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A team of researchers has achieved a milestone by developing lightweight and highly efficient stretchable solar cells for energy generation in electronic gadgets.

Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) declare it as the “world’s highest-performing stretchable organic solar cell.”

The development is unique as it utilizes organic material to build the photoactive layer of the solar cell, which turns light into energy.

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One of the biggest concerns about EVs is that the batteries will need replacing after a few years, at great expense. After all, your smartphone battery is likely to have seen better days within as little as three years. But a Tesla researcher is getting ready to kick this idea into touch once and for all, after demonstrating batteries that could potentially outlive most human beings.

Tesla enthusiasts are likely to have heard of Jeff Dahn already. He’s a professor at Dalhousie University and has been a research partner with Tesla since 2016. His focus has been to increase the energy density and lifetime of lithium-ion batteries, as well as reducing their cost. Dahn appears to have hit the motherload along with colleagues on his research team. In a paper published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society, the group claims to have created a battery design that could last 100 years under the right conditions.

Continue reading “Tesla Researcher Demonstrates 100-Year, 4-Million-Mile Battery” »

One year after initial deliveries of solid-state battery prototypes to its automotive partners, QuantumScape is receiving additional praise from PowerCo – the battery-centric subsidiary of Volkswagen Group – for the potential of its technology. PowerCo recently completed an endurance test with QuantumScape’s solid-state cells and determined they can someday power EVs that can drive 500,000 kilometers with virtually no loss of range.

QuantumScape ($QS) is an advanced battery technology company that has been working for over a decade to develop scalable, energy-dense solid-state battery cells that can one-day power EVs that are safer, charge faster, and drive farther.

During QuantumScape’s tenure in solid-state battery development, Volkswagen Group has been a partner from early on and remains one of the startup’s largest investors. OEMs like Volkswagen have helped empower QuantumScape to continue its development and deliver some of the most promising solid-state battery technology in the industry.

With the market for wearable electric devices growing rapidly, stretchable solar cells that can function under strain have received considerable attention as an energy source. To build such solar cells, it is necessary that their photoactive layer, which converts light into electricity, shows high electrical performance while possessing mechanical elasticity. However, satisfying both of these two requirements is challenging, making stretchable solar cells difficult to develop.

A KAIST research team from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) led by Professor Bumjoon Kim announced the development of a new conductive polymer material that achieved both high electrical performance and elasticity while introducing the world’s highest-performing stretchable organic solar cell.

Figure 1. Chemical structure of the newly developed conductive polymer and performance of stretchable organic solar cells using the material. (Image: KAIST)

Agrovoltaic arrays are strategically arranged to allow for diverse types of farming activities, maximizing land utilization.

The Cybertruck has only been out for a month, and in limited numbers, but some Tesla owners are already customizing their vehicles.

New Cybertrucks are getting colored wraps, window tints, and protective coverings. Joe Torbati, the owner of OCDetailing in Fremont, California, told Business Insider he’d received dozens of reachouts after posting a series of YouTube videos showing work he’d done for a new owner on their vehicle.

“We’ve probably been getting about 10 Cybertruck-related emails or contacts per day,” Torbati said. “Though, it’s not the traditional reason you would wrap a car, which would be to protect it — the point of this is more for just aesthetics,” he added.

AUSTIN (Austin Business Journal) — Tesla Inc.’s growing footprint in the Austin area now includes a sizable facility in Hutto. But what it’s for remains unclear.

The Austin Business Journal visited the 36,000-square-foot site at 200 County Road 199 in the fast-growing industrial hub northeast of Austin in late December. The parking lot was full and a nondescript warehouse-style building was bustling with employees in construction vests and helmets, but there were no signs listing any companies and no clear indications of who was occupying it. The only traces it could be Tesla were a handful of the company’s electric vehicle charging stations out front.

But Elon Musk’s EV manufacturing and clean energy company is linked to the site in state filings, and it has been confirmed by Hutto officials. Tesla’s expansion to Hutto underscores the company’s wide-reaching plans for the region — as far south as San Antonio and, now, as far north as Hutto — as it continues buildout of its multibillion-dollar operation in eastern Travis County. The Hutto site is about 30 miles directly north of its gigafactory, which serves as the company’s headquarters, along State Highway 130.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute have developed a synthetic pathway that can capture CO₂ from the air more efficiently than in nature, and shown how to implement it into living bacteria. The technique could help make biofuels and other products in a sustainable way.

Plants are famous for their ability to convert carbon dioxide from the air into chemical energy to fuel their growth. With way too much CO₂ in the atmosphere already and more being blasted out every day, it’s no wonder scientists are turning to this natural process to help rein levels back in, while producing fuels and other useful molecules on the side.

In the new study, Max Planck scientists developed a brand new CO₂-fixation pathway that works even better than nature’s own tried-and-true method. They call it the THETA cycle, and it uses 17 different biocatalysts to produce a molecule called acetyl-CoA, which is a key building block in a range of biofuels, materials and pharmaceuticals.

With more of us looking for alternatives to eating animals, new research has found a surprising environmentally friendly source of protein – algae.

The University of Exeter study has been published in The Journal of Nutrition and is the first of its kind to demonstrate that the ingestion of two of the most commercially available algal species are rich in protein which supports muscle remodeling in young healthy adults. Their findings suggest that algae may be an interesting and sustainable alternative to animal-derived protein with respect to maintaining and building muscle.

Researcher Ino Van Der Heijden from the University of Exeter said: “Our work has shown algae could become part of a secure and sustainable food future. With more and more people trying to eat less meat because of ethical and environmental reasons, there is growing interest in nonanimal-derived and sustainably produced protein. We believe it’s important and necessary to start looking into these alternatives and we’ve identified algae as a promising novel protein source.”