Daily Tech News

Researchers claim to have hit on the right combination of solar cell type and battery to charge an electric vehicle battery with higher efficiency than ever before. The team behind the research says the system could soon make it possible to attach small cells to a car that will charge the vehicle while being driven – on a sunny day, at least. The researchers from Case Western Reserve University wired four perovskite solar cells in series to directly photo-charge lithium batteries with 7.8 percent efficiency, which they believe to be the most efficient configuration reported to date. "We found the right match between the solar cell and battery... Others have used polymer solar cells to charge lithium batteries, but not with this efficiency," said Liming Dai, the leader of the research team, adding that the coupling appears to have outperformed all other reported pairings of photo-charging components and compatible batteries or super-capacitors. Perovskite has been on...

The use of sunlight as an energy source is achieved in a number of ways, from conversion to electricity via photovoltaic (PV) panels, concentrated heat to drive steam turbines, and even hydrogen generation via artificial photosynthesis. Unfortunately, much of the light energy in PV and photosynthesis systems is lost as heat due to the thermodynamic inefficiencies inherent in the process of converting the incoming energy from one form to another. Now scientists working at the University of Bayreuth claim to have created a super-efficient light-energy transport conduit that exhibits almost zero loss, and shows promise as the missing link in the sunlight to energy conversion process. Using specifically-generated nanofibers at its core, this is reported to be the very first time a directed energy transport system has been exhibited that effectively moves intact light energy over a distance of several micrometers, and at room temperature. And, according to the researchers, th...

As the world moves towards developing new avenues of renewable energy, the efficiencies of producing fuels such as hydrogen must increase to the point that they rival or exceed those of conventional energy sources to make them a viable alternative. Now researchers at Monash University in Melbourne claim to have created a solar-powered device that produces hydrogen at a world-record 22 percent efficiency, which is a significant step towards making cheap, efficient hydrogen production a reality. Efficiency records for solar-powered hydrogen production have continued to rise over the years, and much more rapidly as the technology and techniques improve. Even as late as December last year  Gizmag reported  a solar-driven hydrogen record efficiency at the time of just 12.3 percent, so this new record shows a very healthy 10 percent improvement on that and beats out the previous record of 18 percent. Splitting water using electricity to produce hydrogen and oxygen has been a...

Although the ability tends to wane as we get older, the human auditory system is pretty good at filtering out background noise and making a single voice able to be understood above the general hubbub of a crowded room. But electronic devices, such as smartphones, aren't quite as gifted, which is why getting Siri or Google Now to understand you in crowded environments can be an exercise in futility. But now researchers have developed a prototype sensor that’s not only able to figure out the direction of a particular sound, but can also extract it from background noise. To create the sensor, scientists at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina used a class of materials known as metamaterials, which boast properties not found in nature, and a signal processing technique known as  compressive sensing . The disk-shaped device is made of plastic and doesn't have any electronic or moving parts. Rather, it features a honeycomb-like structure and is split into dozens of slices wh...

Ferrolic is a desk clock which looks like an ever-evolving Rorschach test. Created by Zelf Koelman from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Ferrolic uses ferrofluid to tell the time, with this seemingly magical liquid moving gracefully around inside the clock as the minutes tick by. The Ferrolic clock is, on the face of it, a minimalist object, comprising nothing more than an aluminum frame and glass panel. However, behind the simple facade sits a basin containing ferrofluid, and a powerful set of electromagnets. These hidden magnets manipulate the black liquid to form numbers. Ferrofluid  is a magnetized liquid developed in 1963 by NASA engineer Steve Papell. It was originally intended to be a liquid rocket fuel that could be drawn toward a pump inlet in zero-gravity conditions. However, it has since been used in a range of fields, including mechanical engineering and healthcareIts latest use is in art installations and innovative re-imaginings of everyday objects. W...

Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, can be used to create beautiful birds, frogs and other small sculptures. Now a Binghamton University engineer says the technique can be applied to building batteries, too. Seokheun “Sean” Choi developed an inexpensive, bacteria-powered battery made from paper, he writes in the July edition of the journal Nano Energy. The battery generates power from microbial respiration, delivering enough energy to run a paper-based biosensor with nothing more than a drop of bacteria-containing liquid. “Dirty water has a lot of organic matter,” Choi says. “Any type of organic material can be the source of bacteria for the bacterial metabolism.” The method should be especially useful to anyone working in remote areas with limited resources. Indeed, because paper is inexpensive and readily available, many experts working on disease control and prevention have seized upon it as a key material in creating diagnostic tools for the developing wo...

Engineers from the  University of Wisconsin-Madison  along with a collaborator from China have created a new nanogenerator that harnesses energy from the friction caused by rolling tires. Xudong Wang has developed a new way to harvest energy from rolling tires (Credit: The College of Engineering) As a novel energy reusing method, the nanogenerator could be potentially used by auto-mobile manufacturers to improve the efficiency of their vehicles. The first of its kind, nanogenerator was published in the Nano Energy journal. The research was carried out by Xudong Wang, the Harvey D. Spangler fellow and an associate professor of materials science and engineering at UW-Madison, and his PhD student Yanchao Mao for about one year. Based on the triboelectric effect, the nanogenerator can harness energy resulting from the electric potential created between a vehicle's wheels and the pavement. The triboelectric effect is the electric charge generated due to the rubbing...

A Japanese engineer just invented a nifty new way to travel: A transporter called a “WalkCar” that’s small, light and apparently easy to use. The product is battery powered and is about the size of a laptop. And although it looks like it can hold much weight and is made from aluminum, it can apparently have as much as 265 lbs on board. VentureBeat  reported  that it can go up to 6.2 miles per hour for up to 7.4 miles. It needs three hours to charge.

This fantastic little gadget will please a lot of people. How often are people left frustrated by how little time a battery takes to run out, leaving you frantically searching the house for a spare. Well, you will now be able to depend on your average battery a whole lot more thanks to the Batteriser . This nifty device claims to extend any given disposable battery life by up to 800%, and fortunately will retail for as little as £1.60. The gadget is essentially a sleeve for batteries, being 0.1mm thick and working by restoring the power of fading batteries back to their fully functioning 1.5v. 1.5v is the trigger point for batteries. Once a battery fails to maintain that level the battery will stop working, leaving you with a worthless battery despite having 80% of their power still in them.  Normally, when a battery drops below 1.5v, it stops working in most gadgets – so we throw away batteries with 80% of their power left unused. The Batteriser restores the battery to it origi...

The Bahrain World Trade Center is the first skyscraper to have wind turbines integrated into the structure of the building.Three large wind turbines are suspended between two office towers. The towers are aerodynamically tapered to funnel wind and draw air into the turbines. This airfoil tapering allows the wind to enter the turbines at a perpendicular angle and increases air speed as much as 30 percent in each of the 95 ft wide turbine rotors. The turbines supply about 15 percent of the electricity used by the skyscraper - approximately the same amount of electricity used by 300 homes. Source: www.norwin.dk

Scientists at Northwestern University and the U.S. Department of Energy have found that perovskite cells, one of the most promising solar technologies of recent years, can repay their energy cost over 10 times faster than traditional silicon-based solar cells. The finding confirms that, once issues related to cell longevity are ironed out, perovskite cells could soon bring us solar energy on the cheap, and do so with less impact on the environment over their lifetime. Solar panel installations are doubtlessly having a positive impact on the environment, but quantifying their carbon footprint with some degree of precision – which is useful for comparing them to other means of energy production, including other renewables – is not a straightforward process. To get a more complete picture, it's important to consider not only the carbon emissions saved during the panel's operating life, but also the amount of energy that goes into materials processing, manufacture, repair, ma...

Laundry devices may be one of the last things you expect to find on Kickstarter, but one project has been wildly successful, for good reason. The Crystal Wash 2.0 Kickstarter met its goal in less than half the allotted time by proposing an easy-to-use, money-saving, eco-friendly alternative to traditional laundry detergent. C rystal Wash completely eliminates the need for laundry detergent by using bioceramics – all natural materials that control the pH level of laundry water, raising the balance in order to let stains and dirt to soak free of clothing naturally. The process has been proven to work as well as laundry detergent, effectively disinfects and removes bacteria from your laundry and, most importantly, is easy-to-use, eco-friendly, and cheap. Crystal Wash can save you an estimated $250 for every 1000 washes (1000 washes amounts to approximately 40 jugs of laundry detergent and just one $50 Crystal Wash ball). The reusable bioceramics also make it so you don’t have to w...

Fontus is a self-filling water bottle for your bicycle. This device collects the moisture contained in the air, condenses it and stores it as safe drinking water. Powered by solar cells, it can harvest up to 0,5 l water in an hour´s time under the right climatic conditions. According to UN statistics, More than 2 billion people in more than 40 countries live in regions with water scarcity. In 2030, 47% of the world´s population will be living in areas of high water stress. Water scarcity may be the most underestimated resource issue facing the world today. Every measure to ease this upcoming crisis is a welcome one.  Harvesting water from the air is a method that has been practiced for more than 2000 years in certain cultures mostly in Asia and Central America. The Earth’s atmosphere contains around 13.000 km3 of mostly unexploited freshwater. This project is an attempt to discover these resources. Fontus can be applied in two different areas. Firstly, it ma...