Every year, concrete accounts for more than five percent of human-created, pollution-causing carbon dioxide emissions, reports Technology Review, an online news source published by MIT. Most of these emissions are created because cement – the active ingredient in concrete – requires limestone and clay powders to be baked at extremely high temperatures, usually generated by…
Read More[flash /ceramictechtoday/wp-content/video/float_glass.flv mode=1 f={image=/ceramictechtoday/wp-content/video/float_glass.jpg}] This week’s video comes courtesy of PPG. It demonstrates modern techniques of making large sheets of flat glass that has a smooth surface – something that perplexed glass-makers for centuries. The first advances in automating glass manufacturing were patented in 1848 by Henry Bessemer, (of steel-making fame), who developed a…
Read MoreIt seems like there is a breakthrough a week in the realm of lower-cost catalysts for producing hydrogen. The latest news comes from Ohio State University, where researchers are using a $1.1 million grant to develop alternatives to pricey rare and precious metallic catalysts like platinum and rhodium. With these metals selling for thousands of…
Read More[flash /ceramictechtoday/wp-content/video/nocera_long.flv mode=1 f={image=/ceramictechtoday/wp-content/video/nocera_long.jpg}] In a previous edition of Ceramic Tech Weekly, we posted information and a brief video about MIT researcher Daniel Nocera and his apparently successful efforts to cut down on the use of costly platinum. Now the good folks at Blip.TV have gone out and toured Nocera’s lab and conducted a longer…
Read MoreA group of researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have received funding from the DOE to develop a real-world overview of the possible uses for hydrogen in the relatively near future. “We need to be realistic about what we can and can’t do with hydrogen right now,” says Dr. Scott Grasman, associate professor…
Read MoreA researcher at the University of Idaho has penned an agreement with a leading nuclear power company to launch a new type of recycling plant that can harvest uranium and other materials from the ashes of radioactive garbage to be recycled back into nuclear fuel using an efficient, environmentally friendly technology, according to university officials.…
Read MoreThe Auto Channel reports that on Saturday, the first hydrogen-powered go-cart “Formula Zero” race was held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Zero in the title of the race refers to zero emissions. The Aug. 23 race was the first of a planned championship series that seems as much designed to raise the profile of powerful…
Read MoreScience Magazine has published research suggesting that Japanese scientists have developed a composite skin that is both stretchable and able to conduct electricity, leading researchers at the University of Tokyo to predict robotic applications covered with the material that can both feel heat and pressure. The problem they have been trying to address is that…
Read MoreScience also contains a report from researchers in Spain who have developed a new electrolyte that allows a solid oxide fuel cell to operate at temperatures hundreds of degrees lower than those of conventional electrolytes – a development they say could boost the practicality of SOFCs. Led by Jacobo Santamaria, of the applied-physics department at…
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