In the search for understanding how some magnetic materials can be transformed to carry electric current with no energy loss, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell University, and collaborators have made an important advance: Using an experimental technique they developed to measure the energy required for electrons to pair up and how that energy varies with direction, they've identified the factors needed for magnetically mediated superconductivity - as well as those that aren't.
The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have launched the IFAD-ICRAF Programme for the Development of Alternative Biofuel Crops, an initiative focused on providing clean energy for rural communities, enhancing local food security and increasing subsistence farmers' resilience to climate change.
Announced today in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, is a paper by a team led by Professor Michael Graetzel describing a new deposition process to create the light harvesting pigment for solid-state dye solar cells. Cells fabricated using this technique have established a new world record efficiency of 15% for a solid-state Dye Solar Cell.
An inexpensive new material made of clay and papaya seeds removes harmful metals from water and could lower the cost of providing clean water to millions of people in the developing world, scientists are reporting.
Using a new analytical methodology - a coupled micro-computed X-ray tomography (MicroCT) and microfluidic-based electrochemical analysis - researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are gaining new insights into electrode structure-performance relationships for energy conversion and storage devices.
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), working with colleagues from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), will conduct a field campaign this summer and fall in the skies over the Pacific Northwest and Tennessee to measure the evolution of aerosols in wildfires and prescribed agriculture burns, respectively.
The CRYSTAL CLEAR (Crystalline silicon photovoltaic: low-cost, highly efficient and reliable modules) project focused on crystalline silicon modules, which are used in around 9 out of 10 solar energy systems sold worldwide. The project partners focused on developing state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies that reduced the production cost of solar modules to around EUR 1 for each watt produced.