Move aside, high-altitude kite turbines and space solar arrays. A company called New Wave Energy UK has an ambitious goal for harvesting solar, wind, and heat energy from 50,000 feet above the surface of the planet, and beaming it back down to earth.
The company wants to pick up where other technologies fail, so focusing on the fact that there is little biodiversity or air traffic at that height and that one device could harvest energy from multiple sources, New Wave Energy UK has come up with a design for drones that each harvest energy, use a bit to power themselves, and send the rest down to use to power our own homes, offices, devices and so on.
New Wave Energy UK states in a press release: "The technology is a wireless solution which will incorporate wireless power transmission from the drones (and their wireless network) to the Earths surface, another new technology developed by multiple bodies in the USA and Japan for energy production using solar satellites. Aerial energy harvesting is in its infancy however does show great promise."
The company is first going to test out its technology on a smaller scape by using it to help in natural disasters by providing energy to search and rescue missions and other emergency services. They will also provide energy to those in need in developing or remote areas. If it works, it could potentially be scaled up to provide power to entire countries.
Gizmag reports that, "Each drone will have four rotors, multiple wind turbines and a flat base for generating solar power. It'll be able to power itself with the harvested energy and generate an additional 50 kW that can be transmitted wirelessly to the ground. Rectenna arrays installed inland or on offshore installations would receive the electromagnetic waves and convert them into usable power."
"At 50,000 ft (15,000 m) there is very little air traffic and biodiversity, unless you go over the Himalayas," company director Michael Burdett tells Gizmag. "Implementing a system in these conditions will not obstruct any existing systems."
Though there are a lot of components, each with the potential to break (and as is the case with many energy sources, a large embodied energy footprint from the get-go), the company is developing a design that could be easily updated. But thousands would be needed for just one "power plant". The upside is that NIMBY is a non-issue since the drones will be miles above the ground.
So would it be easier to do this project, with its myriad of potential problems, or get solar panels on the roof of every building in the US? I'm guessing solar panels on every building might be a more reasonable route, but it's always good to dream big. The potential is certainly there, and it is an exciting endeavor. If the company can get the needed funding, it expects to have a working prototype within six months after receiving the funds.
Solar-powered phones such as the Samsung Blue Earth are great eco-friendly concepts, but we won't see these sun-worshipping devices replacing mainstream handsets anytime soon. Meanwhile, we still have a mountain of gadgets that need to be juiced regularly, which is why designer Knut Karlsen's idea of integrating flexible solar cells on to rechargeable batteries could be a more immediate solution to reducing our carbon footprint.
Named after a feline basking in the sun, SunCat involves flexible solar-cell strips glued to nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable cells.
With a conductive silver pen and flat wires recycled from a broken Canon lens, Knut managed to get a weak trickle charge connection. He admitted that the first prototype wasn't ideal, but he's working on a second model that may include a display for checking battery life and capacitors for more efficient charging.
A downside to this is that the battery will have to be smaller, according to Knut, if these extra components were to be added into a standard cell.
Caterham Cars, a British company known for its specialist lightweight sports cars, is branching out into two-wheeled offerings, including a few rather good looking newelectric bicycles. These were debuted recently at the International Motorcycle Exhibition (EICMA) in Milan as part of the new Caterham Bikes division.
Both electric bikes will go on sale sometime next year, likely after spring, at what’s dubbed affordable prices. The first offering, simply known as the Classic E-Bike, is said to be a “classically-inspired design” that harkens back to the “golden age of British motorcycling,” but which does not require its rider to have a license for operation in the European Union. It is driven by a 36-volt, 250 watt brushless electric motor that’s powered by a 36-volt, 12 aH lithium battery that can be expanded. The range is said to be between 25-50 miles (40-80 km).
image via Caterham Bikes
Key features of the Classic E-Bike include classic British racing colors detailed with pinstriping, an aluminum frame, leather handle-bar grips, Shimano 3-speed hub gears, a large “fuel” tank that doubles as luggage storage, a three way adjustable seat and a LED dashboard with battery status, speedo, trip meter and range.
Joining the classic design is the more modern looking Carbon E-Bike. It is said to be at “the cutting edge of both design and materials” that’s inspired by F1 technology. It sports a modular carbon-aluminum frame that’s configurable to three different sizes to meet the size and shape of each rider.
image via Caterham Bikes
Powering this electric bicycle is a 36-volt, 250 Watt brushless motor, feeding its power through an eight-speed Shimano Nexus gear hub. No riding range was mentioned, but given that it, like the other bike, is powered by a 36-volt, 12 aH lithium battery, one should expect it will be able to go between 25-50 miles (40-80 km).
Standing out on the Carbon E-Bike are items like a LED dashboard with battery status, speedo, trip meter assistant ratio and range indicator; a three-way adjustable seat and wheels which feature lightweight but strong aluminum rims, laced with stainless steel spokes.
The whole robots-taking-over-the-world scenario comes to mind when describing Morphs, robotic and geometric sculptures that are to control their own movements, adapt to different surroundings and reshape how humans think about architecture. These solar-powered mechanical creatures are programmed to crawl between different locations and self-assemble in order to interact with humans.
Morph creator William Bondin used his background in architecture to explore how social dialogue can be inspired by structures. He mixed in robotic capability to give these movable structures intelligence of their own.
"Morphs are very low-level creatures in terms of computation, and have much less computational ability than a mobile phone. Instead, they rely on their environments in order to display a level of self autonomy. These playful robotic creatures will encourage the public to choreograph them into dance routines, assemble them into complex sculptural geometries or else play music at them, which they will play back over time," Bondin told Mashable in an email.
Morph stands for Mobile Reconfigurable Polyhedra; the latter word refers to the slime mold physarum polycephalum, the organism that inspired Morph's environmental-behavior concept. The organism does not have a brain, but instead uses a cognitive process embodied within its environment. When foraging for food, the creature navigates and distinguishes between different locations by marking previously explored areas with slime.
Not actually using slime, Morphs are programmed to avoid shady and watery areas to protect their electronics. Instead, they seek sunlight and dry areas, fueling their solar power. They also deposit data into a Bluetooth network that identifies their location, and whether or not they are actively used by a human.
Bondin emphasized that Morphs are more than static sculptural forms; he said they are robotic structures able to change and respond to the natural landscape, and are meant to interact with humans and other architecture.
By 2015, Bondin hopes to design a larger-scale Morph. Once its interactive capability and safety is tested, the mega-Morph will eventually be installed in a public park. The project is funded by the Government of Malta's art-scholarship program.
"The 2015 prototypes are meant to be a step closer, and let us observe and understand the next set of challenges, which mainly revolve around machine learning and human occupation," Bondin told Mashable in an email.
The latter refers to the interaction between humans and Morphs — the idea of friendly relations between robots and humans instead of a fight over who controls the world.
This is a solar-powered police car in Swarthmore. You can see the solar panel on the back of the car. (Julie Zauzmer/staff)
SWARTHMORE Amid an ordinary day of teaching classes and supervising lab
experiments, Swarthmore College instructor Carr Everbach got the sort of call
one afternoon that most professors never receive.
A solar panel on a police car was on fire, the caller said. The police
needed the professor to come put out the flames.
Everbach found himself running to the police station to help handle the
smoldering car, the sort of town-gown collaboration that he had not imagined.
He helped put the fire out, and if his ongoing experiment is a success, he
plans to provide more help to the Swarthmore Borough Police Department than
just amateur firefighting. He wants to let it run its cars partly on solar
energy.
The idea was Mayor Rick Lowe's brainchild. Having heard about similar
projects elsewhere, he envisioned a police car powered in part by the sun, and
asked the president of the college to make it happen. She provided the funding,
about $1,200, for a prototype. Kara Bledsoe, now a sophomore at the college,
spent the last summer designing and testing the system. And on the one day that
the police department could spare a working police car from its fleet, Bledsoe
and Everbach worked rapidly to install the battery, three solar panels, and
some wiring.
Since then, the car has been patrolling Swarthmore while soaking up the
sun. And aside from that time that the panel caught on fire, due to a problem
that has since been fixed, the experiment is going smoothly, Everbach said.
Police officers spend a lot of their time sitting in place in their
cars, Everbach said. They are not driving, but they need to keep their radio
and other devices running. Usually, they simply idle their cars.
The goal of the Swarthmore prototype is to use solar power to fuel a
second battery for the car. The radio and other devices get their power from
that battery. Officers can turn off their cars rather than idling - which means
saving lots of money on gasoline - and they will not use up their main battery.
"What we have allowed them to do is to focus on their job and not
think about whether the car's going to start," Everbach said. "They
have to fight crime and chase the bad guys. . . . They don't have to worry
about running down their batteries as much as they used to."
Everbach is tracking police officers' usage of the car to see how much
the solar-powered battery reduces the time they spend idling and to make sure
that the solar panels provide enough power even during the dim wintry months.
At the end of the year, he plans to publish the results and perhaps look toward
replicating the technology for other police departments.
But he won't rule out any more fiery mishaps.
"It's a prototype," he said. "No prototype has worked
perfectly, ever. You don't see the Wright brothers' plane flying around much
anymore."
By MIT Technology Review Custom, an Energy Realities Partner
Batteries are becoming ever more compact; solar panels are becoming ever more efficient; and composite frame-construction materials keep getting both stronger and lighter. The products of those three trends are spreading throughout the world of technology, not least by making feasible what until recently had been only a sci-fi dream: electric airplanes.
To be sure, an electrically powered heavy-duty commercial aircraft that can handle passengers and cargo the way today’s airliners do is, at best, two or three decades away. The main obstacle: petroleum products, especially jet fuel, have tremendous energy density; that is, they provide enormous amounts of power relative to their weight. Unfortunately, electric batteries currently offer barely more than six percent of gasoline’s energy density. Lack of energy density is one reason that the batteries that power popular electric cars like the Tesla can weigh half a ton, about a quarter of the weight of the entire vehicle.
But those limitations notwithstanding, scores of experimental lightweight electric airplanes already exist that are capable of carrying one or two people for long distances—and soon, around the world. Many of these are basically electrified gliders, which need a tow from another plane to get airborne, but can stay up in the sky with the help of solar panels.
The Taurus Electro G2 takes a different approach, made by glider manufacturer Pipstrel. That aircraft has an electric engine that lifts it aloft, at which point the engine retracts and the Taurus operates like a traditional glider.
The Taurus is priced at $130,000, and is available commercially. Most other electric airplanes are experimental devices, and not in regular commercial production. As befits the Wright brothers-like spirit of their creators, these aircraft often make news with their exploits. The most famous is the Swiss-made Solar Impulse, a project of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne that is funded mainly by a number of European companies, including Bayer and Deutsche Bank, and which, true to its name, gets its energy from solar panels. Those panels provide enough power for the Solar Impulse to take off by itself.
This summer, the Solar Impulse made headlines by flying across the United States in six hops, with each hop lasting between 19 and 25 hours. Electric planes still have a long way to go in matching traditional jets in the speed department.
The ultimate journey — around the world — is scheduled for 2015, featuring a redesigned Solar Impulse that will combine the weight of an average automobile with a wingspan of 80 meters, wider than that of an Airbus A30. It will fly at an altitude of up to 12,000 meters (40,000 feet) and stay aloft for up to five days. Circumnavigating the globe is expected to require four or five separate flights.
Where might all this lead? One of the most ambitious attempts at imagining a future all-electric aircraft is the VoltAir, which the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), the European consortium behind the Airbus, has been showing off as a “concept plane” at aviation industry events, including the famous biennial Paris Air Show. The body of the VoltAir is cucumber-shaped; its wings are long and thin; and the engine is located at the back of the fuselage. The plane will be made with the next-generation carbon-fiber materials already found in today’s advanced aircraft, like the Boeing Dreamliner. But much of the rest of the VoltAir doesn’t yet exist, at least not outside a few specialized laboratories. Chief among its still-to-be-developed components are super-conducting electric motors to run the engines, and ultra-advanced lithium ion batteries that are to power them.
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You know we love us some solar power, and we’re always looking for different ways to keep our gadgets powered up when the power’s down. And when these things come together, look good, and happen to be on Kickstarter, we’re really psyched. While unfortunately funding has been paused on the project, we’re still impressed by the idea and creativity of this project.
This quirky-looking darling is a tree sculpture covered with solar panels, letting you charge your devices at your desk… provided your desk has ample sunlight.
Described as part sculpture and part appliance, we love that this combines the aesthetic with the pragmatic. Who says fun, function, and fashion can’t all find a home on your desk?
But how does it work? Ok, first of all it doesn’t need direct sunlight but charges off of natural daylight. It only needs 4 hours of daylight to charge the average smartphone and can store up to 36 hours of power at one time. You connect via USB and can connect two devices at once. You can also opt for a wireless charging zone (yes, a wireless charging zone). Amazing.
Electree+, naturally, is looking for funding over on Kickstarter. $199 will get you the electree+ with a black base as well as a tshirt, on-the-go solar charger, fun decals, and the ability to choose future colors of electree+ base plates.
Who knew serious solar power could be so accessible? Can’t wait to try this out and to see what other desktop and home appliance/sculptures start popping up in the technosphere.
What do you think of electree+? Do you have any solar-powered devices or charges you love? Talk to us in the comments below.
And, of course, if you love the electree+ concept as much as we do, be sure to show your support on Kickstarter!
This rendering depicts how an office might appear with the University of Cincinnati's SmartLight off (above) and on (below). Sunlight is directed to different spaces, including to a "SmartTrackLight" in the outer hallway. Credit: Timothy ZarkiA pair of University of Cincinnati researchers has seen the light – a bright, powerful light – and it just might change the future of how building interiors are brightened .
In fact, that light comes directly from the sun. And with the help of tiny, electrofluidic cells and a series of open-air "ducts," sunlight can naturally illuminate windowless work spaces deep inside office buildings and excess energy can be harnessed, stored and directed to other applications.
This new technology is called SmartLight, and it's the result of an interdisciplinary research collaboration between UC's Anton Harfmann and Jason Heikenfeld. Their research paper "Smart Light – Enhancing Fenestration to Improve Solar Distribution in Buildings" was recently presented at Italy's CasaClima international energy forum.
"The SmartLight technology would be groundbreaking. It would be game changing," says Harfmann, an associate professor in UC's School of Architecture and Interior Design. "This would change the equation for energy. It would change the way buildings are designed and renovated. It would change the way we would use energy and deal with the reality of the sun. It has all sorts of benefits and implications that I don't think we've even begun to touch."
Major improvement through minimal adjustments
There's a simple question SmartLight addresses: Is there a smarter way to use sunlight? Every day the sun's rays hit Earth with more than enough energy to meet many of society's energy demands, but existing technologies designed to harness that energy, such as photovoltaic cells, aren't very efficient. A typical photovoltaic array loses most of the sun's energy when it gets converted into electricity. But with SmartLight, Harfmann says the sunlight channeled through the system stays, and is used, in its original form. This method is far more efficient than converting light into electricity then back into light and would be far more sustainable than generating electric light by burning fossil fuels or releasing nuclear energy.
The technology could be applied to any building – big or small, old or new, residential or commercial. But Harfmann and Heikenfeld believe it will have the greatest impact on large commercial buildings. The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration shows that 21 percent of commercial sector electricity consumption went toward lighting in 2011. Harfmann calls the energy demand for lighting in big, commercial buildings "the major energy hog," and he says energy needed to occupy buildings accounts for close to 50 percent of the total energy consumed by humans.
SmartLight could help shift that energy imbalance. It works like this: A narrow grid of electrofluidic cells which is self-powered by embedded photovoltaics is applied near the top of a window. Each tiny cell ¬– only a few millimeters wide – contains fluid with optical properties as good or better than glass. The surface tension of the fluid can be rapidly manipulated into shapes such as lenses or prisms through minimal electrical stimulation – about 10,000 to 100,000 times less power than what's needed to light a traditional incandescent bulb. In this way, sunlight passing through the cell can be controlled.
This diagram shows how the University of Cincinnati's SmartLight can direct sunlight from the outside of a building (far right) to the inner part of a building and to a centralized harvesting- and energy-storage hub (far left). Credit: Anton Harfmann, UC
The grid might direct some light to reflect off the ceiling to provide ambient room lighting. Other light might get focused toward special fixtures for task lighting. Yet another portion of light might be transmitted across the empty, uppermost spaces in a room to an existing or newly installed transom window fitted with its own electrofluidic grid. From there, the process could be repeated to enable sunlight to reach the deepest, most "light-locked" areas of any building. And it's all done without needing to install new wiring, ducts, tubes or cables.
"You're using space that's entirely available already. Even if I want to retrofit to existing architecture, I've got the space and the ability to do so," says Heikenfeld, professor of electrical engineering and computer systems and creator of the Smart Light's electrofluidic cells. "And you don't need something mechanical and bulky, like a motor whirring in the corner of your office steering the light. It just looks like a piece of glass that all of a sudden switches."
Smart approach allows dynamic response
As for switching, Harfmann envisions a workplace where physical light switches join other anachronistic office equipment like mouse pads or bulky CRT monitors. Plans call for SmartLight to be controlled wirelessly via a mobile software application. So instead of manually flipping a switch on a wall, a user would indicate their lighting preferences through an app on their mobile device, and SmartLight would regulate the room's brightness accordingly. SmartLight could even use geolocation data from the app to respond when a user enters or leaves a room or when they change seats within the room by manipulating Wi-Fi-enabled light fixtures.
"SmartLight would be controlled wirelessly. There would be no wires to run. You wouldn't have light switches in the room. You wouldn't have electricity routed in the walls," Harfmann says. "You would walk into a room and lights would switch on because your smartphone knows where you are and is communicating with the SmartLight system."
But what happens at night or on cloudy days? That's where SmartLight's energy storage ability comes in. On a typical sunny day, sunlight strikes a facade at a rate that's often hundreds of times greater than what is needed to light the entire building. SmartLight can funnel surplus light into a centralized harvesting- and energy-storing hub within the building. The stored energy could then be used to beam electrical lighting back through the building when natural light levels are low. The SmartLight's grid is so responsive – each cell can switch by the second – it can react dynamically to varying light levels throughout the day, meaning office lighting levels would remain constant during bright mornings spent catching up on email, stormy lunch hours spent eating at your desk, and late nights spent reviewing the budget.
With such potential for energy storage, a building's electrical network also could tap into the centralized hub and use the stockpiled energy to power other needs, such as heating and cooling. And if centralized collection of surplus sunlight isn't possible inside some existing structures, the light could even be sent straight through a building to a neighboring collection facility.
A user could control SmartLight through a mobile app, as depicted in this rendering. Credit: Anton Harfmann
Partnering for a brighter future
Heikenfeld says much of the science and technology required to make the Smart Light commercially viable already exists. He and Harfmann have begun evaluating materials and advanced manufacturing methods. The only thing missing at this point is enough funding to create a large-scale prototype which could call the attention of government or industry partners interested in bringing SmartLight to market.
"We're going to look for some substantial funds to really put a meaningful program together," Heikenfeld says. "We've already done a lot of the seed work. We're at the point where it would be a big, commercially driven type of effort. The next step is the tough part. How do you translate that into commercial products?"
Harfmann and Heikenfeld originally began developing the idea for the Smart Light years ago. Harfmann was one of the leaders on UC's team in the 2007 Solar Decathlon, a global competition to build the planet's best solar house. Harfmann, an associate dean in UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, collaborated with faculty from other disciplines, including the College of Engineering & Applied Science. That led to his relationship with Heikenfeld and eventually the first discussions of the SmartLight concept.
The cross-college efforts of Harfmann and Heikenfeld align with the university's UC2019 Academic Master Plan goal of expanding collaborative engagement to advance the common good. Additionally, the SmartLight project exemplifies the UC2019 vision by transforming the world through research and creating a deliberate and responsible approach to our environment, resources and operations.
The innovation that results from similar collaborations taking place everywhere at UC, Heikenfeld says, is part of what helps make the university a leader in so many fields.
"A step beyond just working with someone in a multidisciplinary fashion, and where a lot of these partnerships go well, is when you take the time to learn enough about someone else's discipline that you can then begin to inject innovation into it, but not independently," Heikenfeld says. "It's more than just bringing multidisciplinary folks together. You have to stretch yourself to the point where you begin to understand the drivers and some of the fundamentals of the other disciplines as well. One of UC's greatest strengths is our diversity, this is in the classic sense of the term, but also in terms of academic thinking and expertise, which is a great melting pot for big, new ideas."
‘soft rocker‘ is a solar powered outdoor rocking lounger whereby you can relax and recharge your electronics. Developed by architecture students at MIT, lead by professor Sheila Kennedy, the furniture piece uses the human power of balance to create an interactive 1.5 axis, 35 watt solar tracking system. The lounger utilizes a 12-ampere hour battery storing the solar energy harvested during sunlight hours so you to charge your gadgets even after sunset.
A number of ‘soft rockers’ are currently installed within MIT’s killian court for use until the end of this weekend.
Up close of the ‘soft rocker’
The loungers make for a good place to socialize and engage in group work
The solar powered charging station
The battery also allows you to turn on a strip of light tape that runs along the interior of the lounger
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on
Thursday published an Apple patent application for a unique solar-ready
power management system that can be integrated into the company's
portable product lineup, negating the need for bulky external
converters.
Source: USPTO
Apple already has a number of solar power inventions to its name, but Thursday's filing is one of the first to propose a solution that can be made viable in the near term.
As noted in the patent,
titled "Power management systems for accepting adapter and solar power
in electronic devices," Apple is not looking to invent a completely new
solar power solution, as it has done in the past.
Instead, the proposed method would take advantage of existing
technologies and, more importantly, can be produced with currently
available components.
As electronics become more powerful with each successive generation,
they in turn require more power, which for portables is limited by
battery capacities. Apple notes these devices are therefore dependent on
availability of mains electricity, or a wall outlet.
There are solutions, such as solar panels, that can add extra juice on
the go, but existing tech relies on external circuits to convert solar
panel power to a form compatible with electronic devices. More
specifically, iPhones and MacBooks accept specific direct current (DC)
voltages. While an option, integrated solar panels have proven bulky and
the aesthetics may be less than desirable for Apple.
According to the filing, the integrated power management system would
include a system micro controller (SMC) and a charger. Power would flow
to the system from either an AC-to-DC adapter or directly from a
photovoltaic solar panel's output, which is DC only, then be measured
and converted to the necessary voltage.
In this embodiment, charger's power stage incorporates what is known as a
buck converter, or step-down DC-to-DC converter. Incoming power is
monitored by a charger IC, converted to an appropriate voltage and fed
into either an input current loop, a battery current loop, an output
voltage loop, or an input voltage loop to control charging.
The SMC monitors system power metrics like battery charge, health and
input power type, among others, and manages the power stage accordingly.
In the case of solar power input, the SMC would track a maximum power
point for the panels by any number of methods, including multiplying
current with voltage. Once this point is established, SMC sends a signal
to the charger IC, which uses the data to adjust a reference voltage
for maximum power point tracking (MPPT). This point determines what
voltage changes need to be applied to the solar panel input.
Finally, Apple notes that the power management system can accept both solar and mains power simultaneously.
Illustration of power management system with incorporated MPPT.
All processing and adjustments can be accomplished with established
techniques and deployed in a reasonably small component package, making
the invention suitable for use in iPhones and MacBooks. While solar tech
is somewhat of a rarity, the alternative energy solution is becoming
more popular with mainstream consumers looking for on-the-go power.
Apple's solar power converter patent application was first filed for in
2012 and credits Kisun Lee, Manisha P. Pandya and Shimon Elkayam as its
inventors.
The first supercapacitor composed of silicon was recently created by researchers at Vanderbilt University — the novel supercapacitor opens up a number of very interesting possibilities with regard to solar cell technology and mobile electronics. In particular, the researchers note the possibility of developing solar cells that can provide electricity for a full 24 hours of the day, and of developing mobile phones that can recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges.
The great strength of the new supercapacitor is that, since its created out of silicon, it can simply be built into a silicon chip along with and at the same time as the same microelectronic circuitry that it powers. The researchers even mention the possibility of constructing these power cells “out of the excess silicon that exists in the current generation of solar cells, sensors, mobile phones and a variety of other electromechanical devices, providing a considerable cost savings.”
Silicon chip with porous surface next to the special furnace where it was coated with graphene to create a supercapacitor electrode. Image Credit: Joe Howell / Vanderbilt
“If you ask experts about making a supercapacitor out of silicon, they will tell you it is a crazy idea,” stated Cary Pint, the assistant professor of mechanical engineering who headed the development. “But we’ve found an easy way to do it.”
Most research to date to improve the energy density of supercapacitors has focused on the utilization of carbon-based nanomaterials like graphene and nanotubes, but because of the great difficulty in “constructing high-performance, functional devices out of nanoscale building blocks with any level of control,” improvements have been slow. So, the researchers decided to try something radically new — utilizing porous silicon, a material with a controllable and well-defined nanostructure made by electrochemically etching the surface of a silicon wafer.
“This allowed the researchers to create surfaces
with optimal nanostructures for supercapacitor electrodes, but it left them
with a major problem. Silicon is generally considered unsuitable for use in
supercapacitors because it reacts readily with some of the chemicals in the
electrolytes that provide the ions that store the electrical charge.
With experience in growing carbon nanostructures,
Pint’s group decided to try to coat the porous silicon surface with carbon.
When the researchers pulled the porous silicon out of the furnace, they found
that it had turned from orange to purple or black. When they inspected it under
a powerful scanning electron microscope they found that it looked nearly
identical to the original material but it was coated by a layer of graphene a
few nanometers thick.”
“We had no idea what would happen,” Pint explained. “Typically, researchers grow graphene from silicon-carbide materials at temperatures in excess of 1400 degrees Celsius. But at lower temperatures — 600 to 700 degrees Celsius — we certainly didn’t expect graphene-like material growth.”
After testing the coated material, the researchers found that it had chemically stabilized the silicon surface — and that, when it was used to create supercapacitors, the graphene coating “improved energy densities by over two orders of magnitude compared to those made from uncoated porous silicon and significantly better than commercial supercapacitors.”
The researchers think that this approach very likely isn’t specific to graphene. “The ability to engineer surfaces with atomically thin layers of materials combined with the control achieved in designing porous materials opens opportunities for a number of different applications beyond energy storage,” Pint argued.
“Despite the excellent device performance we achieved, our goal wasn’t to create devices with record performance,” Pint continued. “It was to develop a road map for integrated energy storage. Silicon is an ideal material to focus on because it is the basis of so much of our modern technology and applications. In addition, most of the silicon in existing devices remains unused since it is very expensive and wasteful to produce thin silicon wafers.”
The researchers are now pursuing this line of thought — looking to develop energy storage that can be built into the excess materials and/or unused back-sides of solar cells.
The new research was detailed in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.
A Renault Spark SRT-01E FIA Formula E race car is presented at the booth of Michelin during the media day of the IAA (Internationale Automobil Ausstellung) international motor show in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on September 10, 2013 Formula One dominator Sebastian Vettel gave short shrift Saturday to the new, electric Formula E series, saying it would be far too quiet and was "not the future".
Five teams have already been signed for the planned field of 10 to raceelectric cars in city centres around the world, starting in Beijing next September.
"I don't like it at all, I think it's not the future," Vettel said at the Indian Grand Prix, where victory on Sunday will give him a fourth consecutive drivers title.
"I think people come here to feel Formula One and there is not much to feel when a car goes by and you don't even hear anything but the wind.
"Maybe I am very old-fashioned, but I think Formula One needs to scream, needs to be loud and there needs to be vibration."
Vettel said he will never forget the first time he went to Formula One in 1992 to watch a free practice at Hockenheim.
"Even though it was wet and the cars did not go out, once they did their installation laps it was a great feeling just to be there and hear them coming through the forest," he said.
However, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg, who will start Sunday's race on the front row alongside pole-sitter Vettel, was more positive about the eco-friendly initiative.
"It's an interesting thing for sure, something new and I know there is a lot of interest," Rosberg said. "It's planned to be in cities (rather than normal circuits), so it's bringing the race to the people, not the people to the race.
"It's a bit of the future, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. We need to wait and see."
© New Wave Energy UK
Batteries are becoming ever more compact; solar panels are becoming ever more efficient; and composite frame-construction materials keep getting both stronger and lighter. The products of those three trends are spreading throughout the world of technology, not least by making feasible what until recently had been only a sci-fi dream: electric airplanes.
