrial glass manufacturing systems.
Low-cost technique to get lithium out of rocks
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers developed a low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium from the common mineral spodumene. The process uses a liquid reagent to dissolve spodumene into not only battery-ready lithium salts but also smelter-grade alumina and cement-ready silica.
A new way to build chips: Sequentially stacking silicon to extend Moore’s law
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign demonstrated a scalable way to directly and sequentially stack high-performance silicon circuits. This advance marks a critical step toward realizing the full potential of 3D chips that could carry computing beyond the limits of traditional scaling.
OTHER STORIES
‘Designer’ superconducting diamond offers path to multimodality quantum chips
Researchers from The Pennsylvania State University, the University of Chicago, and Q-NEXT uncovered new insights into the physics behind superconductivity in diamonds. This information could be used to develop multifunctional “quantum-on-chip” applications.
Researchers capture inception of hydrogen–uranium reaction for the first time
Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory observed and characterized the beginning stages of hydrogen–uranium corrosion for the first time. The result will lead to more predictive and physically grounded models for how uranium components degrade.