Crean la batería que carga el coche en ocho minutos gracias al grafeno

Graphenano, Grabat Energy y la Universidad de Córdoba envían ya la tecnología a clientes


Estas celdas de polímero de grafeno dan al 'e-car' una autonomía de 1.000 kilómetros


Estas baterías triplican la potencia de las de ion-litio y reducen su precio 'un 77%'


Dos de los investigadores de la Universidad de Córdoba, con las celdas de polímero de grafeno.

Es una exigencia del sector aumentar su potencia y duración, así como reducir el tiempo de carga.

Graphenano, compañía española productora de grafeno a escala industrial, se ha unido a la Universidad de Córdoba para conseguir las primeras baterías de polímero de grafeno.

«Va a suponer un gran salto hacía adelante para industrias como la aeronáutica, la automoción, la computación o el suministro de energía, mejorando la eficiencia y ofreciendo posibilidades que, hasta ahora, tan solo podían ser imaginadas», afirma el vicepresidente de Graphenano, José Antonio Martínez.

Si una batería de ion-litio (las más avanzadas hasta el momento) tiene una densidad de 180 Wh/Kg, una de grafeno supera los 600 Wh/Kg.

http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2014/12/04/547f577fca474183058b4578.html?utm_content=bufferee5d6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

A Potentially Cheap Way to Store Solar | MIT Technology Review

A Potentially Cheap Way to Store Solar | MIT Technology Review



A Potentially Cheap Way to Store Solar | MIT Technology Review



Researchers have developed a device that cheaply and efficiently converts the energy in sunlight into hydrogen, which can be used as a fuel and is easily stored.

Michael Graetzel, who directs the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, Switzerland, along with colleagues in Korea and Singapore, built a device that uses electricity and catalyst materials to make hydrogen and oxygen from water. This new “water splitter,” as such devices are known, is highly efficient, uses cheap and abundant materials, and is easy to make.

Researchers have been pursuing solar-powered water splitting for decades, and while they’ve shown great performance in one or two parts of such a device, no one has built a complete system that’s practical.

The device uses novel, relatively high-voltage solar cells to generate the needed electricity, along with inexpensive new catalyst materials based on nickel and iron for two electrodes—one produces hydrogen and the other makes oxygen.

The solar water splitter stores 12.3 percent of the energy in sunlight in the form of hydrogen. That might seem like a small amount, but consider that most solar cells convert only 16 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity, without the added step of turning that energy into easy-to-store hydrogen.

More work is needed before the device can be practical. Researchers aren’t sure why perovskite materials degrade quickly, but they’ve been making progress—such as by adding a layer of carbon or improving the way the solar cells are sealed against the elements. Researchers recently demonstrated a perovskite solar cell that lasted over a month.

Scientists develop flexible solar cell that can be woven into fabric (Science Alert)

Scientists develop flexible solar cell that can be woven into fabric (Science Alert)



Scientists develop flexible solar cell that can be woven into fabric (Science Alert)



Scientists develop flexible solar cell that can be woven into fabric

Chinese scientists have developed a solar cell ‘textile’ that can be woven into clothes. It’s flexible enough to be bent more than 200 times, and can collect light on both sides.

Scientists have been trying for decades to develop functional, flexible solar cells, because they could be integrated into fabrics and used to coat irregular shapes and surfaces. And now scientists at Fudan University in Shanghai have developed polymer solar cells that are light, flexible, cheap to produce, and thin enough to be used in fabrics.

According to Jon Cartwright at Chemistry World, to create these new solar cells, they figured out that they could interweave microscopic metal wires - coated in an active polymer designed to absorb sunlight - with titanium dioxide nanotubes and a second type of active polymer to form a textile. Together these components work by having the metal wires absorb sunlight and generate electrons and their positive counterparts, known as 'electron holes' The electrons are then conducted by the titanium dioxide nanotubes, and the electron holes are conducted by the second active polymer. To complete the circuit, says Cartwright, the team painted each side of the textile with transparent, conductive sheets of carbon nanotubes.

Publishing their design in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the team report that the textile has been made to be symmetrical so it can absorb light from either side. It’s also extremely flexible, able to be bent more than 200 times with barely any effect on its overall efficiency. The one downside? It’s only the size of your fingernail. ‘The main difficulties encountered are how to scale up the solar-cell textile while maintaining high energy-conversion efficiencies,” lead researcher Huisheng Peng told Chemistry World.

Independent expert and materials scientist Anyuan Cao from the Department of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at Peking University in Beijing commented that while there is certainly potential in the technology, it will not hit the market until it can be upscaled and made more efficient. And that's exactly what Peng and his team are working on now.

Japan is planning to build huge floating solar power plants (Science Alert)

Japan is planning to build huge floating solar power plants (Science Alert)





Solar panel company Kyocera Corp, Century Tokyo Leasing Corp and Ciel Terre have announced that they're teaming up to create 2 huge floating solar power plants which will be up and running by April next year. Kyocera and Century Tokyo partnered in Aug. 2012 to develop around 93 MW of solar power plants, Bloomberg reports.

Splitting Water Offers an Inefficient but Effective Way to Store Energy | MIT Technology Review

Splitting Water Offers an Inefficient but Effective Way to Store Energy | MIT Technology Review



Splitting Water Offers an Inefficient but Effective Way to Store Energy

Gas power: A Hydrogenics electrolysis system in Falkenhagen, Germany, can absorb two megawatts of excess renewable energy and store it in the form of hydrogen.







 Germany, which has come to rely heavily on wind and solar power in recent years, is launching more than 20 demonstration projects that involve storing energy by splitting water into hydrogen gas and oxygen.





The projects could help establish whether electrolysis, as the technology is known, could address one of the biggest looming challenges for renewable energy—its intermittency.

Researchers Develop Transparent Solar Concentrator That Could Cover Windows, Electronics

Researchers Develop Transparent Solar Concentrator That Could Cover Windows, Electronics


Scientists at Michigan State University announced this week the creation of a “ transparent luminescent solar concentrator ” that could turn windows and even cellphone screens into solar-power generators.

Lunt and his team have developed a new material that can be placed over windows and create solar energy.

Researchers say that the solar conversion efficiency is around one percent.

Ideally, this could be increased to more than five percent.

Energy Information Agency, and that number is predicted to grow throughout the next decade.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/24/transparent-solar-concentrator_n_5700544.html?&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000048

Bioluminscent trees could light up our streets

Bioluminscent trees could light up our streets

Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde’s team who have conceptualized smart, interactive highways and parks that remove smog particles -- are turning their attention to bioluminescent jellies and bacteria.

By merging their light producing compound with plants, the team envisions illuminating city streets with trees that glow at night.

A University of Cambridge team modified genetic material from fireflies and the luminescent bacterium Vibrio fischeri to boost the production of light-yielding enzymes that can ultimately be inserted into genomes they called it BioBricks .

A Kickstarter campaign for glowing plants using no electricity was funded just last year.

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bioluminscent-trees-could-light-our-streets