Lifeboat Foundation

When cars, planes, ships or computers are built from a material that functions as both a battery and a load-bearing structure, the weight and energy consumption are radically reduced. A research group at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is now presenting a world-leading advance in so-called massless energy storage — a structural battery that could halve the weight of a laptop, make the mobile phone as thin as a credit card or increase the driving range of an electric car by up to 70% on a single charge.

“We have succeeded in creating a battery made of carbon fiber composite that is as stiff as aluminum and energy-dense enough to be used commercially. Just like a human skeleton, the battery has several functions at the same time,” says Chalmers researcher Richa Chaudhary, who is the first author of an article recently published in Advanced Materials.

Research on structural batteries has been going on for many years at Chalmers, and in some stages also together with researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. When Professor Leif Asp and colleagues published their first results in 2018 on how stiff, strong carbon fibers could store electrical energy chemically, the advance attracted massive attention.

The next generation of handheld devices requires a novel solution. Spintronics, or spin electronics, is a revolutionary new field in condensed-matter physics that can increase the memory and logic processing capability of nano-electronic devices while reducing power consumption and production costs. This is accomplished by using inexpensive materials and the magnetic properties of an electron’s spin to perform memory and logic functions instead of using the flow of electron charge used in typical electronics.

New work by Florida State University scientists is propelling spintronics research forward.

Professors Biwu Ma in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Peng Xiong in the Department of Physics work with low-dimensional organic metal halide hybrids, a new class of hybrid materials that can power optoelectronic devices like solar cells, light-emitting diodes, or LEDs and photodetectors.

In July 2024, global temperatures reached unprecedented levels, breaking historical records with an average of 17.16°C. This extreme heat has led soil water to evaporate, leaving the vegetation and biodiversity more fragile and under stress in many regions of the world.

How will climate change alter winter weather in the future? This is what a recent study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the long-term effects of climate change on winter weather precipitation, or wetness. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, policymakers, and the public understand the long-term consequences of global climate change and the steps that can be taken to mitigate it.

For the study, the researchers used computer models to compare precipitation levels between 1985 and 2014 and compared these to model-predicted data spanning from 2070 to 2099 across seven subregions across the United States. In the end, the researchers estimate an increase between 2 to 5 percent of precipitation for every degree increase before the end of the century, noting this increase will hit the Northwest and Northeast regions of the United States the hardest.

“We found that, unlike summer and other seasons where projected changes in precipitation is highly uncertain, there will be a robust future intensification of winter precipitation,” said Dr. Akintomide Akinsanola, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago and lead author of the study. “It will accelerate well past what we have seen in historic data.”

NoviOcean’s innovative Hybrid Energy Converter combines wave, wind, and solar power, generating double the energy of wind alone.

A new model accounts for a wide range of ion-electrode interactions and predicts a device’s ability to store electric charge. The model’s theoretical predictions align with the experimental results. Data on the behavior of the electric double layer (EDL) can aid in the development of more efficient supercapacitors for portable electronics and electric vehicles. The study has been published in ChemPhysChem.

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

New device boosts hydroponic farming for efficient, eco-friendly food production:

A new water purification device offers a cost-effective solution for hydroponic farming, supporting more sustainable food production.

Continue reading “New water purifier could drive sustainable farming in changing climate” »

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.