The United States’ reliance on China for rare earth elements could soon come to an end, thanks to a new process that pulls the valuable metals from the ash left over when we burn coal.
Why it matters: The 17 rare earth elements aren’t actually rare — they’re all more common than gold, and one is more abundant than copper. But getting our hands on them is difficult because they’re widely dispersed in Earth’s crust and hard to extract through mining.
That’s a problem because we need rare earth elements to make a lot of products, from smartphones and satellites to electric cars and wind turbines.
According to the team, the new semiconducting cellulose nanopaper (CNP) can be tailored for a variety of applications. The paper itself can be shaped into different designs and the material’s electrical conduction properties can be tuned from 1012 to 10–2 Ω cm – values that exceed those of previously-reported 3D semiconducting materials – by changing the concentration of charge carriers (electrons and holes) in it. This means it is suitable for use in many devices, from water vapour sensors to electrodes in enzymatic biofuel cells.
Perovskite quantum dots film has better mechanical stability and structural integrity compared to bulk thin film. Here, the authors demonstrate higher endurance of quantum dot films and develop hybrid CsPbI3 QD/PCBM device with PCE of 15.1% and 12.3% on rigid and flexible substrates, respectively.
“there’s a new record to report: a new solar cell has hit 39.5 percent efficiency ”.
Scientists keep on pushing the efficiency of solar panels higher and higher, and there’s a new record to report: a new solar cell has hit 39.5 percent efficiency under the standard 1-sun global illumination conditions.
That 1-sun marker is simply a standardized way of measuring a fixed amount of sunlight, and almost 40 percent of that radiation can now be converted into electricity. The previous record for this type of solar panel material was 39.2 percent efficiency.
There are more types of solar cells around than you might have realized. The type used here, triple-junction III-V tandem solar cells, are often deployed in satellites and space vehicles, though they have plenty of potential here on solid ground as well.
The French carmaker will relaunch its popular Sc é nic model as an electric vehicle in 2024 and aims to add a hydrogen power source to it by 2030.
This new model is part of Renault’s sustainability strategy, and with the launch of the Renaulution strategic plan, Renault Group and its brands have embarked on a major transformation, moving from a race for volume to the creation of economic, environmental, and social value, with the aim of becoming carbon neutral in Europe by 2040 and worldwide by 2050.
You’d be instantly where you want to be if you moved at the speed of light. Indeed, light-speed travel has been a fantasy of many scientists and aerospace engineers who look for ways to achieve it. And now, it seems Elon Musk and NASA have broken that fantasy code to build a light-speed engine that defies the laws of physics.
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Round Rock-based motor company Infinitum Electric is expanding as it steps up production and breaks into the electric vehicle business.
The company is growing its footprint and workforce on the back of an $80 million funding round, which it announced this week. The financial infusion brings the company’s funding to date to $135 million.
Infinitum Electric was founded in 2016 in Austin by CEO Ben Schuler and moved to Round Rock in 2019. The motors include circuit boards that cut down on some of the costly equipment required in traditional motors, making Infinitum’s motors more efficient, smaller and quieter than traditional motors, according to the company.
The unexpected discovery of “ghost” fossils belonging to tiny, ancient organisms could provide insights about how life reacts to climate change in Earth’s oceans.
Looking through a powerful microscope, researchers were stunned to see the impressions left by single-celled plankton, or fossilized nannoplankton, that lived millions of years ago – especially since they were analyzing something else.
A study detailing the findings published Thursday in the journal Science.
