Waste heat could be a valuable source of energy – if only we could find a way to capture it efficiently. Now two Duke University researchers have a plan to do just that. They have developed a new thermophotovoltaic device that harvests energy from waste heat by capturing infrared wavelengths.
MIT scientists have invented a water harvester that uses only sunlight to pull water out of the air under desert conditions, using a “metal-organic framework” (MOF) powdered material developed at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley).
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“The clothing industry is said to be the world’s second most polluting business, runner-up in grubbiness to oil.”
Off-grid housing that actually works for families is hard to come by, but that’s what ReGen Villages is striving towards with their concept for new self-sustaining communities.
The startup real estate company has a dream to create regenerative communities that not only produce their own food but also generate their own power, meaning what’s usually only possible for rural areas with renewable energy sources would be a reality for people that want these luxuries while having close neighbors.
This idea is more than just a dream, however, as the development company has its sights on their first site in Almere, Netherlands with the goal of opening it in 2018.
The US wants to stay in front of China with hypersonic weapons able to travel at five-times the speed of sound and destroy targets with a “kinetic energy” warhead.
Air Force weapons developers expect to operate hypersonic intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance drones by the 2040s, once scientific progress with autonomy and propulsion technology matures to a new level.
The advent of using a recoverable drone platform able to travel at high altitudes, faster than Mach 5, will follow the emergence of hypersonic weapons likely to be operational in the mid-2020s, according to the Air Force Chief Scientist Geoffrey Zacharias.
In a world-leading study researchers at Macquarie University have proven a method for multiplying laser power using diamond, demonstrating that a laser similar to the Star Wars ‘superlaser’ may no longer remain in science fiction.
The research, published in Laser and Photonics Reviews demonstrates a concept – reminiscent of the Star Wars Death Star sci-fi laser – where the power of multiple laser beams is transferred into a single intense output beam that can be directed to the intended target.
This new laser development has real-world and high-stakes applications in which high power lasers are seen as a key tool in areas such as defence.
It takes millions of years for natural processes to convert plants into gasoline, but researchers at Ghent University have figured out how to do it much faster. By pre-treating grass to make it break down quicker, and then adding Clostridium bacteria similar to that found in your gut, they produced decane, one of the main ingredients of gasoline and jet fuel. While decane is a polluting fuel, commercial jets will need it for at least the next few decades, and the researchers believe their process is efficient enough to make it commercially feasible.
For their system to work, the scientists first treated the grass with a compound that broke it down and made it easier for bacteria to digest. They then treated it with an enriched Clostridium bacteria from the family that makes up the good bacteria in your gut, rather than the one that kills you. Fermentation much like that used for beer produced lactic acid and its derivatives, and further treatment yielded caproic acids. With further processing, that was converted into decane, a primary ingredient of gasoline and jet fuel.
As mentioned, decane and similar products aren’t very clean fuels (they produce CO2 when burned), but they still have a much higher energy density than, say, lithium batteries. As such, be the main fuel used in aviation for the foreseeable future, as jet planes need to be relatively light to get aloft.
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REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command announced the successful completion of the Factory Acceptance Test for the 60kW Spectrally Combined High Power Solid State Fiber Laser program March 16.
During the testing conducted last week, the laser demonstrated a sustained power of 57.5kW for a duration of 200 seconds with good beam quality. This level exceeds the contract threshold for success, and with the addition of three more channels planned before delivery, power will exceed the 60kW program objective.
This important technical milestone represents the first successful demonstration of a high power fiber laser at this power level for defense applications. After delivery, the laser will be integrated with the High Energy Laser Mobile Test Truck where it will be used in test environments to support analyses and studies related to warfighting applications.
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