IN A NUTSHELL 🌞 Cambridge researchers have developed a solar-powered device that converts atmospheric CO2 into valuable fuel. 🌿 This invention mimics photosynthesis, operating without an external power source, ideal for remote areas. 💡 The technology offers a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, reducing reliance on non-renewable energy sources. 🔄 By addressing both energy production
Quantum batteries (QBs) are energy storage devices that could serve as an alternative to classical batteries, potentially charging faster and enabling the extraction of more energy. In contrast with existing batteries, these batteries leverage effects rooted in quantum mechanics, such as entanglement and superposition.
Despite their promise, QBs have not yet reached optimal performances, partly because they are prone to decoherence simultaneously. This is a loss of coherence (i.e., the ability of quantum systems to exist in a superposition of multiple states), prompted by interactions between a system and its surrounding environment.
Decoherence causes QBs to self-discharge, or in other words, to spontaneously start releasing the energy they are storing. This self-discharging process has so far prevented the batteries’ practical application.
Researchers have created a cement-based material that does more than just provide structural support—it can generate and store electricity. This breakthrough could mark a turning point for future infrastructure in smart cities.
The material is a cement-hydrogel composite developed by a team led by Professor Zhou Yang at Southeast University in China. The team took inspiration from the layered structure inside plant stems to create a material that can harness thermal energy and convert it into electricity.
This is a repost. I think Andrew posted it earlier.
Researchers developed a cement-hydrogel composite that can generate and store power, paving the way for self-powered smart infrastructure.
The Electric Viking
Professional cycling teams can reduce air drag for their protected rider by up to 76% by adopting specific formations different from the traditional single paceline, according to new research from Heriot-Watt University in partnership with the simulation software company, Ansys, part of Synopsys.
Despite the seemingly individual aspect of competitive cycling, it’s very much a team sport. In the Tour de France, each of the 23 teams has eight cyclists who all play a crucial part in the overall success of the team.
When a team leader is involved in a crash or a flat tire and he drops from the peloton or leading group in the race, his teammates will have the task to bring this protected rider back into the peloton or leading group, where riders closely follow one another to reduce air resistance. In doing so, the teammates will try to shield their protected rider from the wind thereby allowing him to save energy resources, at the expense of investing their own energy resources.
The generation of electricity from heat, also known as thermoelectric energy conversion, has proved to be advantageous for various real-world applications. For instance, it proved useful for the generation of energy during space expeditions and military missions in difficult environments, as well as for the recovery of waste heat produced from industrial plants, power stations or even vehicles.
We propose and analyze a universal method to obtain fast charging of a quantum battery by a driven charger system using controlled, pure dephasing of the charger. While the battery displays coherent underdamped oscillations of energy for weak charger dephasing, the quantum Zeno freezing of the charger energy at high dephasing suppresses the rate of transfer of energy to the battery. Choosing an optimum dephasing rate between the regimes leads to a fast charging of the battery. We illustrate our results with the charger and battery modeled by either two-level systems or harmonic oscillators. Apart from the fast charging, the dephasing also renders the charging performance more robust to detuning between the charger, drive, and battery frequencies for the two-level systems case.
npj Quantum Inf ormation volume 11, Article number: 9 (2025) Cite this article.
Sand batteries are emerging as a viable alternative to lithium-ion for thermal energy storage, capable of holding heat with minimal loss.
IN A NUTSHELL 🚀 Nord Quantique introduces a revolutionary bosonic qubit design that integrates error correction directly into its structure. 🌱 The new quantum computers are significantly energy-efficient, using only a fraction of the power required by traditional systems. 🔧 Utilizing multimode encoding, Nord Quantique’s system achieves a 1:1 ratio of physical to logical qubits.