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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
Smart Building Responds to all Climate Conditions
A grid of sensors embedded into an innovative building insulation activates specific façade components to optimize energy savings while improving aesthetics. This high-tech kind of retrofitting approach uses several types of modules that allow real-time monitoring. The multifunctional modular...
Briefs: Energy
Solar-Powered Carbon Dioxide Conversions with Thin-Film Devices
A nanomaterial thin-film device provides a low-cost, facile fabrication pathway to commercialize the technology to the sustainable energy market. Metal oxide thin films have been fabricated to a photoelectrochemical cell by solar energy. The prototype device uses both low energy cost...
INSIDER: Photonics/Optics
New Nanowires Absorb Light
Harvard University scientists have created nanowires with new useful properties. The wire not only absorbs light at specific wavelengths, but also light from other parts of the spectrum. The technology could have applications in areas ranging from consumer electronics to solar panels.
INSIDER: Nanotechnology
Nanogenerator Harvests Power from Rolling Tires
A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and a collaborator from China have developed a nanogenerator that harvests energy from a car's rolling tire friction. The technology ultimately could provide automobile manufacturers with a new way to reuse energy and provide greater vehicle...
News: Energy
Researchers Prevent Fires in Next-Gen Lithium Batteries
New research from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, could help remove a major barrier to developing lithium-sulfur and lithium-air batteries. The SLAC engineering team discovered that adding two chemicals to a lithium metal battery's electrolyte prevents the formation of...
INSIDER: Energy
New System Stores Solar Energy at Night
Common solar energy systems today are unable to use the generated energy at night or in cloudy conditions. A University of Texas at Arlington materials science and engineering team has developed a new energy cell that stores large-scale solar energy even when it is dark.
INSIDER: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A new type of graphene aerogel will make for better energy storage, sensors, nanoelectronics, catalysis, and separations. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made graphene aerogel microlattices with...
INSIDER: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
More American homes could be powered by the Earth's natural underground heat with a new, nontoxic, and potentially recyclable liquid that is expected to use half as much water as other fluids used to tap...
INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Engineer Creates Origami Battery
A Binghamton engineer, Seokheun "Sean" Choi, developed an inexpensive, bacteria-powered battery made from paper. Using a drop of bacteria-containing liquid, the battery generates power from microbial respiration and delivers enough energy to run a paper-based biosensor.
INSIDER: Materials
Flexible optoelectronic devices that can be produced roll-to-roll – much like newspapers are printed – are a highly promising path to cheaper devices such as solar cells...
INSIDER: Energy
New Etching Method Boosts Nanofiber Production
A new technique from MIT researchers boosts production of nanofibers fourfold, while cutting energy consumption by more than 90 percent. Potential nanofiber applications include solar cells, water filtration, and fuel cells.
Articles: Aerospace
Wireless technology is growing rapidly, now encompassing consumer-grade devices as well as industrial-grade products used in utility meter reading (AMR/AMI), wireless mesh networks, system...
INSIDER: Energy
Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have invented a novel electrical power converter system that simultaneously accepts power from a variety of energy sources and...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
The Sun is a huge source of energy. In just one hour, planet Earth is hit by so much sunshine that humankind could cover its energy needs for an entire year if only we knew how to harvest and...
News: Energy
Scientists are discovering new ways to decrease costs and increase efficiency of solar panels and coming up with creative ways to generate power. According to TechRepublic, a photovoltaic...
INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
New Wearable Device Turns Thumbnail into Trackpad
MIT Media Laboratory researchers are developing a wearable device that turns the user’s thumbnail into a miniature wireless track pad.
INSIDER: Energy
Prototype Camera Powers Itself
A new prototype video camera is fully self-powered and can produce an image each second, indefinitely, of a well-lit indoor scene. Columbia University researchers designed a pixel that can not only measure incident light but also convert the incident light into electric power.
INSIDER: Energy
Fuel Breakthrough Supports Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles
Virginia Tech researchers have created hydrogen fuel using abundantly available corn stover – the stalks, cobs, and husks.
Question of the Week: Energy
Will hydrogen fuel cell vehicles ever achieve widespread use?
This week's Question: Today's INSIDER story highlighted a discovery in alternative energy production that may provide a breakthrough for hydrogen-fueled vehicles. According to researcher Joe Rollin, the technology "has the potential to enable the widespread use of hydrogen fuel cell...
INSIDER: Aerospace
New Materials Enable Flapping Robotic Wings
Dielectric elastomers, popular materials in robotic hands, soft robots, tunable lenses, and pneumatic valves, may now be used to create flapping robotic wings.
INSIDER: Nanotechnology
Researchers Develop Hybrid Supercapacitors
UCLA researchers have successfully combined two nanomaterials to create a new energy storage medium that combines the best qualities of batteries and supercapacitors.
Briefs: Energy
Conventional piezoelectric materials, such as PZTs, have reasonably high electromechanical coupling over 70%, and excellent performance at room temperature. However, their coupling factor (converting...
Briefs: Materials
White, Electrically Conductive, Radiation-Stable, Thermal Control Coating
A highly reflective, white conductive coating system was developed using a layered approach with a combination of commercially available white conductive pigments within a conductive binder system. The top coating is a space-stable, radiation-resistant, highly reflective...
INSIDER: Software
Large wind turbine blades disturb the wind, creating a wake behind them and reducing the energy harvest of any downwind turbines. A turbine sitting in the slipstream of another can lose...
INSIDER: Green Design & Manufacturing
Researchers Turn Packing Peanuts into Battery Parts
While setting up their new lab, Purdue University researchers ended up with piles of packing peanuts. Professor Vilas Pol suggested an environmentally friendly way to reuse the waste.
INSIDER: Test & Measurement
Michigan State University researchers have developed a technology that allows sensing, communication, and diagnostic computing — all within the building material of a structure.
INSIDER: Energy
Energy-Harvesting Method Shows Promise for Mars Power Stations
Northumbria and Edinburgh Universities researchers have developed an innovative, new technique to harvest energy from carbon dioxide. The method may enable the creation of future power stations on the surface of Mars.The research proposes a new kind of engine for producing energy based...
Briefs: Energy
This work describes a discontinuous or segmented mirror whose overall flatness is less dependent on the limited tension that can be supplied by the booms. A solar sail is a large, nominally flat...
Briefs: Materials
Carbon Nanotube Tower-Based Supercapacitor
A new technology to create electrochemical double-layer supercapacitors is provided using carbon nanotubes as electrodes of the storage medium. This invention allows efficient transport between the capacitor electrodes through the porous nature of the nanotubes, and has a low interface resistance between...
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
A FREE Two-Day Event Dedicated to Connected Mobility
Podcasts: Defense
How Sift's Unified Observability Platform Accelerates Drone Innovation
