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Category: sustainability – Page 52

Its abundance of sunlight and heavy investment in solar cell technology has positioned Saudi Arabia well in its transition to becoming a leading exporter of renewable energy. Indeed, solar energy currently makes up more than 80% of the Kingdom’s green energy capacity. However, these cells bring a twisted irony, as their operation exposes them to overheating risks. Cooling systems are therefore necessary, but many depend on electricity.

An international research team led by KAUST Professor Qiaoqiang Gan has designed a potential solution. Their device needs no electricity, as it extracts water from the air using nothing more than gravity and relies on cheap, readily available materials.

Along with keeping the solar cells and other cool, the water can be repurposed for irrigation, washing, cooling buildings on which the solar cells are placed, and other applications.

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American start-up Boom Supersonic is planning to develop the very first supersonic aircraft powered by 100% sustainable fuel. The aircraft, named Overture, would succeed Concorde in providing ultrafast connections between Europe and the United States, more than 20 years after the latter ceased operation. The new aircraft also echoes its predecessor’s unique, long and slender design.

Boom Supersonic is currently flying a demonstrator, the XB-1, over the Mojave Desert in California. A first supersonic flight (at Mach 1) is now expected by the end of 2024, following the green light given from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). All these tests are designed to ensure the aircraft’s reliability and maneuverability. Above all, they lay the foundations for the firm’s future Overture plane.

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Quantum computers have the ability to harness the mysterious effects of quantum physics, making them a game changer for science. Professor Hannah Fry explains how they work on The Future with Hannah Fry.

With the promise of unimaginable computing power, a global race for quantum supremacy is raging. Who will be first to harness this new technological force, and what will they do with it?

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A new device at the University of Central Florida captures carbon dioxide and turns it into useful products.

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How can electronic waste, also known as e-waste, be recycled without resulting in negative environmental impacts that are often produced with traditional e-waste recycling methods? This is what a recent study published in Nature Chemical Engineering hopes to address as a team of researchers from Rice University investigated a novel approach for improving e-waste recycling while mitigating the negative impacts on the environment. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate conservationists, and the public better understand how they can contribute to a cleaner environment through recycling.

“Our process offers significant reductions in operational costs and greenhouse gas emissions, making it a pivotal advancement in sustainable recycling,” said Dr. James Tour, who is a T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry at Rice University and a co-author on the study.

For the study, the team built upon past research conducted by Dr. Toru involving flash joule heating (FJH), which uses electric currents to break down metals into other materials. Using FJH for e-waste, the researchers successfully removed precious metals, including tantalum, indium, and gallium, which have commercial uses in capacitors, LCD displays, and semiconductors, respectively. Additionally, this new method was found to provide increased efficiency for metal purity and number of metals, also called yield, at 95 percent and 85 percent, respectively, along with significantly reducing environmental harm since this method does not require acids or water for its reaction.

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“Our study is a stark example of how air pollution can substantially alter atmospheric chemistry thousands of miles away,” said Jacob Chalif.

How do fossil fuels influence the atmospheric chemistry of the Arctic? This is what a recent study published in Nature Geoscience hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how air pollution caused by fossil fuels influences levels of methanesulfonic acid (MSA), which is an airborne byproduct of marine phytoplankton. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand the long-term consequences of fossil fuels and the steps that can be taken to mitigate them.

This study builds on several past studies, specifically a 2013 ice core research study from Denali National Park, that hypothesized reduced MSA levels resulted from drastic reductions in phytoplankton during the same period. However, the researchers ruled out a connection between MSA and phytoplankton populations but were still puzzled about the drops in MSA levels in the Arctic.

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Dataland co-founder Refik Anadol, 38, is a media artist whose “crowd-pleasing – and controversial” works using artificial intelligence have been displayed around the world, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Serpentine and, most recently, the United Nations headquarters.

In the past two years, Anadol has found himself at the center of debates over the value of AI-generated art, as crowds have been reportedly “transfixed” by his massive interactive digital canvases, while some art critics have panned them as over-hyped and mediocre.

Now Anadol is looking to build artists like himself a permanent exhibition space among some of LA’s most prominent high-culture venues, and he is pledging that the AI art museum will promote “ethical AI” and use renewable energy sources.

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