Category Technology/Electronics

Diagram showing a solar water heating system using nanoparticles. (b) Application of condensed light from a solar simulator to water with dispersed TiN nanoparticles. Note that rising water vapor can be seen even before the water temperature increases. Credit: Copyright NIMS

A research team in Japan discovered through numerical calculations that nanoparticles of transition metal nitrides and carbides absorb sunlight very efficiently, and confirmed experimentally that nitride nanoparticles, when dispersed in water, quickly raise water temperature. These nanoparticles may be applied for heating and distillation of water through efficient sunlight use.

The examples of sunlight use are power generation using solar cells and water heating through photothermal conversion, a process in which abso...

Highly conductive ultrathin film on skin between clips. Credit: Sam Yoon/Korea University

An ultrathin film that is both transparent and highly conductive to electric current has been produced by a cheap and simple method devised by nanomaterials researchers from the Uni of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University. The film – actually a mat of tangled nanofiber, electroplated to form a “self-junctioned copper nano-chicken wire” – is also bendable and stretchable, offering potential applications in roll-up touchscreen displays, wearable electronics, flexible solar cells and electronic skin.

The new film establishes a “world-record combination of high transparency and low electrical resistance,” the latter at least 10X greater than the previous existing record, said Prof Sam Yoon, Korea Univ...

This is a Perovskite solar cell prototype. Credit: Copyright Alain Herzog / EPFL

EPFL researchers are pushing the limits of perovskite solar cell performance by exploring the best way to grow these crystals. Michael Graetzel and his team found that, by briefly reducing the pressure while fabricating perovskite crystals, they were able to achieve the highest performance ever measured for larger-size perovskite solar cells, reaching over 20% efficiency and matching the performance of conventional thin-film solar cells of similar sizes.
This is promising news for perovskite technology that is already low cost and under industrial development.

However, high performance in pervoskites does not necessarily herald the doom of silicon-based solar technology...

The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft flies over the Statue of Liberty before landing at JFK airport June 11, 2016 in New York

The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft has ended its US portion of its bid to circle the globe using only solar power. “It’s absolutely incredible,” Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg said. “It’s a dream here.” The light, slow-moving aircraft later landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport, completing the 5h flight from Lehigh Valley Airport in Pennsylvania, 1 minute ahead of schedule at 3:59 am (0759 GMT).

It was the 14th leg of an east-west journey that began March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has taken the aircraft across Asia and the Pacific to the US. From NY the Solar Impulse team will attempt to cross the Atlantic to Europe and on to the Middle East...