Search results for "hydrogen"

Faster, more efficient data storage and computer logic systems could be on the horizon thanks to a new way of tuning electronic energy levels in 2D films of crystal, discovered by researchers at MIT.The discovery could ultimately pave the way for the development of so-called “valleytronic” devices, which harness the way electrons gather around two equal energy states, known as valleys.

A technology has been developed by UK energy start-up, VN-H Power Generation (VN-HPG), that has the potential to turn loss-making gas-fired power stations back to profit and reduce their environmental impact, making them once more commercially viable for operators and a realistic contributor to national power generation strategies.

Rice University's latest nanophotonics research could expand the colour palette for companies in the fast-growing market for glass windows that change colour at the flick of an electric switch.In a paper in the American Chemical Society journalACS Nano, researchers from the laboratory of Rice plasmonics pioneer Naomi Halas report using a readily available, inexpensive hydrocarbon molecule called perylene to create glass that can turn two differen...

EU-funded materials scientists, chemical engineers and chemists developed a prototype device that converts solar energy into hydrogen with close to 10% efficiency at room temperature.Solar energy is available everywhere and is often abundant, even in densely populated areas as well as Northern Europe. There is enough solar energy to allow a shift from fossil fuels despite the current modest conversion efficiencies of solar energy to electricity o...

Researchers at Caltech and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have - in just two years - nearly doubled the number of materials known to have potential for use in solar fuels.They did so by developing a process that promises to speed the discovery of commercially viable solar fuels that could replace coal, oil, and other fossil fuels.Solar fuels, a dream of clean-energy research, are created using only sunlight, water, and CO2.

For centuries, cellulose has formed the basis of the world’s most abundantly printed-on material: paper. Now, thanks to new research at MIT, it may also become an abundant material to print with — potentially providing a renewable, biodegradable alternative to the polymers currently used in3Dprinting materials.“Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer in the world,” says MIT postdoc Sebastian Pattinson, lead author o...

Nanorobots and other mini-vehicles might be able to perform important services in medicine one day – for example, by conducting remotely-controlled operations or transporting pharmaceutical agents to a desired location in the body. However, to date it has been hard to steer such micro- and nanoswimmers accurately through biological fluids such as blood, synovial fluid or the inside of the eyeball.

Scientists in Germany are flipping the switch on what's being described as "the world's largest artificial sun," hoping it will help shed light on new ways of making climate-friendly fuel.The "Synlight" experiment in Juelich, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of Cologne, consists of 149 giant spotlights normally used for film projectors.

The commercial production of thin-film photovoltaic systems with semiconductors made of Copper, Indium, Gallium and Selenium (CIGS) is on the verge of a breakthrough.

For all the improvements in computer technology over the years, we still struggle to recreate the low-energy, elegant processing of the human brain. Now, researchers at Stanford University and Sandia National Laboratories have made an advance that could help computers mimic one piece of the brain’s efficient design – an artificial version of the space over which neurons communicate, called a synapse.