Rocket horizon, led by a team from MIT, represents a pioneering interdisciplinary effort to create sustainable lunar habitats.
Category: sustainability – Page 104
Catalyst design boosts performance of anion-exchange-membrane fuel cells
Fuel cells are energy-conversion solutions that generate electricity via electrochemical reactions without combustion, thus not contributing to the pollution of air on Earth. These cells could power various technologies, ranging from electric vehicles to portable chargers and industrial machines.
Despite their advantages, many fuel cell designs introduced to date rely on expensive materials and precious metal catalysts, which limits their widespread adoption. Anion-exchange-membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) could help to tackle these challenges, as they are based on Earth-abundant, low-cost catalysts and could thus be more affordable.
In recent years, many research groups worldwide have been designing and testing new AEMFCs. While some existing devices achieved promising results, most of the non-precious metals serving as catalysts were found to be prone to self-oxidation, which causes the irreversible failure of the cells.
Scientists convert waste from solar panels into advanced battery technology — and it could solve major issues with clean energy
“We have demonstrated that high-performance and environmentally sustainable lithium-ion batteries are not only possible, but also within reach.” Scientists convert waste from solar panels into advanced battery technology — and it could solve major issues with clean energy first appeared on The Cool Down.
UC Berkeley Chemists Can Now Vaporize Plastic Waste Into Molecular Building Blocks
With mechanical recycling, “if you mix the sandwich bag and the milk jug together and then try to remake an object from that, you can’t make a very good milk jug and you can’t make a very good sandwich bag,” he said. “We’re trying to bring the plastics back to the chemicals from which they’re made in the first place,” Hartwig said.
The researchers use a catalyst, a component of a chemical reaction that makes it go faster, to vaporize both polyethylene and polypropylene plastics — two of the largest volumes of plastics in existence — transforming the solid waste into gases.
The polymers are reduced to their chemical precursors, which can then be reconstructed. In a press release, the university said the process brings “a circular economy for plastics one step closer to reality.”
From Shale Gas to Sustainable Water: New Methods for Recovering High-Demand Metals
Dr. Wencai Zhang: “Our goal is to contribute to the supply chain of these critical materials while also making a positive environmental impact. We specifically aim to reduce the environmental consequences that can be associated with produced water.”
How can lithium, one of the most demanded minerals for clean energy products like electric vehicles, be harvested without harming the environment? This is | Technology.
Lumen Orbit 🚀 Data Centers in Space
🚀 LumenOrbit (YC S24) is building a network of megawatt-scale data centers in space, scalable to gigawatt capacity.
Why we should train AI in space.
To keep pace with AI development, vast new data centers and many gigawatts of new energy projects to power them will need to be deployed around the…
Lumen Orbit is building data centers in space to make use of 24/7 solar energy and passive cooling.
New machine learning model developed to prevent EV battery fires
Researchers use AI and models to improve EV battery safety:
One of the electric vehicles’ most critical safety concerns is keeping their batteries cool, as temperature spikes can lead to dangerous consequences.
New research led by a University of Arizona doctoral student proposes a way to predict and prevent temperature spikes in the lithium-ion batteries commonly used to power such vehicles.
The paper “Advancing Battery Safety,” led by College of Engineering doctoral student Basab Goswami, is published in the Journal of Power Sources.
