A new study found that a commercial sodium-ion battery from China rivals Tesla’s batteries in manufacturing quality and several key performance benchmarks.
With improvements to cold-weather charging and energy density, sodium-ion batteries could become a more affordable alternative for electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage.
Sodium-ion battery shows tesla-like quality in new study.
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A Yale-led research team has developed the first standalone device that produces the liquid fuel methanol using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide as the ingredients.
The artificial “leaf,” like its namesake in nature, is a chemistry marvel. It brings the scientific mimicry of photosynthesis — the process of converting sunlight and water into chemical energy — to a new level, converting sunlight to methanol 32 times more efficiently than the previous conversion record for artificial leaf technologies that generate alcohol products.
When a meteoroid strikes, it generates a wave of energy that moves faster than the speed of sound. When all that energy propagates through material in seconds or less before being quickly cooled and resolidified by a secondary wave, it produces glass.
Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Shawn Wright was looking for such glassy material while doing field work among the basaltic volcanic rock of Lonar crater in the Deccan region of India, when he found something unexpected.
“Some glassy samples were fluffy and light, like popcorn,” he said. “It had a really low density, it was airy, and it crumbled in my fingers. It looked different than all the other samples I’d seen and collected, so I aimed to find out what it was by trying to figure out what it used to be.”
Ultrasound-based irradiation of rock formations has attracted considerable attention as a technique for enhancing heavy-oil (high-viscosity crude oil) recovery from deep underground reservoirs. However, a unified theoretical framework for wave propagation and energy dissipation in these formations remains lacking because water coexists with heavy oil within rock pores, and gas bubbles in the water respond dynamically to ultrasonic excitation, thereby creating a complex system.
Conventional theories typically treat oil as a purely viscous (Newtonian) fluid or assume frequency ranges markedly below the ultrasonic regime. Consequently, these theories inadequately capture oil viscoelasticity and the influence of bubble oscillations in the ultrasonic regime.
Researchers at University of Tsukuba have developed a theoretical framework to clarify the propagation of ultrasonic waves through complex materials such as rocks containing mixtures of oil, water, and gas bubbles. The work extends previous low-frequency models and constructs a theoretical framework applicable to ultrasonic frequencies by incorporating three notable elements into a unified system of equations: (i) heavy-oil viscoelasticity, (ii) dynamic capillary pressure at fluid-fluid interfaces, and (iii) oscillations of gas bubbles dispersed in water induced by ultrasonic pressure fluctuations.
Experiments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) require breathtaking precision. Each of the 192 lasers is focused to a width of a few millimeters to enter a 3-millimeter hole at the top or bottom of a 2-centimeter (0.8-inch) gold canister known as a hohlraum.
As they enter, the beams intersect in plasma and transfer power, a process known as crossed-beam energy transfer (CBET). In designing a NIF inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiment, scientists precisely tune the beams’ wavelengths to balance power via CBET and achieve better symmetry.
Small changes in wavelength have delivered big results—CBET is one key factor in achieving ignition on NIF. But what would be the effect of a more significant change in the laser architecture, namely its polarization state? LLNL scientists have calculated that this change would make the optics more resilient to filamentation damage.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a new low-temperature approach to hydrogen production that could make the clean fuel cheaper and more practical to generate. The technique could be used both in large centralized facilities and in smaller local systems that take advantage of waste heat from major industrial operations.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is widely viewed as an important clean energy source. When used as a fuel, it produces only water and heat rather than carbon dioxide and other pollutants associated with fossil fuels. Hydrogen can also power fuel cells that generate electricity. Despite these advantages, around 95% of hydrogen production today still depends on fossil fuels.
As our world’s population grows, so does the demand for ammonia—a key ingredient in fertilizer. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that ammonia production must quadruple by 2050 to feed the increase in global population.
The current gold standard process for producing ammonia is energy-intensive and a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Invented in the early 1900s, the Haber-Bosch method requires mixing hydrogen and nitrogen gas at 400–500 degrees Celsius. It’s responsible for nearly 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions and accounts for 2% of fossil energy use.
Researchers from McMaster University have developed a process that is green and faster, generates ammonia more efficiently from nitrate—a common water pollutant—and is “cleaner” because it uses renewable electricity rather than fossil fuel.
Einstein’s famous equation has grown into one of the great symbols of the 20th century. It is the one equation in science that people recognize, if any is. It has a kind of iconic status and dual connotations: the brilliance and insight of Einstein and the darkness of atomic bombs. Images.
The basic idea behind the formula E=mc2 is easy to state. Mass and energy are really just the same thing. At first that seems impossible.
• Mass is a measure of the quantity of stuff and manifests as a resistance to acceleration. A body with little mass, like a pebble, is easy to set in motion.