Science Daily

At the height of a thunderstorm, the tips of cell towers, telephone poles, and other tall, electrically conductive structures can spontaneously emit a flash of blue light. This electric glow, known as a corona discharge, is produced when the air surrounding a conductive object is briefly ionized by an electrically charged environment. For centuries, sailors observed corona … [Read more...] about How airplanes counteract St. Elmo's Fire during thunderstorms

Imagine plugging in to your brick house. Red bricks -- some of the world's cheapest and most familiar building materials -- can be converted into energy storage units that can be charged to hold electricity, like a battery, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis. Brick has been used in walls and buildings for thousands of years, but rarely has been … [Read more...] about Storing energy in red bricks

Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Jilin University in Changchun/China investigated a highly promising anode material for future high-performance batteries -- lithium lanthanum titanate with a perovskite crystal structure (LLTO). As the team reported in the Nature Communications journal, LLTO can improve the energy density, power density, charging rate, … [Read more...] about Anode material for safe batteries with a long cycle life

Chemists report a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product and low cost. … [Read more...] about Turning carbon dioxide into liquid fuel