Lifeboat Foundation

For many avid outdoorspeople, summertime and camping go hand in hand. But as climate change continues to drive summer temperatures higher, outdoor recreation could become less relaxing—and cooling technologies like fans and portable air conditioners require electricity that is seldom available at the average campsite.

Seeing an unmet need, UConn researcher Al Kasani, working with Technology Commercialization Services (TCS) and the university’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering (C2E2), has developed a new off-grid technology that allows a tent’s internal temperature to cool up to 20°F below the ambient temperature.

The tent requires just one external element to function, one that is typically found in abundance around campsites: water. A single gallon of water can power the tent’s cooling technology for up to 24 hours.

The EV maker said it would keep growing its lithium-ion battery and electric-truck businesses and employ 3,000 additional workers.

Year 2019 face_with_colon_three

For high-cobalt cathodes such as lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) conventional pyrometallurgical (see section ‘Pyrometallurgical recovery’) or hydrometallurgical (see section ‘Hydrometallurgical recovery’) recycling processes can recover around 70% of the cathode value¹¹. However, for other cathode chemistries that are not as cobalt-rich, this figure drops notably¹¹. A 2019 648-lb Nissan Leaf battery, for example, costs US$6,500–8,500 new, but the value of the pure metals in the cathode material is less than US$400 and the cost of the equivalent amount of NMC (an alternative cathode material) is in the region of US$4,000. It is important, therefore, to appreciate that cathode material must be directly recycled (or upcycled) to recover sufficient value. As direct recycling avoids lengthy and expensive purification steps, it could be particularly advantageous for lower-value cathodes such as LiMn₂O₄ and LiFePO₄, where manufacturing of the cathode oxides is the major contributor to cathode costs, embedded energy and carbon dioxide footprint⁹⁵.

Direct recycling also has the advantage that, in principle, all battery components²⁰ can be recovered and re-used after further processing (with the exclusion of separators). Although there is substantial literature regarding the recycling of the cathode component from spent LIBs, research on recycling of the graphitic anode is limited, owing to its lower recovery value. Nevertheless, the successful re-use of mechanically separated graphite anodes from spent batteries has been demonstrated, with similar properties to that of pristine graphite⁹⁶.

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Researchers have developed a robot that brings speed, agility and reproducibility to laboratory-scale coin cell batteries.

Until now, laboratories studying battery technology have had to choose between the freedom to iterate and optimise battery chemistry by manually assembling each individual cell, and the reproducibility and speed of large-scale production. AutoBass (Automated battery assembly system), the first laboratory-scale coin cell assembly robot of its kind, is designed to bridge this gap.

Developed by a team from Helmholtz Institute Ulm and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, AutoBass promises to improve characterisation of coin cell batteries and promote reproducibility by photographing each individual cell at key points in the assembly process. It produces batches of 64 cells a day.

It’s unacceptable that millions living in poverty still lack access to safe water and basic sanitation. Nature Water will help researchers to find a way forward.

Chapter 1: 0:00 — 25:49
Chapter 2: 26:00 — 43:44
Chapter 3: 43:55 — 1:25:36
Chapter 4: 1:25:48 — 1:49:50
Chapter 5: 1:50:00 — 2:17:16
Chapter 6: 2:17:27 — 2:49:22
Chapter 7: 2:49:29 — 3:19:09
Chapter 8: 3:19:32 — 3:52:27
Chapter 9: 3:52:38 — 4:01:57
Chapter 10: 4:02:04 — 4:13:39
Chapter 11: 4:13:48 — 4:47:54
Chapter 12: 4:48:03 — 5:12:22
Chapter 13: 5:12:32 — 5:32:24
Chapter 14: 5:32:33 — 5:50:33
Chapter 15: 5:50:42 — 6:05:56
Chapter 16: 6:06:06 — 6:30:30
Chapter 17: 6:30:40 — 6:50:40
Chapter 18: 6:50:49 — 7:25:54

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Can a nuclear diamond battery change things as we know it, including what to do with nuclear waste?

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Continue reading “HUGE NEWS!! This NUCLEAR DIAMOND BATTERY Is About To Hit The Market!!” »

Scientists from UNSW Sydney have demonstrated a novel technique for creating tiny 3D materials that could eventually make fuel cells like hydrogen batteries cheaper and more sustainable.

In the study published in Science Advances (“Synthesis of hierarchical metal nanostructures with high electrocatalytic surface areas”), researchers from the School of Chemistry at UNSW Science show it’s possible to sequentially ‘grow’ interconnected hierarchical structures in 3D at the nanoscale which have unique chemical and physical properties to support energy conversion reactions.

In chemistry, hierarchical structures are configurations of units like molecules within an organisation of other units that themselves may be ordered. Similar phenomena can be seen in the natural world, like in flower petals and tree branches. But where these structures have extraordinary potential is at a level beyond the visibility of the human eye – at the nanoscale.

Exponential progress can be expected in the decades ahead, if all goes according to plan. […] Combined with emission reductions, and natural methods such as forest restoration, it could finally begin reversing the centuries-long build-up of CO₂, which is today approaching a cumulative total of nearly 2,000 GtCO2 since the Industrial Revolution.

The first comprehensive, global assessment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – including both current developments and projected future trends – has been published this week by Oxford University.

The detailed analysis finds that natural methods (such as tree and soil restoration) will need to double, while new technologies such as direct air capture need a 1,300-fold capacity increase by 2050.