Environment

A Trip to the WEEC

Last Thursday, I left New York for DC to check out the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC) held at the Washington Convention Center. Though my Amtrak train was a little slow in getting there, the show flew by in a...

High-Power Switches for Future Energy Supply Networks

Renewable energy comes out of an electricity socket, but to get there it has to travel a long journey – from wind turbines out at sea or regional solar, wind, and biogas power plants. On...

Transparent Conductive Material May Lead to Power-Generating Windows

Brookhaven National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have fabricated transparent thin films capable of absorbing light and generating electric charge...

Dual-Phase Synchronous Buck Controller

National Semiconductor Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) introduced the LM5119, a high voltage, dual-channel, dual-phase, synchronous buck controller with emulated current-mode (ECM) control. The LM5119 is ideal...

Measuring Air-Sea Exchange of Carbon Dioxide in the Open Ocean

A team led by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre of Southampton, UK have measured the air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide in the open ocean at the highest wind speed to...

Integrated Offline Switcher IC

Power Integrations (San Jose, CA) offers the LinkZero-LP, an integrated offline switcher IC that automatically enters a zero-input-power mode when the load is disconnected, cutting no-load power consumption to...

Desalinate Water, Produce Hydrogen, and Treat Wastewater?

Water purification requires a lot of energy, while utility companies need large amounts of water for energy production. Researchers from the University of Colorado Denver College of...

Power Management ICs

Silicon Laboratories Inc. (Austin, TX) has introduced the Si348x family of power management ICs, enabling reduced system cost and improved efficiency in power over Ethernet (PoE) power sourcing equipment (PSE).

Biomass Alternative to Petroleum for Industrial Chemicals

University of Massachusetts Amherst chemical engineers have developed a way to produce high-volume chemical feedstocks including benzene, toluene, xylenes, and olefins from pyrolytic...

Updated Energy Efficiency Modeling Software Programs

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released updated versions of its EnergyPlus simulation software and OpenStudio Plug-in for Google SketchUp, which help engineers and architects...

The November Issue of Lighting Technology Has Arrived

Check out the new issue of Lighting Technology for more new feature articles, videos, application stories, tech briefs, products, and more - all on the latest advances in LEDs and...

Online LED Design Tool

National Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA) has introduced the WEBENCH® LED Architect, which enables designers to perform real-time comparisons and optimize lighting systems for performance, size, and cost.

New Facility Aims to Make LED Lighting More Natural

A new lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is dedicated to improving the quality of light that light-emitting diodes (LEDs) produce. NIST vision scientists Wendy...

LED Lighting for Maintenance and Construction Vehicles

Strobe or rotating beacon-type emergency lighting is a requirement on all Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) maintenance and construction vehicles. There is an effort to...

Thermoelectric Power Generator

Nextreme Thermal Solutions (Durham, NC) offers the eTEG™ HV37 thermoelectric power generator, the next entry in the high-voltage (HV) series of clean energy generators based on thin-film thermoelectrics. The...

Organic Solvent System May Improve Recycling of Catalysts

Noble metals such as platinum and palladium are becoming increasingly important because of growth in environmentally friendly applications such as fuel cells and pollution control...

Harvesting Solar Energy From Pavement to Power Streetlights, Heat Buildings

The heat radiating off roadways has long been a factor in explaining why city temperatures are often considerably warmer than nearby suburban or rural areas....

Energy-Recovery Circuit

STMicroelectronics (Geneva, Switzerland) has released a high-efficiency circuit and optimized power components that will produce cost savings and are ideally suited for boost or buck converters - power devices usually...

Electronic Monitoring For Coastal Waters

With a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, researchers from North Carolina State University are developing a cost-effective electronic monitoring system that will advance understanding of critical...

RF Energy Harvesting Kit

Microchip Technology Inc. (Chandler, AZ) and Powercast Corporation (Pittsburgh, PA) introduce the Lifetime Power® Energy Harvesting Development Kit featuring PIC® microcontrollers with eXtreme Low Power (XLP)...

Nanostructuring Technology Creates Efficient, Ultra-Small Displays

University of Michigan scientists have created pixels that will enable LED-projected and -wearable displays to be more energy efficient with more light manipulation possible -...

New Equation Could Advance Research in Solar Cells and OLEDs

An equation developed in part by researchers at the University of Michigan could do for organic semiconductors what the Shockley ideal diode equation did for inorganic semiconductors:...

Improving and Evaluating LED Lighting for Greenhouse Use

Purdue researchers will collaborate with Rutgers University, the University of Arizona, Michigan State University, and Orbital Technologies Corp. (Madison, WI) on a four-year project...

Four-Channel Constant Current LED Drivers

Allegro MicroSystems (Worcester, MA) offers constant current LED drivers to address requirements of internal and external illumination applications within the automotive market. Allegro’s...

IR LED With Integrated Lens

The infrared DRAGON SFH 4236 from OSRAM Opto Semiconductors (Sunnyvale, CA) is designed for applications that require narrow radiation characteristics from limited board space, namely automotive applications such as...

High Intensity LED Light Engine

Papailias Incorporated (Northvale, NJ) has introduced a high intensity light engine to replace halogen technology. The Series HI-LED lamp is not a standard LED bulb, but a custom-designed lamp that features a...

Nickel-Zinc Battery System Technology

Société de Conseil et de Prospective Scientifique (SCPS), located in Rosny-sous-Bois, France, developed a technology that allows the nickel-zinc battery system to work as close as possible to its...

AC/DC LED Drivers

RECOM Power Inc. (Brooklyn, NY) has developed a series of constant current LED drivers in the power ranges of 12, 20, and 60 Watts. The new series feature universal AC inputs, power factor correction, and UL-8750...

High-Brightness Black Surface LED

The high-brightness black top surface tri-color PLCC-6 family of SMT LEDs from Avago Technologies (San Jose, CA) has a separate heat path for each LED dice, enabling the LED to be driven at higher current. The...