Search results for "hydrogen"

Scientists at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm now report that they have unlocked one major barrier to exploiting this renewable energy source. Because the best-performing catalysts for electrochemical oxidation, or "water splitting", are expensive precious metals, the research team led by KTH Professor Licheng Sun is one of many worldwide searching for cheaper alternatives. Sun had earlier developed molecular catalysts for water ox...

The remotely operated 'Sakura No. 2 (anti-explosive model)' robot that features greatly reduced risk of electrical spark or heat creation that can cause explosions or fire when inflammable gas is present has been jointly developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Chiba Institute of Technology.

For the first time, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the ETH Zurich have unveiled a chemical process that uses the sun’s thermal energy to convert carbon dioxide and water directly into high-energy fuels. This discovery marks a significant step towards the chemical storage of solar energy.

University of Iowa researchers are working with a California-based startup company to make clean energy from sunlight and any source of water. The university recently renewed a one-year research agreement to further develop the technology with HyperSolar, a company that aims to commercialise low-cost renewable hydrogen. Hydrogen power is arguably one of the cleanest and greenest energy sources because when it produces energy, the final byproduct ...

A team of material scientists from the University of Melbourne and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has shown for the first time how gravity influences the formation of crystals in Metal-Organic Frameworks. These are nano-sized synthetic structures riddled with molecular holes that are at the forefront of materials science.

TU Wien (Vienna), KU Leuven and the University of Zürich have discovered a robust surface whose adhesive and wetting properties can be switched using electricity. This remarkable result is featured on the cover of Nature magazine. When rain falls on a lotus leaf, the leaf doesn't get wet. Thanks to its special structure, the water drops roll off without wetting the surface. Artificial materials can be made water-repellent, too. It is, howeve...

What if industrial waste water could become fuel? With affordable, long-lasting catalysts, water could be split to produce hydrogen that could be used to power fuel cells or combustion engines. By conducting complex simulations, scientists showed that adding lithium to aluminum nanoparticles results in orders-of-magnitude faster water-splitting reactions and higher hydrogen production rates compared to pure aluminum nanoparticles. The lithium all...

Launched nearly five years ago on 5th August, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida,NASA’s solar-powered spacecraft, ‘Juno’, has crossed the four largest Galilean moons of Jupiter (eponymously named after Galileo Galilei who discovered them in 1609) and has reached its destination; Jupiter. Follow Juno's mission from launch to orbit below.

The sun doesn't shine on the same spot all day, meaning solar panels produce energy intermittently. Solar energy researchers have been trying to store sunlight by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. A solar cell splits water with two electrodes, producing oxygen on one electrode, while generating hydrogen on the other. Now a simple process made an electrode that absorbs sunlight and produces oxygen on tiny cobalt islands on a silicon electr...

Scientists of KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) reproduced the epidermal cells of rose petals that have particularly good antireflection properties and integrated the transparent replicas into an organic solar cell. This resulted in a relative efficiency gain of twelve percent. An article on this subject has been published recently in the Advanced Optical Materials journal.