Quantifying the power potential of matter-antimatter reactions in everyday volumes
Category: energy – Page 15
Many systems in nature—and in society—can suddenly change their properties: Water freezes at normal pressure at 32°F, a power grid collapses when a central substation fails, or a society splits into opposing factions following a major event. All of these processes are examples of so-called phase transitions—tipping points where a system abruptly shifts into a new state.
“Often, we can predict these transitions easily. We know at what temperature water freezes. But sometimes, it is extremely difficult to foresee when and how these changes will occur,” explains CSH researcher Jan Korbel, one of the authors of the study, which was published in Nature Communications.
As the world makes more use of renewable energy sources, new battery technology is needed to store electricity for the times when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing.
“Current lithium batteries have reached their limitations in terms of energy storage capability, life cycle, and safety,” says Xiaolei Wang, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “They’re good for applications like electric vehicles and portable electronics, but they’re not suitable for large-scale grid-level energy storage.”
With the help of the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, Wang and his team are developing new technologies to help make grid-level aqueous batteries that can use seawater as an electrolyte. The study is published in the journal Advanced Materials.
In a groundbreaking step toward sustainable energy, Helsinki has just unveiled the world’s largest heat pump, a game-changing system capable of providing heat to 30,000 homes. This massive infrastructure not only represents a technological breakthrough, but also signals a major shift in how cities can transition to greener energy sources. By harnessing renewable power and cutting dependence on fossil fuels, Finland is setting a new standard for efficient, low-emission heating solutions.
Chyba and his team tilted the cylinder precisely at 57 degrees, orienting it perpendicular to both Earth’s magnetic field and its rotational motion. Electrodes attached at each end measured an unmistakable — but minuscule — direct current voltage of about 18 microvolts. Rotate the cylinder 90 degrees, and the voltage vanished. Reverse the cylinder, and the voltage flipped. Control tests with solid cylinders produced no voltage at all. The device was carefully shielded from external interference, such as temperature fluctuations and background electromagnetic noise, to ensure the results were accurate.
“It has a whiff of a perpetual motion machine,” Chyba told Physics Magazine, acknowledging the skepticism his results would inevitably invite. But the physics, he insisted, was sound. The electricity, though tiny, genuinely appeared to flow from Earth’s spin.
The current generated by the device is proportional to its size and the strength of Earth’s magnetic field, which is relatively weak. To produce meaningful amounts of power, the device would need to be much larger or made of materials with even more favorable properties. The researchers speculate that future versions could be miniaturized and connected in series to amplify the voltage, or deployed in space where Earth’s magnetic field is stronger.
IoT vs. IIoT
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The IoT world is a big world that everybody is talking about. IoT products nowadays come in different forms — some are labelled as IoT, but in fact they represent only a small portion of what an IoT product really entails. A fully fledged IoT project not only requires programming and hardware expertise but also expertise on a broad range of domains from energy to smart home and even automotive.
The purpose of this article is to highlight the significant differences among the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and while walking through the listed considerations, the reader will have the chance to learn about their ecosystems and the particularities of their applications. Moreover, the gaps in the standardization of the technologies related to the IoT are presented along with the current initiatives from various institutions for mitigating these gaps.
Before talking about the differences between the IoT and IIoT, let’s look first at the similarities of the two. Both have the same fundamental layer on top of which they are built. With IIoT being a subset of the larger IoT, they automatically share common technologies like sensors, cloud platforms, connectivity and analytics.
However, their idea faced skepticism because conventional physics suggested it was impossible. The established theories indicated that any generated voltage would be nullified by electron rearrangement.
However, these researchers questioned this assumption.
They experimented to see if they could create electricity by using a specially designed hollow magnetic cylinder to capture energy using the Earth’s magnetic field.
China’s latest tool can sever communication and power cables located deep in the oceans, giving it the power to disrupt global infrastructure.
A full Dyson swarm could unlock near-limitless energy—but also turn Earth into an unlivable furnace, warns a new study.
A new technology has been developed that enables the manufacturing of thin films, which typically require complex processes, using only water and oil in just one minute. Professor Kang Hee Ku and her research team from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST announced their novel process for creating catalytic thin films using oil droplets dispersed in water.
The developed technology involves a process in which nanomaterial precursors attached to the surface of oil droplets float to the surface of the water, where they assemble into a thin film. When hydrogen peroxide is added, it decomposes due to the thin film precursors, producing gas bubbles that cause the precursors to be lifted and assembled on the water surface within one minute.
This process allows for precise control of the thin film thickness, adjustable from 350 μm, and enables the synthesis of thin films covering an area of up to 100 cm² using various raw materials. The resulting thin films exhibit a porous structure with a high surface area, featuring exceptional mechanical strength and flexibility.