Topics

Planar Micro-Optic Solar Concentration

A new solar concentrator from Ph.D. student Jason Karp of the University of California, San Diego collects sunlight with thousands of small lenses imprinted on a common sheet. All these lenses couple into...

Fish Schooling as a Basis for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Farm Design

Most wind farms consist of horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs), but an alternative paradigm for wind energy extraction is found in vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) designs. A single spatially-isolated VAWT has a significantly lower power coefficient.

Effects of Cerium Removal from Glass on Photovoltaic Module Performance and Stability

In recent years, better stabilizer formulations for ethylene vinyl-acetate have been developed, giving more confidence in the long-term stability of PV packaging materials. Because of this, some manufacturers have stopped using Ce-doped glass. National Renewable Energy Laboratory researchers studied Ce-free glass.

Bio-Based Process for Producing Fuel Additive

A new bio-based method for producing a much-used fuel additive and industrial chemical, which is currently made from petroleum products, has been developed by an Iowa State University...

Molecules Found in Blue Jean Dyes May Lead to Better Solar Cells

Cornell University researchers have discovered a simple process – employing molecules typically used in blue jean and ink dyes – for building an organic framework that could...

Producing Biofuels from Woody Plants With No Waste

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a more efficient technique for producing biofuels from woody plants that significantly reduces the waste that results from...

Road Surface Purifies Air by Removing Nitrogen Oxides

Road surfaces can make a big contribution to local air purity. This conclusion can be drawn from the first test results on a road surface of air-purifying concrete, which reduces the...

Energy-Saving LED High Bay Fixture

Dialight (Farmingdale, NJ) has introduced ultra-bright DuroSite LED High Bay fixtures that incorporate Cree’s Xlamp® XP-G LEDs, delivering nearly 12,000 lumens while consuming only 150 watts. Free of...

Holographic Vortex Coronagraph

A holographic vortex coronagraph (HVC) has been proposed as an improvement over conventional coronagraphs for use in high-contrast astronomical imaging for detecting planets, dust disks, and other broadband light...

Wirelessly Interrogated Wear or Temperature Sensors

Sensors for monitoring surface wear and/or temperature without need for wire connections have been developed. Excitation and interrogation of these sensors are accomplished by means of a...

Optical Pointing Sensor

The optical pointing sensor provides a means of directly measuring the relative positions of JPL’s Formation Control Testbed (FCT) vehicles without communication. This innovation is a steerable infrared (IR)...

High-Temperature Optical Sensor

A high-temperature optical sensor (see Figure 1) has been developed that can operate at temperatures up to 1,000 °C. The sensor development process consists of two parts: packaging of a fiber Bragg grating into...

Polar Lunar Regions: Exploiting Natural and Augmented Thermal Environments

In the polar regions of the Moon, some areas within craters are permanently shadowed from solar illumination and can drop to temperatures of 100 K or lower. These sites...

Improved Speed and Functionality of a 580-GHz Imaging Radar

With this high-resolution imaging radar system, coherent illumination in the 576-to-589-GHz range and phase-sensitive detection are implemented in an all-solid-state design based on...

Bolometric Device Based on Fluxoid Quantization

The temperature dependence of fluxoid quantization in a superconducting loop. The sensitivity of the device is expected to surpass that of other super-conducting-based bolometric devices, such as...

NASA’s Chief Technologist Leads the Agency’s New Focus on Research and Innovation

Dr. Robert Braun began his NASA career at Langley Research Center in Virginia in 1987 after receiving a B.S in Aerospace Engineering from Penn State...

Photovoltaic Metallization Paste

DuPont Microcircuit Materials (Research Triangle Park, NC) introduces DuPont™ Solamet® PV16x series photovoltaic metallization pastes for crystalline silicon solar cells. The photovoltaic metallizations are...

Funding for R&D to Support U.S. Manufacturing of SSL

Today, DOE announced the availability of up to $15 million in funding to advance research, development, and market adoption of solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies. The department will...

Hope for Carbon Capture Materials

Berkeley Lab scientists are betting on a recently discovered class of materials - called metal-organic frameworks, which boast a record-shattering internal surface area - to efficiently strip carbon dioxide...

Energy Harvesting Power Management Unit

Cymbet Corporation (Elk River, MN) introduces the EnerChip™ Energy Processor (EP) CBC915, which works universally across all energy harvesting transducer technologies including photovoltaic,...

Promise for Hydrogen-Fueled Cars

A new process for storing and generating hydrogen to run fuel cells in cars has been invented by chemical engineers at Purdue University. The process uses a powdered chemical called ammonia borane, which has...

Microbial Genetic System Dissects Biomass to Biofuel Conversion

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers, working with the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), has made a critical step in the development of...

Monitoring Carbon Dioxide Underground

A technique originally applied to monitor the flow of contaminants into shallow groundwater supplies has been repurposed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers to monitor carbon dioxide...

Scientists Use Nanoscale Architecture to Make Efficient Solar Cell

A thin film solar cell must be thick enough to collect a sufficient amount of light, yet it needs to be thin enough to extract current. Boston College physicists found a way...