Posted in energy, robotics/AI
Boston Dynamics Starting from the technological building blocks of Atlas, Stretch has the mobility, power, and intelligence to automate warehousing’s toughest tasks. See how we went from initial idea to a product delivering value in the real world.
The aviation industry could be on the cusp of a revolution, following recent tests of a new purely electric jet engine that packs the same punch as its traditional fossil fuel-burning cousins.
Canadian-based company Duxion Motors recently celebrated a significant milestone with the successful ground test of its eJet Motor – the world’s first rim-driven jet propulsion motor.
The eJet motor, an electric jet engine, represents a significant leap in electric aviation, utilizing permanent magnet technology to deliver unprecedented power-to-weight ratios within a compact design. Duxion’s approach could revolutionize the industry, offering scalable efficiency suited to larger aircraft, hybrid cooling for enhanced power density and reliability, and a flexible design that can be tailored to various airframes.
Nigerian oil and gas regulator protests innocence after FBI says $50,000 in funds stolen from a wind turbine provider ended up in his account.
Ocean waves induce geographically extensive seafloor forces that excite a continuous and globally detectable seismic wavefield. This study infers global near-coastal average wave energy intensification at a rate of 0.27% per year since the late 1980’s, and 0.35% per year since January 2000.
Bluetti, a leading US solar and storage specialist, has announced the launch of its groundbreaking EP760 battery system, offering a highly customizable energy storage solution for residential settings. This innovative system introduces a modular design that allows users to stack up to four lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery modules, providing a flexible energy storage capacity of 9.9 kWh to 19.8 kWh.
Unlike traditional fixed-capacity battery systems, the EP760 offers adaptability and scalability, enabling homeowners to tailor their energy storage setup to meet their specific needs. By combining the EP760 with two to four B500 battery packs, users can create an energy storage system ranging from 9,920 Wh to a maximum of 19,840 Wh. With the ability to deliver up to 7,600 W of single-phase power in grid or off-grid mode, the EP760 ensures reliable and efficient operation.
Bluetti’s EP760 comes equipped with several advanced features that make it an ideal choice for residential applications. The system’s intelligent peak load shifting feature allows homeowners to take advantage of off-peak electricity pricing by charging the battery system when grid electricity is cheap and discharging it during peak hours, reducing overall energy costs. Additionally, the EP760 can be seamlessly integrated with existing or future solar systems, supporting up to 9,000 W of solar charging.
Hydrogen is a promising form of carbon-free energy, but moving and storing the superlight element is costly and energy-intensive. So a California startup cofounded in 2022 by two leading chemists, including a Nobel laureate, is designing a new type of tank made with nanomaterials that aims to be cheaper and safer than any currently in use — and hold more hydrogen, too.
Irvine, California-based H2MOF hopes to sell its next-generation hydrogen tanks sometime after 2024 to heavy-duty vehicle makers with plans to offer zero-emission fuel cell vehicles. It argues that in addition to holding fuel inside the vehicles, these tanks will also provide a better way to ship the fuel by truck or train as… More.
H2MOF thinks nanomaterials designed to hold hydrogen at low pressure like a sponge absorbing water are a cheaper, more efficient way to store the elemental fuel.
A newly identified process could explain a variety of natural phenomena and enable new approaches to desalination.
Evaporation is happening all around us all the time, from the sweat cooling our bodies to the dew burning off in the morning sun. But science’s understanding of this ubiquitous process may have been missing a piece all this time.
In recent years, some researchers have been puzzled upon finding that water in their experiments, which was held in a sponge-like material known as a hydrogel, was evaporating at a higher rate than could be explained by the amount of heat, or thermal energy, that the water was receiving. And the excess has been significant — a doubling, or even a tripling or more, of the theoretical maximum rate.
Samsung, the South Korean tech giant, has recently made a groundbreaking announcement in the field of battery technology. The company claims to have developed an all solid-state battery that could revolutionize the way we power our devices. This breakthrough could potentially lead to longer-lasting batteries with faster charging times, addressing one of the biggest pain points for consumers.
Solid-state batteries are a next-generation energy storage technology that replaces the liquid electrolyte found in traditional lithium-ion batteries with a solid material. This innovation offers several advantages, including increased energy density, improved safety, and enhanced lifespan. Samsung’s new solid-state battery reportedly boasts an energy density of up to 900 watt-hours per liter, which is nearly double the capacity of current lithium-ion batteries.
The fact that nanoparticle and polymer hybrid materials can often combine the advantages of each has been demonstrated in several fields. Embedding PNCs into polymer is an effective strategy to enhance the PNCs stability and polymer can endow the PNCs with other positive effects based on different structure and functional groups.
The uniform distribution of PNCs in polymer matrix is critical to the properties of the nanocomposites and the aggregation of PNCs induced by high surface energy has a severe influence on the performance of related applications. As such, the loading fraction is limited owing to the phase separation between PNCs and polymer.
Chemical interaction between PNCs and polymer is necessary to suppress the phase separation. Meanwhile, most of the fabrication methods of PNCs/polymer nanocomposites are spin coating, swelling-shrinking and electrospinning based on the in-situ synthesis of PNCs in polymer matrix and physical mixing, but extremely few works can achieve the fabrication of PNCs/polymer nanocomposites by bulk polymerization.
Contrary to what we all learned in elementary school science class, it turns out that heat may not be necessary to make water evaporate. Scientists at MIT have made the surprising discovery that light alone can evaporate water, and is even more efficient at it than heat. The finding could improve our understanding of natural phenomena or boost desalination systems.
Evaporation occurs when water molecules near the surface of the liquid absorb enough energy to escape into the air above as a gas – water vapor. Generally, heat is the energy source, and in the case of Earth’s water cycle, that heat comes primarily from sunlight.
But in the last few years, different teams of scientists have noticed discrepancies in their experiments concerning water held in hydrogels. Water appeared to be evaporating at much higher rates than should be possible based on the amount of heat it was exposed to, sometimes tripling the theoretical maximum rate.
