Alternative Fuels

DOE has launched the H-Prize competition, offering a $1 million award to an individual or team that creates the most advanced materials for hydrogen storage in vehicles.

At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, scientists are developing technology to allow ethanol to be made from cellulose and hemicellulose, the fibrous material that makes up the bulk of most plant matter, instead of starches and sugars.

A yeast geneticist on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) is close to developing mutant yeast for ethanol production that would reduce or eliminate the need to use corn to make the alternative fuel. When corn is used to make ethanol, corn kernels are ground to produce starch and the starch is...

University of Maryland researchers have created a process to convert large volumes of plant products, from leftover brewer's mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline. Developed by University of Maryland professors Steve Hutcheson and Ron Weiner, the technique, called the Zymetis process, produces...

&A synthesis route has been developed for the commercial manufacture of single- source precursors of chalcopyrite semiconductor absorber layers of thin-film solar photovoltaic cells. The semiconductors in question are denoted by the general formula CuInxGa1–xSySe2–y, where 0 ≤ x...

Led by the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Nottingham (U.K.), a research team is using thermoacoustic technology for the first time to convert biomass fuels into energy to power a combination stove, refrigerator, and generator. Part of the ~$4M SCORE (Stove for...

The differential miscibility of castor oil in ethanol and water would be exploited to separate ethanol from water, according to a proposal. Burning the separated ethanol would produce more energy than would be consumed in the separation process. In contrast, the separation of a small amount...