Lifeboat Foundation

Your early morning run could soon help harvest enough electricity to power your wearable devices, thanks to a new nanotechnology developed at the University of Surrey.

Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) has developed highly energy-efficient, flexible nanogenerators, which demonstrate a 140-fold increase in power density when compared to conventional nanogenerators. ATI researchers believe that this development could pave the way for nano-devices that are as efficient as today’s solar cells.

The findings are published in the journal Nano Energy.

In celebration of Earth Day and Earth Month, we’ve rounded up five sustainability discoveries made possible by advancements in synthetic biology.

In a paper published in Nature Chemistry, researchers from the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and Queen Mary University of London have shown for the first time how different arrangements of molecules in organic solar cells can improve light absorption, leading the way to better and cheaper solar panels.

Organic solar cells use small organic molecules or organic polymers to absorb and transform sunlight into electricity. The molecules can be produced synthetically at high throughput, and the resulting cells are lightweight, flexible and inexpensive to make. This makes them potentially cheaper, sustainable and more flexible than traditional cells made of silicon.

When light hits an organic solar cell, it forces the molecules to transfer electrons, which generates an electrical current. The efficiency of the process depends on the arrangement of the molecules and how well they interact.

Researchers at the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed an eco-friendly refrigeration device with record-breaking cooling performance, setting the stage for transforming industries reliant on cooling and reducing global energy use.

With a boost in efficiency of over 48%, the new elastocaloric cooling technology opens a promising avenue for accelerating the commercialization of this disruptive technology and addressing the environmental challenges associated with traditional cooling systems.

Traditional vapor compression refrigeration technology relies on refrigerants of high global warming potential. Solid-state elastocaloric refrigeration based on latent heat in the cyclic phase transition of shape memory alloys (SMAs) provides an environmentally friendly alternative, with its characteristics of greenhouse gas-free, 100% recyclable and energy-efficient SMA refrigerants.

American energy storage technology newcomer Form Energy says it has received funding to deploy a groundbreaking 85 MW/8.5 GWh iron-air multi-day battery, which will be capable of up to 100 hours of storage and will be the world’s biggest battery once built.

The US Department of Energy last week announced $US389 million ($A579 million) in funding for the Power Up New England project which seeks to unlock up to 4.8GW of additional offshore wind and innovative battery energy storage systems in the local grids to boost resilience and optimise the delivery of renewable energy.

Part of the Power Up New England project, and easily the most exciting, is the 85 MW/8,500 MWh iron-air battery system to be built on the site of a former paper mill in rural Maine.

A new technology can extract lithium from brines at an estimated cost of under 40% that of today’s dominant extraction method, and at just a fourth of lithium’s current market price. The new technology would also be much more reliable and sustainable in its use of water, chemicals, and land than today’s technology, according to a study published in Matter by Stanford University researchers.

Global demand for lithium has surged in recent years, driven by the rise of electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. The dominant source of lithium extraction today relies on evaporating brines in huge ponds under the sun for a year or more, leaving behind a lithium-rich solution, after which heavy use of potentially toxic chemicals finishes the job. Water with a high concentration of salts, including lithium, occurs naturally in some lakes, hot springs, and aquifers, and as a byproduct of oil and natural gas operations and of seawater desalination.

Many scientists are searching for less expensive and more efficient, reliable, and environmentally friendly lithium extraction methods. These are generally direct lithium extraction that bypasses big evaporation ponds. The new study reports on the results of a new method using an approach known as “redox-couple electrodialysis,” or RCE, along with cost estimates.

The multi-layered coating is not only thinner than the silicon cells typically used in solar panels, but rivals their efficiency, too.

A multi-institutional team of environmental scientists has built a computer simulation showing that more than half of all people globally have limited access to safe drinking water. The findings are published in the journal Science.

The widespread adoption of electric vehicles greatly relies on the development of robust and fast-charging battery technologies that can support their continuous operation for long periods of time. One proposed energy storage solution to improve the endurance of electric vehicles entails the use of so-called structural batteries.

Structural batteries are batteries that can serve two purposes, acting both as structural components of vehicles and energy storage solutions. Instead of being external components that are added to an electronic or electric device, these batteries are thus directly embedded into the structure.

Researchers at Shanghai University and their collaborators recently devised a promising strategy to fabricate highly performing structural batteries with customizable geometric configurations. Their strategy, outlined in a paper published in Composites Science and Technology, enables the 3D-printing of structural lithium-ion batteries for different geometrical configurations.