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    Category Technology/Electronics

    Improved Water Splitting advances Renewable Energy Conversion

    October 25, 2016, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Improved water splitting advances renewable energy conversion

    Gas bubbles form as researchers use a unique catalyst to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen. The inset image shows the catalytic materials at the nanoscale. Credit: Washington State University

     
    WSU researchers have found a way to more efficiently create hydrogen from water – an important key in making renewable energy production and storage viable. The researchers, led by professors Yuehe Lin and Scott Beckman in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, have developed a catalyst from #low #cost materials. It performs as well as or better than catalysts made from precious metals that are used for the process. Energy conversion is a key to the clean energy economy...
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    Turning your Living room into a Wireless Charging Station

    October 25, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Turning your living room into a wireless charging station

    This graphic illustrates how a flat-screen Fresnel zone wireless power transfer system could charge smart devices in your living room. Credit: Duke University

    A flat-screen panel that resembles a TV on your living room wall could one day remotely charge any device within its line of sight. Engineers at the University of Washington, Duke University and Intellectual Ventures’ Invention Science Fund (ISF) show that the technology already exists to build such a system—it’s only a matter of taking the time to design it. “There is an enormous demand for alternatives to today’s clunky charging pads and cumbersome cables, which restrict the mobility of a smart phone or a tablet...

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    The Quantum Sniffer Dog

    October 24, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    compact sensor providing room-temperature operation of monolithic surface-active lasers and detectors integrated on the same chip. The differentiation between emitter and detector is eliminated, which enables mutual commutation. Proof-of-principle gas measurements with a limit of detection below 400 ppm are demonstrated. This concept enables a crucial miniaturization of sensing devices.

    Compact sensor providing room-temperature operation of monolithic surface-active lasers and detectors integrated on the same chip. The differentiation between emitter and detector is eliminated, which enables mutual commutation. Proof-of-principle gas measurements with a limit of detection below 400 ppm are demonstrated. This concept enables a crucial miniaturization of sensing devices.

    In technological gas detection there are a whole host of methods available including infrared lasers, passing a laser beam through the gas to an adjacent separate detector, which measures the degree of light attenuation it causes...

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    Non-Metal Catalyst Splits Hydrogen molecule

    October 24, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Chemists at Goethe University have now developed a new catalyst for the activation of hydrogen by introducing boron atoms into a common organic molecule. Credit: GU

    Chemists at Goethe University have now developed a new catalyst for the activation of hydrogen by introducing boron atoms into a common organic molecule. Credit: GU

    Boron compounds extend range of possible chemical synthesis applications. Hydrogen (H2) is a valuable raw material which as a result of sophisticated catalysts is becoming more important. Applications range from food and fertilizer manufacture to crude oil cracking to an energy source in fuel cells. A challenge lies in splitting the strong H-H bond under mild conditions. Chemists at Goethe University have developed a new catalyst for activation of H2 by introducing boron atoms into a common organic molecule. The process requires only an electron source in addition and should therefore be usable on a broad scale in future.

    The h...

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