New US and German collaboration aims to produce green hydrogen more efficiently

Through a new award program, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) have joined forces to award the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Technical University of Darmstadt a three-year $720,000 research grant ($500,000 from…

Global approach is needed on battery regulation

New European Union regulations on batteries could offer a huge boost to the global decarbonisation mission – but only if it leverages its political and economic weight to ensure a fairer global marketplace. According to a team of scientists and…

The Indus basin: Untapped potential for long-term energy storage

Hydropower has massive potential as a source of clean electricity, and the Indus basin can be a key player in fulfilling long-term energy storage demands across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. IIASA researchers explored the role the Indus…

Solar cells: Layer of three crystals produces a thousand times more power

The photovoltaic effect of ferroelectric crystals can be increased by a factor of 1,000 if three different materials are arranged periodically in a lattice. This has been revealed in a study by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). They…

Removing the lead hazard from perovskite solar cells

“The solar energy-to-electricity conversion of perovskite solar cells is unbelievably high, around 25%, which is now approaching the performance of the best silicon solar cells,” says Professor László Forró at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences. “But their central element is…

Press registration opens for ACS Fall 2021 meeting

WASHINGTON, July 15, 2021 — Journalists who register for the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) will have access to more than 7,000 presentations on topics including agriculture and food, energy and fuels, health and medicine, space science,…

Dartmouth Engineering professor selected to direct new Brazilian biofuels lab

Lee Lynd , the Queneau Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth, will be the founding director of the new Advanced Second Generation (A2G) Biofuel Laboratory located at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) in Brazil. The lab’s mission is to develop…

HighT-Tech’s innovative approach to catalyst development wins The Spinoff Prize 2021

London | New York | Darmstadt, 12 July 2021 The Spinoff Prize 2021, a Nature Research Award supported by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany has been awarded to HighT-Tech, a spinoff* of The University of Maryland, College Park in the United…

Depression, suicidal thoughts plague ailing coal miners, study finds

More than a third of coal miners and former coal miners suffering from black lung disease struggle with depression, and more than one in 10 has recently considered suicide, a new study finds. The study is believed to be the…

Cutting through noise for better solar cells

As society moves towards a renewable energy future, it’s crucial that solar panels convert light into electricity as efficiently as possible. Some state-of-the-art solar cells are close to the theoretical maximum of efficiency–and physicists from the University of Utah and…

Scientists home in on recipe for entirely renewable energy

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin are homing in on a recipe that would enable the future production of entirely renewable, clean energy from which water would be the only waste product. Using their expertise in chemistry, theoretical physics and artificial…

More EVs could reduce CO2 emissions in Hawaii by 93% in less than 30 years

By 2050, faster adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and faster generation of renewable energy will result in 99% less fossil fuel consumed and 93% less CO2 emissions from passenger and freight vehicles on O?ahu. That’s under the most ambitious scenario…

New game-changing zeolite catalysts synthesized

A research team at POSTECH has uncovered a promising new zeolite, anticipated to be a turning point for the oil refining and petrochemical industries. This research was recently published in the scientific journal Science on July 2, 2021. The team…

Recent technology cost forecasts underestimate the pace of technological change

A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Oxford, and University of Brescia/RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment carried out the first systematic analysis of the relative performance of probabilistic cost forecasts…

Cold weather cost New England electric customers nearly $1.8 billion in one month; A new study suggests ways to mitigate fuel shortages

In New England, constraints in the supply of natural gas have led to nearly a quarter of all unscheduled power plant outages. In a new study, researchers used data from power plant failures in the 2010s to develop a supply…

Greenhouse gas data deep dive reaches new level of ‘reasonable and true’

URBANA, Ill. – For the most accurate accounting of a product’s environmental impact, scientists look at the product’s entire life cycle, from cradle to grave. It’s a grand calculation known as a life cycle assessment (LCA), and greenhouse gas emissions…

Newly developed ion-conducting membrane improves performance of alkaline-zinc iron flow battery

Alkaline zinc-iron flow battery (AZIFB) is well suitable for stationary energy storage applications due to its advantages of high open-cell voltage, low cost, and environmental friendliness. However, it surfers from zinc dendrite/accumulation and relatively low operation current density. Recently, a…

How to improve energy efficiency of historically significant buildings

How can historic buildings become more energy efficient while conserving their heritage values? A doctoral thesis provides the answer by presenting a new method for combining climate goals and heritage values in historic buildings stocks. Renovate to improve energy efficiency…