Tech

Lithium-ion batteries are recognized for their high energy density in everything from mobile phones to laptop computers and electric vehicles, but as the need for grid-scale energy storage and other applications becomes more pressing, researchers have sought less expensive and more readily available alternatives to lithium. Batteries using more abundant multivalent metals could … [Read more...] about Researchers create a roadmap to better multivalent batteries

They say it's better to have had something special and lost it than to have never had it at all. Who would have thought that sentiment holds true for metal oxide catalysts? According to scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Caltech, copper that was once bound with oxygen is better at converting carbon dioxide into renewable fuels than copper … [Read more...] about The secret to renewable solar fuels is an off-and-on again relationship

For decades, researchers have looked for ways to eliminate cobalt from the high-energy batteries that power electronic devices, due to its high cost and the human rights ramifications of its mining. But past attempts haven't lived up to the performance standards of batteries with cobalt. Researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin … [Read more...] about New cobalt-free lithium-ion battery reduces costs without sacrificing performance

A new spin on the magnetic compression of plasmas could improve materials science, nuclear fusion research, X-ray generation and laboratory astrophysics, research led by the University of Michigan suggests. The study shows that a spring-shaped magnetic field reduces the amount of plasma that slips out between the magnetic field lines. Known as the fourth state of matter, plasma … [Read more...] about Twisting magnetic fields for extreme plasma compression

Tulane University researchers are part of a team of scientists who have developed a hybrid solar energy converter that generates electricity and steam with high efficiency and low cost. The work led by Matthew Escarra, associate professor of physics and engineering physics at Tulane, and Daniel Codd, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of San Diego, … [Read more...] about Scientists build high-performing hybrid solar energy converter