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Category: sustainability – Page 4

New contact material improves efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells

A newly developed material for the electron contact improves the efficiency of single perovskite solar cells and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The new material is based on a carborane molecule. It offers several advantages over the standard material C60, as shown by the study led by Steve Albrecht’s team. The new material has since been patented and is already commercially available.

Perovskite solar cells are not only exceptionally inexpensive to manufacture but also achieve high efficiency levels. Single-junction perovskite devices can already convert more than 27% of sunlight into electrical energy, while perovskite-silicon tandem cells have achieved efficiencies of more than 35%. Until now, a layer of so-called “football molecules” (C60) has been used to transport electrons away. However, a significant proportion of the charge carriers are lost at the interface between the C60 layer and the perovskite absorber. Furthermore, C60 materials are relatively expensive and tend to delaminate over time, compromising the cell’s stability.

Arena AI: The Official AI Ranking & LLM Leaderboard

The era of “growth at all costs” in AI is ending. If the market is demanding efficiency and sustainable margins, a model that delivers elite intelligence at a fraction of the price is exactly what will stabilize developer workflows. It’s no longer just about who has the biggest model—it’s about who has the best intelligence-per-dollar ratio.

Chat, compare, vote for the world’s best AI models. Join the community shaping the public leaderboard for LLMs, image, and code models through real-world evaluation.

Plasma agriculture makes strides toward super-seeding conventional methods

Occasionally, the sun unleashes powerful flares and coronal mass ejections, which hurl plasma and energetic particles into space. On the infant Earth, this solar activity drove cascades of atmospheric chemical reactions that may have helped form the building blocks of life. More recently, scientists have discovered that applying plasma to seeds in a controlled way can trigger similar activity, making them faster-growing and more resilient. Researchers at Nagoya University and Kyushu University in Japan have compiled a comprehensive review of this new field—termed “plasma agriculture”—as a potential sustainable solution to address global food shortages.

The word plasma brings to mind a hot, ionized inferno that makes up the fourth state of matter. But the plasma used here is different. By applying high voltage to air or any gas, electrons are stripped from a tiny fraction of its molecules and gain very high energies. These electrons zipping around can effectively mimic the behavior of plasma even though the bulk of the gas remains at room temperature.

This low-temperature plasma can be applied directly to seeds without burning them. Excessive use of chemicals and genetic modification of plants cause concern for many people. Instead, plasma agriculture can offer similarly high crop yields without invasive intervention.

Bloomberg Donates $260 Million to Ensure New High Seas Treaty Translates to Lasting Ocean Protections

Bloomberg Philanthropies has identified a funding shortfall in the implementation of many countries’ ocean protection plans, and has attempted to fill it with a quarter-billion dollar donation.

The aim writ small is to translate the paper gains for ocean conservation and management secured with the passage of the UN’s new High Seas Treaty into real gains by helping to cover the cost of management and enforcement for small island nations that lack these resources.

The updated High Seas Treaty has been under negotiation for over 2 decades. Its passage secured major gains for the potential protection of critical ocean habitats.

Secure glass containers for storing chemical waste through laser welding

As the adoption of electric vehicles continues to grow, so does the need for the safe and permanent storage of battery materials and industrial chemical waste. Certain waste streams require disposal in what are known as Category IV landfills, which impose particularly stringent requirements on storage containers. These must simultaneously ensure environmental protection, safe handling and long-term structural integrity.

Glass is a highly promising material for this application: It is exceptionally chemically inert—meaning it reacts with virtually no other substances—making thick-walled glass containers especially well-suited for the permanent containment of hazardous materials. Glass containers are also of particular interest in the context of potential new recycling methods in the future. The stored residual materials do not react with the containers and can be readily recovered from them.

Until now, these glass containers have been manufactured primarily using thermal gas processes. However, these are limited by uncontrolled heat input, high residual stresses and restricted automation potential. Laser welding, on the other hand, enables high processing speeds and shows excellent potential for automation.

Rust-to-iron cycle may unlock long-term storage for renewable energy

In the future, iron might be used as a chemical energy storage material, making large quantities of renewable energy available in the long term. Iron powder is combusted in a cyclic process that is carbon neutral and then reconverted to its original state using energy input. Scientists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) were the first to conduct an extensive study to evaluate the potential of this technology for power generation. Their results show that iron, while not superseding hydrogen, may usefully complement it in a climate-neutral energy system. The findings have been published in Chem Circularity.

Be it for wind energy from coastal regions or for solar power from desert areas, iron could serve as a transportable energy carrier in the future to make these renewable energy sources usable worldwide. “This works in a cycle that emits no carbon dioxide or environmentally harmful substances,” said Julia Schuler from KIT’s Institute for Industrial Production (IIP). For power generation, iron powder is combusted, producing iron oxide, i.e. rust. Using hydrogen from renewable sources, it is reduced to iron again in a process that removes the oxygen it contains. The iron powder can then be reused.

“When burned, iron powder behaves very much like coal. We wanted to find out whether it was possible to repurpose existing coal power plants to iron-firing,” said Schuler. She believes that modifications are primarily necessary in the heat generator; other components, such as the steam cycle, turbines, generator and power grid connection, could continue to be used.

Why Advanced Aliens Probably Don’t Build Dyson Spheres

🫣🤫🤔 Let’s face it: we’re still a Type 0 civilization on the Kardashev Scale… though, to be honest, we’re much closer to the Kardashian Scale 😁 endless entertainment, constant distractions, and celebrity obsession. 🙈🙉🙊 A true Type I civilization would be focused on mastering energy, advancing science, and solving humanity’s biggest challenges. We’ve still got a long way to go! While most people’s main concerns revolve around material comfort, entertainment, and instant gratification, who truly cares about the fate of the most vulnerable? About social exclusion? Inequality? The pollution and destruction of our environment? Who cares about the massive extinction of million of species now underway? Who cares about sustainable development and peace for everyone? A true Type I civilization would be collectively focused on optimizing how it functions and shaping a better future for everyone. We’re still very, very far from that.

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Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about an interesting study on the Fermi paradox, type II civilizations and…bitcoin?
Links:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.23026
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.03249
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.17516
#fermiparadox #bitcoin #science.

0:00 How we measure alien civilizations.
2:00 Kardashev scale conundrum.
3:25 New model using bitcoin and artificial intelligence.
4:08 Why bitcoin? The Karnac unit.
5:50 Energy required to change a unit of information — Landauer limit.
8:00 New definition for Type 2 civilization.
8:45 AI demand is changing energy consumption.
10:20 Energy limit speculations.
11:40 The great filter hypothesis.
12:30 The crossroads for humanity — conclusions.

Enjoy and please subscribe.

Continue reading “Why Advanced Aliens Probably Don’t Build Dyson Spheres” | >

Growing Plants in Space: The Science Behind Future Moon and Mars Colonies | Mark Ciotola

Mark Ciotola, CEO and Co-Founder of Sustain Space.

Everyone talks about getting humans to Mars. But almost nobody talks about the harder question — how do you keep them alive once they get there? My guest today says the answer isn’t bigger rockets — it’s plants.

Mark Ciotola is CEO and Co-Founder of Sustain Space (https://www.sustainspace.com/), a company focused on developing regenerative life-support technologies for future space missions while translating those innovations to improve agriculture and sustainability on Earth. Through Sustain Space’s Orbital Genomics initiative, he is helping advance research into growing plants in space environments — an essential capability for long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Mark’s career spans entrepreneurship, academia, industry, and government, including work with NASA, Genentech, Applied Biosystems, Intuit, Carnegie Mellon University, Monash University, San Francisco State University, and Singularity University, where he served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence and faculty member in Space and Physical Sciences.

A physicist, entrepreneur, educator, and sustainability advocate, Mark is particularly interested in regenerative ecosystems, closed-loop life-support systems, space agriculture, and the broader question of how humanity can build a sustainable future both on Earth and beyond it.

Continue reading “Growing Plants in Space: The Science Behind Future Moon and Mars Colonies | Mark Ciotola” | >

New biobased polymers exhibit excellent tensile properties beyond polyolefins

The research group of Professor Kotohiro Nomura, Tokyo Metropolitan University, in cooperation with the research groups of Senior Researcher Hiroshi Hirano and Director Seiji Higashi of the Osaka Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, and Associate Professor Hiroki Takeshita of The University of Shiga Prefecture, has developed biobased poly(ester amide)s from inedible biorenewables that can be easily chemically recycled and exhibit better mechanical (tensile) properties in film than commodity plastics.

The work has been published in JACS Au.

The development of biobased polymers that are readily chemically recyclable and derived from nonedible renewable resources has been recognized as a promising sustainable material in the circular economy. However, there have been few examples of materials with mechanical properties (e.g. tensile strength and elongation at break) that exceed those of conventional polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene.

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