USC liberation method (via USC)

A problem with hydrogen for use as a fuel comes when the vehicle is in a crash. The hydrogen leaks out, and any sparks or fire will ignite the gas. Another problem is a hydrogen fire is invisible. (I toured a manufacturing facility once where they had hydrogen tanks for use in the factory. They had the "broom test" for testing if there is a hydrogen fire. People would walk down a hallway waiving brooms in front of them to see if the bristles catch fire. It is a scary thought. The same would happen with hydrogen vehicles.)

The use of hydrogen as a fuel is still on its way to reality. A common method of making hydrogen safe for transport is placing it into a harmless chemical. One method is a formic-acid storage. Another popular option is ammonia borane, a nitrogen-boron complex.

The University of Southern California (USC) has developed a way to extract hydrogen from ammonia borane. They took their research further and devised a way to extract the hydrogen at a rate that is usable as a fuel.  Unlike other boron and metal hydride hydrogen storage and release systems, the USC system is air-stable and re-usable. Read more of their findings at the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

You have liberated hydrogen, now you have to safe place to store it, and a great way to use it.

Eavesdropper

Rooftops globally are millions of acres of under tapped surface area prime for solar conversion. The structures are, in most cases, connected to the grid's of their respective countries, so energy distribution is built in. Many large companies are making the installation a standard for their sunniest stores. A certain new partnership seeks to make long roofing panels with integrated solar elements an option to traditional materials.

One of the world's top 10 steel manufacturers Tata Steel Corporation has partnered with a leading supplier of 3rd generation solar technology, Dyesol, in creating the world's largest dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC)thin-film panel. The module measures over 3 meters in length and is 1 square meter in overall photovoltaic surface area. The innovative manufacturing process allows the Tata/Dyesol collaboration to print the solar cells directly to the steel. This allows for the manufacture of large volumes of cost effective cells to be made to exactly fit the shape of the structure. Tata Steel Operations Manager states that they have already "successfully produced hundreds of meters of printed steel and polymer film" used in the prototypes.

Dye-sensitized cell construction is printed in the following layers. The top layer, anode, is made of tin dioxide (SnO2:F) deposited on the back of glass. Below this is a layer of iodide electrolyte, sometime platinum, and is sealed with the next layer to prevent leaking. The next, and final, is a conducting layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2), dipped in a photosensitive dye, ruthenium-polypyridine.

The possibility for an electron to re-enter the dye after absorption is quite slow compared to the transfer from the platinum layer to the electrolyte. This differential is favorable allowing the cell to work in low light and cloudy day conditions. Even though DSSC panels have a 5%-12% efficiency rating the ability to charge for longer periods of time may make the cells more productive than their silicon counterparts (silicon cells rate at 12%-15%).

Tata/Dyesol finished the 3 year joint project in this June, 2011. 20 more people are needed for the team while they prepare for the pre-industrialization phase of the project. Like not recycling, the ease of the Tata/Dyesol panels make it almost a crime not to use rooftop solar collection. Great job Tata and Dyesol.

Eavesdropper

Picture via Tata/Dysol

A Canadian Wind Farm

I had asked this questions before, do wind farms effect the global environment? I now have the answer.

Alex Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemisty, Germany, theorizes that the overuse of wind/wave farms would have an impact as great as doubling the atmospheres concentration of CO2.

Kleidon states as we seek to replace the 17 Terawatts (TW), of the global 47 TW power consumption, of burning fossil fuels with renewable, we may end up depleting the amount of "Green Energy" the planet has to offer. It is a thermodynamic principal, as our wind farms generate electricity, it saps energy from the global system.

Energy from the sun hits the earth's atmosphere, and portions of it cause wind and ocean currents, evaporates water, moving condensation up into the atmosphere before it drops again. And the majority of the rest of the energy comes as heat, most of which is not harnessed. He says using wind/wave farms use a large portion of the sun's energy that reaches the earth.

Using models, Kleidon shows that the energy potential of wind power is reduced by a factor of 100 when wind farms are taken into account. He also shows that up to 70 TW of energy could be harvested from wind, but would destroy the natural global processes at the same time.

Although wind would not stop, his models have shown wind farms will effect turbulence, precipitation, and the amount of solar energy reaching the earth, over time. As Kleidon says, [as bad as] "doubling atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide."

What is a better option? More passive devices. A recent photosynthesis like breakthrough would not rob the world of kinetic energy at all. Plants have been doing it since the beginning.

Cabe

Read Alex Kleidon's abstract here.

Sudden discoveries have lead to many different world changing technologies. For example, Penicillin came about through a cross contamination of two mold cultures in Dr. Alexander Flemings lab. X-rays were a surprise to researcher Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen for not putting a screen in front of a cathode ray tube he was studying. The list goes on and on.

The company SunCatalytix has made a discovery that has shown that the sun can be used to split water, and harvest the hydrogen. Researcher Daniel Nocera, from MIT, said that a jar of water could power a house. He also said that a swimming pool of water could meet the entire planet's electricity demand.

The idea works like photosynthesis. Sunlight gets absorbed and separates water. An artificial leaf made of Cobalt and Phosphate coated silicon is placed inside a jar of water, and the power output surpasses the best solar panel to date. It is discoveries like this that change the world. We will see more of this in the near future.

The Tata Group, a collection of companies that work to bring innovation to the world and the less fortunate, has partnered with SunCatalytix for an undisclosed amount. And they are receiving funding from other organizations to push the technology along.

See the SunCatalytix site for peer review links.

Eavesdropper

Xindi Yu, Professor Paul V. Braun and Huigang Zhang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A step toward phones and laptops charging in seconds has been announced by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Paul Braun and his team at UIUC have created batteries that charge quick and retain a high energy density. Li-ion and NiMH, when rapidly charged, degrades the energy storage significantly over time. With Braun's battery, this is no longer an issue. The team have taken thin-film active material, like found in lithium-ion batteries, and wrap it into a three dimensional shape, which achieve high attractive volume and high current capabilities. Demonstrations in their lab have shown charge times in seconds. "10 to 100 times faster" than normal bulk electrodes, but perform exactly the same in existing devices.

The 3-D nano-structure of Braun's battery in self-assembling. Creating the material goes as such, a surface is coated with "tiny spheres" (Styrofoam) tightly packed to form a lattice. The space in between the spheres are filled with metal, then the spheres are melted (dissolved) to form a porous 3-D scaffold. Electropolishing uniformly etches the surface of the material, enlarging the pores, and making an open framework. Finally the frame is coated with a thin film active material. The result is a "bicontinuous electrode surface with small interconnects where lithium ions can move rapidly. The active material make the diffusion kinetics rapid. The metal framework makes for good conductivity.

Everyone would cheer if our gadgets charge in seconds using this battery form. But Braun has his eyes on automotive uses. Braun said, "If you had the ability to charge rapidly, instead of taking hours to charge the vehicle you could potentially have vehicles that would charge in similar times as needed to refuel a car with gasoline. If you had five-minute charge capability, you would think of this the same way you do an internal combustion engine. You would just pull up to a charging station and fill up." He is correct, the electric car would completely take over if the charge time was under 10 minutes.

Braun goes on, " We like that it's very universal, so if someone comes up with a better battery chemistry, this concept applies. This is not linked to one very specific kind of battery, but rather it's a new paradigm in thinking about a battery in three dimensions for enhancing properties."

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pic L. Brian Stauffer, UIUC

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Copt (NTT), Toyko Japan, combines photovoltaic and thermal harvesting in the same container with an added benefit of up to 50% increase of current output. Sanyo Semiconductor Co's silicon PV cells are housed in a water-tight, transparent, enclosure in a staggered stair like configuration. This setup can provide power normally. However NTT fills the container with water, the water then refracts and reflects the light in such a way that the PV cells current output increases up to 50%. The PV cells absorb the visible light, while the water inside absorbs the infrared. The water is then heated and can be pumped out to be used.

The water has a similar effect like the "FUSION" film I wrote about in another post, but seems to have a greater effect. The film is cheap, while the NTT water enclosure is not. So, for now the water option will remain in the research lab. My question is, how deep does the water have to be to provide that effect?

I hope to see more from NTT.

Eavesdropper

A brewery million gallon waste bioreactor

Among the waste water being turned into biofuels, Anheuser-Busch's beer facility has a sludge that looks quite potential to researchers. Cornell University's Largus T. Angenent and Jeffery J. Werner took samples at the InBev location around the USA to get a glimpse at the bacterial communities in the factory's bioreactors. From 9 locations they found thousands of species of bacteria.

Using genome analyzing software, the team took a look at 400,00 gene sequences of the microbes. 145 types were unique to each of the 9 facilities. "The cool thing we found was that if you're looking at these thousands of species of bacteria, it's a very dynamic system with things dying off and replacing them," Werner said. "There are certain signature populations that are resilient. Even if they get disturbed, they come right back up." In the million gallon tanks, the team plans to alter the environment to make the bacteria perform new functions.

One member of these bacterial communities currently produce high amounts of methane. Anheuser-Busch harness this byproduct to offset their heating bill by 20%, saving the company millions a year. However, the team wants to prevent the bacteria from producing methane, and make the colonies product carboxylates, a key component in alkanes of fuel. The hope is the biofuels produced will outstrip the energy potential of the methane produced. If it is accomplished, the thousands of distilleries globally may be large part of the emerging biofuel markets.

The Cornell team is also working with the University of Colorado in Boulder and Washington University in St. Louis. See more in the abstract.

Eavesdropper