Titanium is as strong as steel but about twice as light. These properties depend on the way a metal’s atoms are stacked but random defects that arise in the...

A new technology may lead to a more mainstream use of algal biofuels.

Researchers at Rice University have made test cells for lithium metal batteries with a coat of red phosphorus on the separator that keeps the anode and cathode electrodes apart. The phosphorus acts...

Researchers from Drexel University say that adding MXene to silicon anodes could extend the life of Li-ion batteries by as much as five times. It’s able...

The Create the Future Design Contest, launched in 2002 by the publishers of Tech Briefs magazine, helps stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has...

Tesla uses batteries to store energy underneath the car seats. What if we could store energy everywhere on the vehicle?

Existing nanosensor technologies depend on an external power source (typically a battery) to operate. Chemical and biological sensors based on nanowire or nanotube technologies exhibit...

Don’t hold your breath, says Jeff Crystal from Voltaic Systems.

Typical direct-injection engines, such as diesel engines, can produce soot due to fuel-rich combustion conditions. Filters and catalytic converters are currently used to reduce soot and harmful...

NASA's Glenn Research Center has developed a novel solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) with five times the specific power density of currently available SOFCs. This highly efficient SOFC can operate on a...

Today's photovoltaic power systems are generally comprised of a single photovoltaic module or multiple modules connected by combinations of series and parallel circuits as a photovoltaic array....

The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. In the past 16 years, the annual contest has drawn more than 13,000 product...

Yokogawa Corporation of America, Newnan, GA, released the WT5000 power analyzer that achieves accuracy of ±0.03% at 50/60 Hz, allowing precision evaluation of power consumption, loss, and efficiency of...

Professor Hart spoke with Tech Briefs about why his team's new battery may someday find its way beyond niche applications and into electric vehicles.

In the quest for abundant, renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, scientists have sought to harvest the sun’s energy through “water splitting,” an artificial photosynthesis technique...

Internet of Things (IoT) applications — whether for city infrastructures, factories, or wearable devices — use large arrays of sensors collecting data for transmission over the Internet to a central,...

Eagles can store energy in their feet without having to continuously contract their muscles to then jump high or hold on to prey. New materials have been created that can store energy this way. The...

In order to make ultrafast pulses accessible to the broadest possible field of applications, Coherent has been implementing a comprehensive program of design methodologies, materials...

ALUMINUM-POWERED ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Aluminum has an incredibly high energy density — double that of gasoline and an order of magnitude greater than...

Have you heard of "fatbergs?" Researcher Asha Srinivasan explains how her team is turning masses of fat, oil, and grease into biofuel.