Hydrogen energy promises a clean and sustainable future, but its production often depends on expensive platinum-based catalysts, making it costly. The industry needs more affordable alternatives to platinum to make hydrogen energy more viable.
Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science (TUS) have developed a new catalyst called bis(diimino)palladium coordination nanosheets (PdDI). These low-cost palladium-based nanosheets match platinum’s performance in producing hydrogen.
Research suggests that free-moving panels on aircraft wings can improve stability, reduce turbulence, and add fuel efficiency.
3D printing is revolutionizing microbial electrochemical systems (MES) by enabling precise reactor design, custom electrode fabrication, and enhanced bioprinting applications. These innovations optimize pollutant degradation and energy production, with significant implications for sustainability and environmental management.
Microbial electrochemical systems (MES) are emerging as a promising technology for addressing environmental challenges by leveraging microorganisms to transfer electrons. These systems can simultaneously degrade pollutants and generate electricity, making them valuable for sustainable wastewater treatment and energy production.
However, conventional methods for constructing MES components often lack design flexibility, limiting performance optimization. To overcome these limitations and enhance MES efficiency, innovative fabrication techniques are needed—ones that allow precise control over reactor structures and functions.
This method enables applications in photonics, electronics, and advanced materials for energy and environmental use.
This technique will control functional nanoparticle assembly into uniform monolayers over large surfaces.
Employing nanoparticle components is often challenging despite its versatility, especially when fabricating a device. Therefore, scientists presented an electrostatic assembly as a potential solution, where nanoparticles attach to oppositely charged surfaces.
However, this process can take a lot of work, and thus, the South Korean scientists devised the “mussel-inspired” one-shot nanoparticle assembly technique that transports materials from water in microscopic volumes to two-inch wafers in 10 seconds.
Welcome to the age of wireless electricity.
Nikola Tesla once envisioned a world where electricity could be transmitted wirelessly, eliminating the need for wires and revolutionizing energy distribution.
Over a century later, that dream is on the brink of becoming reality.
Companies worldwide, from America’s Wave Inc. to Japan’s Space Power Technologies and New Zealand’s Emrod, are pioneering wireless power transmission technologies. These innovations range from microwave and laser-based energy transfer to solar satellites that beam electricity from space. New Zealand is already testing Emrod’s wireless energy infrastructure, which could provide clean, sustainable power across difficult terrains. Meanwhile, advancements like wireless EV charging roads and underground charging systems are making the technology more practical than ever.
As promising as wireless electricity sounds, challenges remain—chief among them, public skepticism and efficiency concerns.
As the world searches for energy alternatives to fossil fuels, the answer may have been in front of us the whole time.
Pomelo is a large citrus fruit commonly grown in Southeast and East Asia. It has a very thick peel, which is typically discarded, resulting in a considerable amount of food waste. In a new study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers explore ways to utilize waste pomelo-peel biomass to develop tools that can power small electric devices and monitor biomechanical motions.
There are two main parts of the pomelo peel—a thin outer layer and a thick, white inner layer. The white part is soft and feels like a sponge when you push on it. Some people have used pomelo peels to extract compounds for essential oils or pectin, but we wanted to take advantage of the natural porous, spongy structure of the peel.
If we can upcycle the peel to higher-value products instead of simply throwing it away, we can not only reduce waste from pomelo production, consumption, and juice making, but also create more value from food and agricultural waste, said study co-author Yi-Cheng Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.
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Physicists have a lot of questions about our universe. Here’s one more to add to the list: Why is it so asymmetrical? New research has confirmed an anomaly named the Hemispherical Power Asymmetry, which states that the cosmic microwave background has more fluctuations in one side of the universe than the other. The weirdest part about this is that no one even has a theory for why this might be the case.
Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.
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A breakthrough simulation reveals how magnetars form and evolve, solving a key mystery about their magnetic origins.
Magnetars are a rare type of neutron star.
A neutron star is the collapsed core of a large (between 10 and 29 solar masses) star. Neutron stars are the smallest and densest stars known to exist. Though neutron stars typically have a radius on the order of just 10 — 20 kilometers (6 — 12 miles), they can have masses of about 1.3 — 2.5 that of the Sun.
A battery that’s safer and cheaper than lithium-ion while offering comparable energy density? That sounds like a pipe dream. But such a battery is in fact in the works, using a chemistry of renewables to store over 220 Wh/kg. Singaporean startup Flint believes it has the formula for the most sustainable battery the world has ever seen, capable of replacing lithium for applications like EV power and grid storage. Maybe that is a dream. Or maybe it’s the revolutionary eco-optimized battery of the near-future.
A fully sustainable paper battery that can be recycled and dropped in compost at the end of its life cycle sounds too good to be true. It kicks off a major cynicism alert, and the questions flow like water through a burst dam.
Does it offer such low capacity as to be useless for anything outside a laboratory? No, Flint estimates energy density at 226 Wh/kg, which falls comfortably within the range of existing lithium tech.
