Life Alternate » Technology

Smart Material Self-Powers Nearly Everything

Wispa — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:23:22 +0000

Scientists, Boffins Egg-heads where would we be without them. Here the Boffins from the University of Bolton from the United Kingdom are developing a super material that sucks in energy from the surrounding environment.

They have combined the power generating effects of movement together with the light properties of the sun to produce a fiber that generates electrical power. The Piezoelectric properties of the thread produce energy as the material is moved and in addition the Photovoltaic energy produces from light when the material is exposed to the sun just like a Solar Panel. Both those idea are well advanced in other areas but the team at Bolton University have combined them in a thread that is very flexible.

This flexibility opens up the door of opportunity for use in many more products that require energy. The energy produces is quite small so the obvious uses are small devices like Mobile Phones and MP3 players.

With this super material incorporated into the cases of those small devices just physically handling the device would generate power as well as exposing the case to light. Clothing is another avenue, with the material being flexible could in theory mean you might be plugging your phone into a charge point on your t-shirt to make those calls.

While the energy production here is quite small it just takes a few innovative designers to come up with ways of using them. How about those bed sheets, if your somewhat green you would have them tumbling around in your washing machine gaining energy from the movement then pop them outside to dry in the wind. Soaking up the sun and flapping in the wind. What can be done with a charged bed sheet, just think of those cold nights and feel it heating up the bed as you sleep snugly.

Quantum LED`s Leaping into your Televisions

Wispa — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:10:08 +0000

A new buzzword for screens to remember is “Quantum Dot Displays”. Even before the current display technology has a chance to settle in something new comes along to replace it.

The story of displays started with the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) which dominated televisions for many years. Very recently Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) and Plasma with their thin look started to become commonplace. This did not last long until the new boy on the block was the Light Emitting Diode (LED). Being superseded came quickly with the Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED).

Each of those quick advancements offered better, clearer and more efficient displays than before and now there seems to be another improvement on the horizon which will offer even better quality, the Quantum Dot Display.

Before rushing out to get your hands on these, this is still in development but they might not be long before they start to appear.

The companies behind this are LG Displays and QD Vision, their new QLED will be more than 30% brighter than OLED`s and use half as much energy. This along with a much less expensive production process makes them much more desirable than anything currently on the market.

Nautical Fuel Cell testing in Sweden

Wispa — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 06:26:52 +0000

Fuel Cells could be powering marine vessels in the future if tests carried out by CellKraft are successful. The Swedish Fuel Cell Developer is exploring the concept on small craft.

The project is funded by the Swedish Defense Material Administration which indicates that the push here is to explore the idea for Military use. That funding in itself down not omit the possibility of civilian use.

Fuel Cells use chemical reaction to produce electricity and are somewhat cleaner than feeding fuel into a combustion engine. Here the source was methanol that was converted into hydrogen which was used to drive an electric motor on the small boat.

With an average speed of 4.5 Knots the craft covered a distance of 160 kilometers which originated from Stockholm. The total fuel used was 13 liters of methanol and so far is one of he longest journeys in Sweden by a fuel cell powered craft.

As with solar powered craft using fuel cells might find themselves commonplace for short trips and cross harbor trips. Currently these trips mostly use marine diesel which adds to the air pollution and degrades the quality of life around the area. Fuel cells produce water as waste and no toxic fumes are emitted into the atmosphere and with the energy produced powering electric motors then the journeys are somewhat quieter.

Nano Fiber Lighting takes on LED

Wispa — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:02:36 +0000

If you thought Light Emitting Diode Lighting was space age then you’ll be enlightened by the news of a new upstart glowing in the future. Nano Fiber Lights are looking to compete.

Nano fibers are tiny, around the diameter of a human hair. They can emit light using an amount of energy that is 5 times less than the older incandescent bulb. This puts it on par with the LED and CFL lighting for energy consumption.

They do not use mercury, an extremely toxic metal, that is used in CFL lighting so they automatically gain an advantage there.

RTI International are pushing the developments with the help of partial funding from the Department of Energy.

Using energy efficient lighting on a large scale does bring in massive savings. While each light bulb uses just a tiny fraction of the words energy, they are a lot of them around. Changing to LED, CFL or the new Nano Fiber for every bit of illumination could reduce the worlds energy use by 20%. This may seem small when we talk about tiny watts of electricity , but the world uses terawatts of energy and that is a lot of zeros on the number.

Development may take a while for the research to come out of the laboratory. Perhaps in 3 to 5 years Nano Fiber Lighting may be competing with LED or even some other new technology for illumination.

Flexible Solar Cells From Caltech

Wispa — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:01:09 +0000

The California Institute of Technology are developing flexible solar cells that may prove to be cheaper and more efficient than current types on the market.

This is a new breed of cells that uses thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate along with light scattering particles. If you are lost then don’t worry, so am I. This technology is moving fast and as users and consumers the physics of the materials sometimes does not quite makes sense.

Normally solar cells just gather the electrons that happen to fall on them. The efficiency can be improved by adding multiple layer to catch the light that escapes the previous layers. In the Caltech implementation this is all turned on its side and the light particles bounce around and are reflected. Eventually they are caught by the silicon wires and are turned in to electrical charge.

In the experiments the researchers have manages to capture up to 85% of the photons.

Silicon that is used to make the solar cells is quite costly once it is refined and is a major factor in the end price of solar panels. These new types of cells use just one fiftieth of the amount of silicon and obviously will cut the price by a large amount.

Using silicon wires instead of silicon wafers to manufacture the panels means they have the added advantage of being flexible. This not only allows the manufacturing process to be easier but also makes the end panels to be more versatile in their use.

Currently Caltech are working on laboratory scale cells of around a few centimeter and are hoping to devise ways of scaling up the devices to something more usable.

Korean Water Powered Batteries

Wispa — Wed, 12 May 2010 05:49:46 +0000

At last an idea that could change the world and give free energy to everybody on the planet and it is all powered by water. Unfortunately it doesn’t exist but coming close is a fuel cell that can use salt water being developed by a south Korean company.

Named the MetalCell, this is a fuel cell that generated power by chemical reaction. The active ingredient here is Sodium or salt. The saline water reacts with magnesium or aluminum plates to produce the power.

The driving force for the development here was to supply power to the military in battlefield condition and this shows up in some of its features. The unit can be collapsed and folded away for storage or transport and is small enough to fit in a soldiers backpack.

This should power devices needed by the soldier such as their radios, lighting and the all important laptop for checking their social network. Recharging is as simple as refilling the batter with salt water.

Not every battle will be fought on the coast and thus sea water might not be available. This could be the downfall of the MetalCell but as it just needs salt then the soldiers could salvage salt from their rations mixed with water and if all other sources of salt are depleted then, um, urine could be used.

This is a power source designed for military condition and it fits in well with the idea of power generated without being tied to the grid.

Img: popsci.com

Printed Solar Cells at MIT

Wispa — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:24:33 +0000

The Solar Energy Industry has become mainstream as an alternative way of producing energy. For what might become available in the on coming years we need to have a little look as what is happening in the research Laboratories.

Rooftop Solar Panel

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been busy working on Printed Solar Cells. Using carbon based dyes the team have made advances that can be made as easily as printing out a letter on a sheet of paper. At the current time the efficiency of the cells is extremely low with being only able to convert between 1.5% to 2% of the light available into electrical energy. That level of generation cannot compete with silicon based photovoltaic solar cells.

These printed cells do have the possible advantage of being cheap to produce and having more versatile applications. If you look around and anything device or cover that is colored is most likely using some form of dye. Now if that dye was an energy producing dye then all those devices could be energized.

This opens up endless possibilities for the use of solar power that only limited by your imagination. Clothing and fabric is an obvious example. Shades and coverings like tents and umbrellas could be powering up and offering energy without adding anything to the weigh. Your cup of coffee could be using the energy to keep you drink warm right down to the last sip.

Moving up a scale the materials that your house is made off could be adding that little bit of extra free energy to your power needs. Or road markings along the highways could be powering intelligent roads. What ever the use may be designers will no doubt try to integrate this idea into every product to add that extra bit of functionality to any product.

These will not replace high power and more sturdy solar panels and for large energy production they will still rule.

Electric vehicles are going to be driving quietly up and down our roads soon and these would be an ideal candidate for solar dye’s. You’ll still need to charge up regularly but the extra energy might just get you a few extra miles each day. It might not seem a lot but it is free.

If the efficiency can be improved and the world was full of energy producing dye covered product then they would generate an extremely large amount of power. Those little trickles if somehow storable or connectable to the grid is all energy that is free to produce and doesn’t use fossil fuels.

The only problem left is what color to choose.

Solar Panels That Work at Night

Wispa — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 07:26:54 +0000

Generating power does require a fuel source. The old methods of using stored energy in the form of coal or oil use energy which has been charging up for millions of years. Modern and renewable energies do no have this luxury of time and mostly generate power in real time. The down side of this is that the fuel source is not always available. The wind does not always blow or the sun sets over the horizon for the night.

Solar Array

In the case for energy produced by photovoltaic cells day light is needed and the more light then the more energy is produced. The efficiency of the cells allow more of this light to be converted and huge steps have been made to achieve higher conversion rates. By using different materials or construction process more electricity can be made but these cells can be often quite more expensive or no suitable for installation on our homes.

In Japan, the Kyoto Institute of Technology, has been following a slightly different approach in their experiments. Light or electromagnetic radiation can often come in forms that we cannot see. Our eyes are tuned to a narrow band which we call visible light and spreading out in each direction is light we cannot see without using specialized equipment to retune this to something we can see with our eyes. This is the approach the Japanese scientists have taken, by developing solar cells that can see a larger range of light more power could be produced

This is like listening to a radio station, we are tuned and can hear our favorite shows. Unfortunately down the dial a little bit is another show we would like to hear but we cant. If we had a radio that could listen to many radio shows at once then we would never miss all our favorites. The actual result would not be a pleasant experience but for photovoltaic energy production it would be a bonus.

The cells can capture visible light as well as infrared and ultraviolet radiation. In theory these cell can work in low light conditions and perhaps even at night. This would mean that the cells could generate electricity for a much longer period each day and help to reduce some of the problems associated with solar power.

Unfortunately this is still very much in development and the efficiency is extremely low when compared to currently available crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. But they have shown that they can capture just more than visible sunlight.

Each and every little development taking place is showing that renewable energy is becoming more viable replacement energy that we will soon see as normal rather then alternative.

Batteries have gone dead.

Wispa — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:41:47 +0000

Don’t throw away your batteries just yet. But on developments at the Imperial College in the United Kingdom might see us all with portable products that do not need batteries in the future.

The Brits are working on lightweight materials that can store electricity, but you may be asking is that just a battery. In a sense it is still a battery but a one that can have extra properties. Their idea here is for casings and housing to be made of this carbon fibre material that can doubly act as a power storage medium.

The polymer resin could be moulded in to casings for portable products like mobile phones and mp3 players allowing them to be smaller and lighter as there are no internal batteries needed.

On a larger scale maybe cars and trucks could be made partly from this material reducing the overall weight and thus needing less energy to power the vehicle. Combining this with other interesting developments in solar generating casings and you have quite a brilliant concept. Throw out the batteries and have your portable device casings generate and store the power need to operate your devices.

Panasonic Develops High Capacity Battery

Wispa — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:37:14 +0000

Panasonic have revealed snippets of information about their Lithium-Ion storage device which will be suitable for domestic use.

Clean Energy production in the home is dynamic and for the home user the need for storage devices for that excess electricity has been a problem. Large banks of lead-acid batteries can be costly and take up too much space. The Li-on battery are the high capacity storage that we have in out electronic equipment – mobile phones, laptops and digital cameras.

Scaling up the battery is not easy, heat is the major problem and it now seems that Panasonic may have all that solved. In a few years we could have the promise of large capacity rechargeable batteries that will be suitable for home use.

Electrical generation by solar panels can be stored easily now for later use, although any from of electricity can be stored not just what is generated by your renewable source. Occasionally the utility supply has its little problems and the lights go out. The high capacity battery pack will take care of your needs till the power comes back on. Charge up your battery on cheap low rate electricity at night and use it to power your home during that day when the rates go to peak cost.

The uses are not only limited to the home. Electric vehicles which are going to be commonplace by the end of this decade are ideal candidates for these.

The technology of electrical storage should see many developments in both home use and for commercial use. The current problems with renewable energy production like solar and wind is that its not always on. The wind is not always blowing and solar has that little problem with darkness. High capacity and safe batteries could keep that energy stored for when it is needed.