Stories
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Briefs: Energy
High-Voltage Supercapacitors for Improved Energy Density Hybrid Power Sources
Both the aerospace and automotive industries depend increasingly on electrochemical energy storage. Reduction in mass, increase in energy, and increase in power can benefit both of these areas dramatically. Supercapacitors are currently under consideration for use in both...
Briefs: Energy
NASA has invented an innovative method to grow algae, clean wastewater, and capture carbon dioxide to ultimately produce biofuel. The invention consists of floating...
INSIDER: Energy
Researchers Advance Printable Solar Cell Possibilities
By finding a new way to manufacture low-cost perovskite solar cells, a team at the University of Toronto believes that making solar cells could someday be as easy and inexpensive as printing a newspaper. The researchers' alternative solar technology supports the development of low-cost,...
INSIDER: Energy
Long-Lasting Flow Battery Advances Renewable Energy Efforts
A new flow battery from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) stores energy in organic molecules dissolved in neutral pH water. Losing only one percent of its capacity per 1000 cycles, the non-toxic, non-corrosive device offers the potential to...
Question of the Week: Energy
Will "$100-per-killowatt-hours" batteries boost wind and solar energy efforts?
This week’s Question: The Department of Energy (DOE) has set a goal of building a battery that stores energy for less than $100 per kilowatt-hour, making stored wind and solar energy competitive with energy produced from traditional power plants. Today’s lead INSIDER...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Iowa State University scientists have built a device that mimics the branches and leaves of a cottonwood tree and generates electricity when its artificial leaves sway in the wind. The device is derived...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have taken inspiration from biological evolution and the energy savings garnered by birds flying in formation to improve...
Briefs: Energy
Polymer-Reinforced, Non-Brittle, Lightweight Cryogenic Insulation for Reduced Lifecycle Costs
The objective of this project was to develop inexpensive structural cryogenic insulation foam that has increased impact resistance for launch and ground-based cryogenic systems. Two parallel approaches were used: a silica-polymer co-foaming technique and a...
Articles: Aerospace
NASA Technology
One common hazard facing airplanes is ice: not just on the ground, but in the air, where it can coat wings or engines. But how do you know when icing conditions exist up...
INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new strategy for fabricating more efficient plastic solar cells. The work has implications for developing...
INSIDER: Motion Control
Boosting the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles by “harvesting” the energy generated by their shock absorbers and feeding it back into batteries or electrical systems such as air...
News: Energy
Design Contest Winner Could Save Trucking Industry Billions in Fuel Costs
New York, NY – Hyliion of Pittsburg, PA, developer of a hybrid electric technology for semi-trailers, has been awarded a grand prize of $20,000 in the 2016 "Create the Future" Design Contest. Hyliion’s system hybridizes the trailer portion of the tractor-trailer...
INSIDER: Materials
An international research team has used a thermal metamaterial to control the emission of radiation at high temperatures, an advance that could bring devices able...
INSIDER: Communications
Scientists have developed a demonstrator that powers active implants wirelessly via ultrasound. Ultrasound waves have a broader range in the body, and they penetrate the implant’s metal...
INSIDER: Energy
Flooring can be made from any number of sustainable materials, making it, generally, an eco-friendly feature in homes and businesses. Now, flooring could be even more “green,” thanks to an...
INSIDER: Materials
Flexible Solar Panels Absorb Diffused Light
Virginia Tech researchers have produced flexible solar panels that can become part of window shades or wallpaper. The material will capture light from the sun as well as light from sources inside buildings.
Articles: Energy
The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial aircraft safety,...
Articles: Green Design & Manufacturing
DESOLENATOR — WATER FROM SUNSHINE
William Janssen, Desolenator, London, UK
The Desolenator is a water-purification technology that decontaminates water from...
Articles: Energy
HYLIION - HYBRID TECHNOLOGY FOR SEMI-TRAILERS AND THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Thomas Healy, RF Culbertson, AJ Emanuele, Morgan Culbertson, Wilson Sa, Pam Culbertson, Chad Saylor, Len Kulbacki,...
Articles: Automotive
The 2016 Create the Future Design Contest — sponsored by COMSOL, Mouser Electronics, and Tech Briefs Media Group (publishers of NASA Tech Briefs) — recognized innovation in product design in seven...
INSIDER: Energy
As solar cells produce a greater proportion of total electric power, a fundamental limitation remains: the dark of night when solar cells go to sleep. Lithium-ion batteries, the commonplace...
Question of the Week: Energy
Will solar road panels catch on?
This week's Question: Solar Roadways — a startup developing solar powered road panels — will soon install the first solar road tiles in Sandpoint, Idaho. The transparent solar road panels contain colorful LEDs, which can be controlled by a computer to create the impression of signs and lines, without the need of...
Products: Energy
llinois Capacitor, a subsidiary of Cornell Dubilier Electronics, Lincolnwood, IL, offers RJD Series lithium-ion coin cell batteries that feature encapsulation technology that increases storage capacity by completely...
Briefs: Energy
Preventing Cell-to-Cell Thermal Runaway in Lithium-Ion Battery Modules
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells are increasingly used in high-voltage and high-capacity modules. The Li-ion chemistry has the highest energy density of all rechargeable battery chemistries, but associated with that energy is the issue of catastrophic thermal runaway with a fire. With...
Briefs: Aerospace
NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed hardware and software to track the flight of tethered vehicles, including kite-like, airborne wind energy (AWE) generation systems. The control system...
Briefs: Energy
Selenium Interlayer for High-Efficiency Multi-Junction Solar Cell
Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have developed a low-cost, high-efficiency solar cell that uses a thin layer of selenium as the bonding material between wafers. Selenium is a semiconductor, and it is also transparent to light at photon energies below the band gap. The...
Briefs: Energy
NASA’s Glenn Research Center has developed a novel design for a fully premixed, high-pressure burner capable of operating on a variety of gaseous fuels and oxidizers, including...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Method of Forming Textured Silicon Substrate by Maskless Cryogenic Etching
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed an advanced energy-storage device to accommodate portable devices, minimize emissions from automobiles, and enable more challenging space missions. The use of silicon for the anode of lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries is...
INSIDER: Energy
New Fabric Uses Sun to Power Devices
A new fabric developed at Georgia Institute of Technology uses sunlight and motion to harvest energy. Combining the two types of electricity generation into one textile paves the way for creating garments that could provide their own source of energy to power devices such as smartphones or global positioning...
Top Stories
Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Aerial Microrobots That Can Match a Bumblebee's Speed
Blog: Electronics & Computers
Turning Edible Fungi into Organic Memristors
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Revolutionizing the Production of Semiconductor Chips
News: Energy
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
World’s Smallest Programmable, Autonomous Robots
INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Webcasts
On-Demand Webinars: Power
E/E Architecture Redefined: Building Smarter, Safer, and Scalable Vehicles
Upcoming Webinars: Energy
Hydrogen Engines Are Heating Up for Heavy Duty
Upcoming Webinars: Electronics & Computers
Advantages of Smart Power Distribution Unit Design for Automotive...
Upcoming Webinars: Automotive
Quiet, Please: NVH Improvement Opportunities in the Early Design...
Upcoming Webinars: Power
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Podcasts: Defense
How Sift's Unified Observability Platform Accelerates Drone Innovation
