Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Charging Electric Cars up to 90% in 6 minutes

Charging electric cars up to 90% in six minutes | Businesblog
Minkyung Kim, Mihee Jeong, Won-Sub Yoon, Byoungwoo Kang. Ultrafast kinetics in a phase separating electrode material by forming an intermediate phase without reducing the particle sizeEnergy & Environmental Science, 2020; DOI: 10.1039/D0EE02518F

POSTECH Professor Byoungwoo Kang’s research team uncovers a new Li-ion battery electrode material that can achieve high-energy density and high power capability per volume without reducing particle size.

With Telsa in the lead, the electric vehicle market is growing around the world. Unlike conventional cars that use internal combustion engines, electric cars are solely powered by lithium ion batteries, so the battery performance defines the car’s overall performance...

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Colorful Perovskites: Thermochromic Window Technologies

Photo of a researcher holding a sample of perovskite window technology
NREL researcher Lance Wheeler holds samples of perovskite-based window technology. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

Research developments create faster changes at lower temperatures, more colors. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) report a breakthrough in developing a next-generation thermochromic window that not only reduces the need for air conditioning but simultaneously generates electricity.

Heat generated by sunlight shining through windows is the single largest contributor to the need for air conditioning and cooling in buildings. Because residential and commercial buildings use 74% of all electricity and 39% of all energy in the United States, the shading effect from tinting windows helps buildings use less energy.

The...

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Engineers improve Fatigue Life of High Strength Aluminium Alloys by 25 times

Fig. 5
Cyclic training and microstructure evolution during cyclic training for the under aged (UA) alloys

A world-first study by Monash University engineers has demonstrated improvements in the fatigue life of high strength aluminium alloys by 25 times — a significant outcome for the transport manufacturing industry.

Published today (Thursday 15 October 2020) in the journal Nature Communications, researchers demonstrated that the poor fatigue performance of high strength aluminium alloys was because of weak links called ‘precipitate free zones’ (PFZs).

The team led by Professor Christopher Hutchinson, a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Monash University in Australia, was able to make aluminium alloy microstructures that can heal the weak links while in operation (i.e...

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Solar-Powered system Extracts Drinkable Water from ‘Dry’ Air

prototype of water harvesting system
A prototype of the new two-stage water harvesting system (center right), was tested on an MIT rooftop. The device, which was connected to a laptop for data collection and was mounted at an angle to face the sun, has a black solar collecting plate at the top, and the water it produced flowed into two tubes at bottom.
Credits:Image: Alina LaPotin

Engineers have made their initial design more practical, efficient, and scalable. Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have significantly boosted the output from a system that can extract drinkable water directly from the air even in dry regions, using heat from the sun or another source.

The system, which builds on a design initially developed three years ago at MIT by members of the same team, brings the process closer to something that could be...

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