Archives for August 2010
New mitochondria fuel cell uses soda to power laptops and cell phones
29 August 2010 | Alternative Energy | 1 Comment
Scientists presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society their new mitochondria fuel cell, that uses sugar to produce electricity. It may sound weird, but this is true! Once again inspired by nature and living organisms, scientists used in their experiments a particular compound found in organic cells (the mitochondria) that can convert sugar and fats into energy.
Bacterial cellulose culture can turn tea and sugar into fabric
25 August 2010 | Green Technology | 1 Comment
Fashion designer Suzanne Lee made an important step in the sustainable green-clothing industry by creating a new fabric grown by bacteria. This new bio-fabric called BioCouture could lead fashion designer to get their materials from laboratories instead of factories.
Suzanne Lee managed to create in a vat this new interesting fabric using a sugary green tea solution and a bacterial cellulose culture containing yeasts and other organisms.
Self cleaning solar panels can harvest more solar power
24 August 2010 | Solar Power | No Comments
Trying to come up with a solution for dusty solar panels today, researchers have presented a new technology, simply called dust-cleaning technology, able to increase solar power production.
Most of today’s solar power plants are placed in large sunny areas where rains are very rare. In these places photovoltaic panels get often covered with a layer of dust, so their efficiency decreases.
Antares H3 Fuel Cell Powered Plane Could Fly 50 Hours
23 August 2010 | Green Technology | No Comments
German Aerospace Center in cooperation with Lange Research Aircraft GmbH, will build world’s longest range fuel cell plane. Antares H3 will fly over 3,700 miles which is 8 times more than its successor DLR-H2, the world’s first piloted fuel cell powered aircraft. They’ll start to build the aircraft this month, and the first flight is planned for next year.
Core and Shell Nanoparticle Using Less Platinum Could Make Fuel-Cells Better
23 August 2010 | Green Technology | No Comments
A new developed core-and-shell nanoparticle containing less platinum than today commercially available catalysts, may improve the efficiency of fuel cells by up to 12 percent.
Researchers at Brown University explained that at the cathode end of fuel-cells takes place a redox reaction that often causes an energy loss of up to 40%. “…this is a crucial step in making fuel cells a more competitive technology with internal combustion engines and batteries”, says Shouheng Sun, coauthor of the study at Brown University.
