Scientists Develop Solar Cell Polymer With Double Charge Production

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have developed a solar cell polymer that doubles its electrical charge carrier per unit of light from one carrier to two.

The process of producing two producing two charges from one unit of light is called singlet fission. This discovery can alter the manufacturing process of solar energy producing materials. Having two charges on the same molecule mans that energy-producing materials don't have to be arrayed as perfect crystals. The self-contained materials work efficiently when dissolved in liquids which opens up new ways to develop solar cells including "printing" solar-energy-producing material like ink.

A polymer is a combination of chemical compounds that is made up of repeating structural units (as in a molecular structure). The structure of the polymer dictates it properties.

Polymers are usually associated with plastics. The material used for credit cards is a polymer, as well as PVC plastics and PET water bottles. But polymers can be in any form. Hairspray and mousse is a polymer. Fabrics like spandex are also polymers. While these are synthetic, there are also natural polymers like rubber and amber.

The image above shows Postdoctoral fellow Erik Busby and Matt Sfeir with optical equipment they used to study charge carrier production in organic photovoltaic polymers at Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials.

Renewable Plant Derived Substance Can Chemically And Biologically Develop Biofuel

Researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison developed a technique using a plant derived chemical that can both biologically and chemically process plants into biofuel. The chemical, Gamma valerolactone (GVL), is inexpensive, renewable and recyclable.

The process converts a high 95% of the material to sugars that can be used by yeast to produce ethanol through fermentation or chemically upgrade furans to create drop-in biofuel.

In the image, the process using GVL dissolves biomass producing fractions that are rich in (from left to right) lignin monomers, hemicellulose and cellulose-derived sugars.

In creating ethanol, GVL helps in concentrating the sugar which the yeast could use to produce ethanol. The process also allows the removal of GVL from the setup for further reuse. Removing and reusing gamma valerolactone can be done through depressurization. Using the gamma valerolactone technique results in a 10% savings in ethanol production compared to current technologies.

Gamma valerolactone can also be used as a solvent for the conversion of biomass to furan chemicals.

New Metal-Free Flow Battery Promises Reliable and Economical Renewable Energy

Scientists at Harvard University have developed a new flow battery using less expensive chemicals and no metal electrocatalyst. This battery can help in storing electricity which can be used when renewable energy sources such as wind and solar does not deliver peak outputs.

A flow battery is a rechargeable battery where chemicals dissolved in liquids are used to charge the battery and store energy.

The most commercially used flow battery is the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery. These are already used by NASA in their space programs since the chemicals can be stored in tanks instead of existing battery units which integrates the necessary components in one unit. With flow batteries, the chemicals can be stored somewhere else and be used only when needed without sacrificing or getting rid of the other components.

Since the size of the tanks storing the chemicals are independent of the unit that converts these chemicals to electricity, the amount of energy that can be stored is limited only by the size of the tanks. This allows energy to be stored at a lower cost compared with traditional batteries.

The flow battey developed by Harvard differs from the Vanadium flow battery in that it uses less expensive chemicals and does not require catalysts that are made of precious metals.

Last year, MIT developed a hydrogen-bromide flow battery that generates three times more energy than current flow batteries.

Diamond Anvil Produces Hydrogen Overnight

Nature produces hydrogen through "serpentinization." When water meets the ubiquitous mineral olivine under pressure, the rock absorbs mostly oxygen (O) atoms from H2O, transforming olivine into another mineral, serpentine -- characterized by a scaly, green-brown surface appearance like snakeskin. The complex network of fracturing and created by serpentinization also creates habitat for subsurface microbial communities. Image from Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada.
Credit: Matt Schrenk, Michigan State University

Scientists at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 discovered a way to produce hydrogen up to 50 times faster than nature does. Using a diamond anvil cell (a tiny high pressure cooker) and aluminum oxide (Al₂o₃), water (H₂0), and the mineral, olivine ((Mg, Fe)₂SiO₄), they produced produced hydrogen in a matter of hours instead of weeks.

Essentially, it is water, rock, and aluminum oxide put under extreme pressure (2 kilobars) and heat ( 200 to 300 degrees Celsius) to produce hydrogen.

HYdrogen is the lightest and most abundant element in the Universe. Seventy five percent (75%) of the chemical elemental mass of the Universe is hydrogen. This latest discovery is very relevant to the energy industry where hydrogen is one viable energy source.

Using hydrogen as a fuel has many advantages. It is abundant. It is environmentally safe since the byproduct of hydrogen fuel cells is water and water vapor. And the power generated by hydrogen is much greater than that of regular gasoline.

Hydrogen fuel cells do not need combustion to produce energy, which also makes them safe and efficient.

Tiny Marine Crustacean Assists In Developing Wood Based Biofuel

The gribble, Limnoria quadripunctata, is one of the only animals that can digest wood.
Image: Simon Cragg/University of Portsmouth

Scientists from the University of York, University of Portsmouth and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have discovered an enzyme produced by gribbles, tiny marine wood borers, that can help turn wood based biomass into biofuel. Unlike termites that have microbes inside their guts to help process wood they digest, gribbles have a sterile gut which means that these tiny animals process the wood themselves through an enzyme.

Scientists have now isolated this enzyme and once its structure is studied and can be commercially reproduced, it can help create sustainable liquid biofuels.

Biofuels are sustainable, efficient, and renewable fuels that are processed from biological material called biomass. Biomass are organic material from living or recently living organisms. Biofuels are derived from biological carbon fixation which is the reduction of carbon dioxide or inorganic carbon to organic compounds by living organisms.

Biofuels can come from different sources such as agricultural crops, animal products, plant material or from living organisms like algae.

Algae Based Hydrogen Biofuel Being Studied As A Possibility For Renewable Energy

Researchers are studying the possibility of hydrogen fuel production using green energy; an advancement that can bring alge produced biofuel to a whole new level.

Bioenergy is energy that is produced from biological sources such as plants, agricultural crops and living organisms. Fuel, also known as biofuel, can be derived from these biological or organic sources. It is renewable, natural, and environmentally friendly.

One primary source of biofuel is algae. It is noted that one acre of algae can produce between 1,000 to 5,000 gallons of biofuel each year. The fact that it is sustainable and renewable, biofuel technology has grown tremendously with global biofuel production growing from 17.8 billion liters in 2009 to 21.4 billion liters in 2011.

Nanowire Based Solar Cell Increases Shockley-Queisser Efficiency Limit

The figure shows that the sun's rays are drawn into a nanowire, which stands on a substrate. At a given wavelength the sunlight is concentrated up to 15 times. Consequently, there is great potential in using nanowires in the development of future solar cells.
Credit: Niels Bohr Institute

The development of a nanowire based solar cell that increases sunlight concentration to a a factor of 15 raises the standard efficiency limit of solar cells known as the Shockley-Queisser limit.

One of the most popular and common source of renewable and sustainable energy is the Sun. Solar energy is not dependent on weather conditions such as wind power or need to be near a power source such as geothermal or hydroelectric energy producers.

Solar energy is produced by solar panels or solar cells. These cells, also known as photovoltaic cells, convert sunlight to electrical energy.

The focus on solar cell technology is raising the efficiency of the solar cell to convert solar energy to electrical energy. In solar cell production, the value that is used to gauge the efficiency of the solar cell is the Shockley-Quesser limit. This limit refers to the maximum theoretical efficiency of a solar cell using a p-n junction to collect power from the cell.

A p-n junction refers to the boundary of two semiconductors; the p-type and the n-type. The p-type semiconductor contains excess holes while the n-type contains excess free electrons.

The Shockley-Queisser limit puts the maximum solar cell efficiency at around 33.7%. This means that at most, only 33.7% of sunlight can be converted into elecrical energy. Currently, silicon based photovoltaic cells have an efficiency of 22%.

Bioengineered Plant Boosts Oil Production For Use in BioFuels

Researchers have bioengineered plants to improve its oil production. Proof of their experiment can be seen from caterpillar larvae that has become fat from consuming the leaves of these plants. This study can lead to better production of biofuels.

Biological sources most specially from agricultural crops like soybean can be used to produce biofuels. An acre of soybean can yield about 50 gallons of biodiesel per year.

But algae surpasses this by far. Biofuel from an acre of algae can produce as much as 1,000 to 5,000 gallons per year. Biofuel production from these sources are renewable, economical, and environment friendly. Algae is easy and fast to cultivate. It only takes one to ten days to harvest fuel from algae and does not compete with regular agricultural crops for land space and water.

The process in producing biofuel from algae involves the photosynthesis. Algae converts sunlight to biomass which undergoes a chemical process to produce biofuel.

Bi-Functional Alkane Producing Enzyme Developed For More Efficient Biofuel Production

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a bi-functional or dual enzyme that can continuously produce alkane. This can lead to using the enzyme in bacteria, algae, or plants to produce biofuels that need no further processing.

Alkanes are highly combustible chemical compounds made up of hydrogen and carbon atoms. These compounds are called hydrocarbons, more specifically, saturated hydrocarbons because they are saturated with hydrogen atoms (every carbon atom is attached to at least two hydrogen atoms). Hydrocarbons naturally occur in crude oil, where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen.

The first four alkanes from the group are methane, ethane, propane, and butane. Alkane can be identified because of the "-ane" suffix which is paired up with a number prefix such as dec (decane), hec (hecane), oct (octane).

When alkanes burn, they form H₂O and CO₂ - water and carbon dioxide. Because of this, they are highly valued as clean fuels. The first four alkane are used directly as fuels. A mixture of other alkanes also produce fuel. Gasoline is a mixture of alkanes from pentane up to about decane.

Aside from being used as a fuel source, alkanes are also used in other products such as plastic, paint, cosmetics, detergent and various others.

Bioenergy Demand Competing With Food Production For Land Availability

Bioenergy is energy that comes from biological or organic sources. It is a renewable source of energy. Bioenergy is also the same as biofuel.

Bioenergy comes from the processing or direct use of organic material called biomass. This biomass comes from plant and animal matter. Dead trees, branches, tree stumps, yard, animal waste, and even municipal solid waste are sources of biomass. In the case of old wood, simply burning it for heat is an example of bioenergy at work.

Surface And Atmospheric Winds Can Meet All of the World's Energy Demand

Wind power uses the energy of the wind to generate energy. It can be harnessed to produce electricity, power mechanical machines, or used to move vehicles or objects.

One established and still emerging use for wind power is in the production of electricity. Wind farms are set up with hundreds of wind turbines that is connected to an electrical network. These are usually situated in places with frequent and consistent powerful winds. These grid of turbines are then used for commercial or residential power.

Wind farms are also used in conjunction with solar energy to provide power to isolated places that are not connected to an electrical network.

The largest capacity wind turbine is the Enercon E-126 with a rated capacity of 7.58 megawatts (MW). It is 198 meters high (650 ft) and has a diameter of 126 meters (413 ft). In terms of productivity, the most productive wind farm is the one in Rønland wind farm in Denmark. The four turbines in the farm generates 63.2 MW each.

Enough wind to power global energy demand

There is enough energy available in winds to meet all of the world's demand. Atmospheric turbines that convert steadier and faster high-altitude winds into energy could generate even more power than ground- and ocean-based units. New research from Carnegie's Ken Caldeira examines the limits of the amount of power that could be harvested from winds, as well as the effects high-altitude wind power could have on the climate as a whole. Their work is published September 9 by Nature Climate Change.

Led by Kate Marvel of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who began this research at Carnegie, the team used models to quantify the amount of power that could be generated from both surface and atmospheric winds. Surface winds were defined as those that can be accessed by turbines supported by towers on land or rising out of the sea. High-altitude winds were defined as those that can be accessed by technology merging turbines and kites. The study looked only at the geophysical limitations of these techniques, not technical or economic factors.

Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion Pushes Biofuel Production Forward To The Future

Renewable energy comes from sources that are naturally replenished. Natural occurring resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, ocean tides, and geothermal heat (geysers) can be utilized to provide energy without worrying about depletion.

Modern renewable energy can be substituted for fossil fuels in four areas: power generation, heating and cooling, transport fuels, and rural/off-grid energy services.

Biofuel promises an efficient, sustainable and renewable energy source for generations to come. It is derived through biological carbon fixation. Carbon fixation is the reduction of inorganic carbon (carbon dioxide) to organic compounds by living organisms.

Biological material from living, or recently living organisms called biomass is processed to produce these biofuels. One such example of biomass source is algae. Since it can be cultivated in sewage water or saltwater, it does not compete with food crops in terms of land space or freshwater sources.

Fueling the future with renewable gasoline and diesel

A new process for converting municipal waste, algae, corn stalks and similar material to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel is showing the same promise in larger plants as it did in laboratory-scale devices, the developers reported here today. It was part of the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday.

"These results are essential in establishing the credibility of a process that may seem too good to be within the realm of possibility," said Martin Linck, Ph.D. "However, we are moving steadily toward having multiple demonstration-scale facilities in operation by 2014, with each facility producing a range of 3,500-17,500 gallons of fuel a day from non-food plant material. We will be designing commercial-scale facilities that could produce as much as 300,000 gallons per day from the same kinds of feedstocks."

The technology, termed Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion (IH2), already has the credibility of its developer, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), where Linck is a scientist. Located in Des Plaines, Ill, GTI is a nonprofit energy technology research organization whose accomplishments during the last 70 years include nearly 500 products, 750 licenses and more than 1,200 associated patents.

US$ 257 Billion Global Investment in Renewable Energy for 2011 With Solar Energy On Top

Renewable energy comes from sources that are naturally replenished. Resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, ocean tides, and geothermal heat (geysers) can be utilized to provide energy.

Fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas are finite and will eventually run out. Procurement of these materials are becoming too expensive and can damage the environment as seen in the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill at the Gulf of Mexico or the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

Modern renewable energy can be substituted for fossil fuels in four areas: power generation, heating and cooling, transport fuels, and rural/off-grid energy services. The last 5 years technology behind renewable energy grew rapidly with solar energy growing the fastest. Solar photovoltaic (PV) cells has been the focus of most industries as the most promising and fastest rising technology in this sector with operating capacity increasing at a rate of 58% annually.

The primary sources for renewable energy are:

• Solar: Solar photovoltaic cells can convert sunlight to electricity. Sunlight can also be used to heat water and buildings.
• Wind: Can be harnessed to operate wind turbines that generate energy.
• Biomass: These are biological matter that makes up plants. It can be used to produce fuel that can power vehicles or can generate electricity and others.
• Hydrogen: The most abundant element on Earth. It can be burned as a fuel or converted into electricity.
• Geothermal: Using the Earth's internal heat to produce energy, heating, and cooling.
• Ocean: Using tidal energy and oceanic thermal energy for energy production
• Hydropower: Using flowing water to turn mechanical machines to produce energy

Global investment in renewable energy powers to record $257 billion

Solar generation surged past wind power to become the renewable energy technology of choice for global investors in 2011.

Solar attracted nearly twice as much investment as wind, driving the renewable energy sector to yet another record-breaking year, albeit one beset with challenges for the industry, according to two new reports on renewable energy trends issued today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).

Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2012 is the fifth edition of the UNEP report, based on data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and has become the standard reference for global clean energy investment figures.

This year it shows that despite an increasingly tough competitive landscape for manufacturers, total investment in renewable power and fuels last year increased by 17% to a record $257 billion, a six-fold increase on the 2004 figure and 94% higher than the total in 2007, the year before the world financial crisis.