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Category: sustainability – Page 248

A collaborative effort has succeeded in upgrading solar-powered microbots – each of which now has their own built-in, miniature computer – allowing them to walk autonomously and without being externally controlled.

Cornell researchers and others had previously developed microscopic machines able to crawl, swim, walk, and fold themselves up. However, these always had “strings” attached; to generate motion, they needed wires to provide electrical current, or laser beams focused directly onto specific parts of robots.

“Before, we literally had to manipulate these ‘strings’ in order to get any kind of response from the robot,” explained Itai Cohen, Professor at Cornell’s Department of Physics. “But now that we have these brains on board, it’s like taking the strings off the marionette. It’s like when Pinocchio gains consciousness.”

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The streets in this meticulously planned neighborhood were designed to flood so houses don’t. Native landscaping along roads helps control storm water. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. This is all in addition to being built to Florida’s robust building codes.

Some residents, like Grande, installed more solar panels on their roofs and added battery systems as an extra layer of protection from power outages. Many drive electric vehicles, taking full advantage of solar energy in the Sunshine State.

Climate resiliency was built into the fabric of the town with stronger storms in mind.

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The tech is called Flettner Rotors.

A multidisciplinary design company called 3deluxe has revealed a new low carbon-emission superyacht concept called FY.01. The company made the superyacht design public on Friday, and it is sure to wow thanks to its eco-credentials, aesthetics, and usage of cutting-edge technology.

Flettner Rotors were developed over 100 years ago and use rotating vertical pipes to transform wind energy into a highly efficient transversal force. The technology relies on an effect referred to as the Magnus force and it has seen a powerful revival over the years due to the availability of new materials that make it more efficient and viable.

Although it is currently predominantly used on utility vessels, more and more companies have begun to substantially increase fuel efficiency on large scale commercial vessels by adding Flettner Rotors.

FY.01 is also silently powered by electricity generated by white solar panels on the roof surfaces of the yacht. However, the Flettner rotors remain its main source of energy. Depending on the wind conditions, the force generated by these systems supersedes that of a sail of equivalent size.

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Hydrogen generation using abundant solar energy together with semiconductor photocatalysts holds significant potential to produce clean and sustainable energy carriers.

ETH Zurich researchers have developed a new photocatalyst made from an aerogel that could enable more efficient hydrogen production. The aerogel increases the efficiency of converting light into hydrogen energy, producing up to 70 times more hydrogen than rival methods.

Aerogels are extraordinary materials that have set Guinness World Records more than a dozen times, including the honorary position of becoming one of the world’s lightest solids. Professor Markus Niederberger from the Laboratory for Multifunctional Materials at ETH Zurich has been working with these special materials for some time.

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The keratin-based substrate is biodegradable, eco-friendly, sustainable, and could revolutionize urban farming.

Scientists at NTU grew crops from discarded clumps of hair. Hair served as the growth medium instead of soil.

The research is crucial to a more sustainable form of urban farming.

In a lab at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, scientists have been growing crops — leafy vegetables, micro greens, rocket leaves, and the Chinese cabbage bok choy — using discarded hair collected from salon floors.

NTU

Doesn’t sound too appetizing, does it?

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The vessel is claimed to fly above the water thanks to its electric propulsion technology.

Targeting the worldwide high-speed ferry industry, a maritime design and technologies company has presented the plan for its new 100 percent electric EF-24 passenger vehicle.

“Our high-speed passenger ferry provides a cost-effective public transport solution that helps address air pollution, congestion, and noise,” said Dr. Iain Percy OBE, Artemis Technologies founder, and CEO.

Artemis Technologies.

EF-24 is one of many zero-emission ships being created by Artemis Technologies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, according to a press release published by the company on Sunday.

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Tata Motors, an India-based automaker, has launched a new small hatchback all-electric vehicle starting at just over $10,000.

The Indian auto market has been lagging behind its peers when it comes to electrification.

This is due to many factors, but not the least of which is the fact that the country has strong protectionist laws when it comes to its auto industry and it makes it hard for foreign automakers to launch new vehicles in the country without producing them there.

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A team of researchers from HSE MIEM joined colleagues from the Institute of Non-Classical Chemistry in Leipzig to develop a theoretical model of a polymeric ionic liquid on a charged conductive electrode. They used approaches from polymer physics and theoretical electrochemistry to demonstrate the difference in the behavior of electrical differential capacitance of polymeric and ordinary ionic liquids for the first time. The results of the study were published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

Polymerized ionic liquids (PIL) are a relatively new class of materials with increasing applications in various fields, from the development of new electrolytes to the creation of solar cells. Unlike ordinary room temperature ionic liquids (liquid organic salts in which cations and anions move freely), in PILs, cations are usually linked in long polymeric chains, while anions move freely. In recent years, PILs have been used (along with ordinary ionic liquids) as a filling in the production of supercapacitors.

Supercapacitors are devices that store energy in an electric double layer on the surface of an electrode (as in electrodes of platinum, gold and carbon, for example). Compared, for example, to an accumulator, supercapacitors accumulate more energy and do so faster. The amount of energy a is able to accumulate is known as its ‘’.

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