Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

How the solar flow battery works. Image: Li et al./Chem

Scientists in the United States and Saudi Arabia have harnessed the abilities of both a solar cell and a battery in one device – a “solar flow battery” that soaks up sunlight and efficiently stores it as chemical energy for later on-demand use. Their research, published September 27 in the journal Chem, could make electricity more accessible in remote regions of the world.

While sunlight has increasingly gained appeal as a clean and abundant energy source, it has one obvious limitation – there is only so much sunlight per day, and some days are a lot sunnier than others. In order to keep solar energy practical, this means that after sunlight is converted to electrical energy, it must be stored...

When exposed to the sky, the porous polymer PDRC coating reflects sunlight and emits heat to attain significantly cooler temperatures than typical building materials or even the ambient air.
Credit: Jyotirmoy Mandal/Columbia Engineering

Engineers have invented a high-performance exterior PDRC polymer coating with nano-to-microscale air voids that acts as a spontaneous air cooler and can be fabricated, dyed, and applied like paint on rooftops, buildings, water tanks, vehicles, even spacecraft – anything that can be painted. They used a solution-based phase-inversion technique that gives the polymer a porous foam-like structure.

With temperatures rising and heat-waves disrupting lives around the world, cooling solutions are becoming ever more essential...

This scanning electron microscope image shows the carbon cathode of a carbon-dioxide-based battery made by MIT researchers, after the battery was discharged. It shows the buildup of carbon compounds on the surface, composed of carbonate material that could be derived from power plant emissions, compared to the original pristine surface (inset).
Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

Lithium-based battery could make use of greenhouse gas before it ever gets into the atmosphere. A new type of battery developed by researchers at MIT could be made partly from carbon dioxide captured from power plants...

Researchers from Drexel University’s College of Engineering have developed a way to “spray paint” invisibly thin antennas from a type of two-dimensional material called MXene. The antennas perform as well or better than the ones currently used in mobile devices and RFID tags.
Credit: Drexel University – Kanit Hantanasirisakul

Engineering researchers report a method for spraying invisibly thin antennas, made from a type of two-dimensional, metallic material called MXene, that perform as well as those being used in mobile devices, wireless routers and portable transducers.

The promise of wearables, functional fabrics, the Internet of Things, and their “next-generation” technological cohort seems tantalizingly within reach...