Feature Channels: Green Tech

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

A strong and diverse pipeline of innovative leaders is preparing to solve the world’s most complex social problems through STEM education.

• share
• favorite_border

IMSA hosts ISSF to promote global collaboration and cooperation in STEM research

• share
• favorite_border

Agronomists and farmers are working hard to improve the sustainability of agricultural land. The June 22nd Sustainable, Secure Food blog explains which greenhouses gases are released in agriculture, and efforts to reduce them.

• share
• favorite_border

Dr. Jose M. Torres, President of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, will attend the first-of-its-kind State-Federal Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education Summit hosted by The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on June 25-26, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

• share
• favorite_border

Competition for faculty, staff, students and alumni to support entrepreneurship and innovation to advance IMSA’s mission to address one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

• share
• favorite_border

For decades, biologists have believed a key enzyme in plants had one function—produce amino acids, which are vital to plant survival and also essential to human diets. But for Wellington Muchero, Meng Xie and their colleagues, this enzyme does more than advertised. They had run a series of experiments on poplar plants that consistently revealed mutations in a structure of the life-sustaining enzyme that was not previously known to exist.

• share
• favorite_border

News Release RICHLAND, Wash. — ASTM International recently revised ASTM D7566 Annex A5 — the Standard Specification for Aviation Turbine Fuel Containing Synthesized Hydrocarbons — to add ethanol as an approved feedstock for producing alcohol-to-jet synthetic paraffinic kerosene (ATJ-SPK). The revision of ASTM D7566 Annex A5 clears the way for increased adoption of sustainable aviation fuels because ethanol feedstocks can be made from so many different low-cost sources.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have developed a metal-organic framework material offering selective, reversible and repeatable capture of nitrogen dioxide from ambient air. This could lead to cost-effective capture of greenhouse gases, to facilitate sequestration and help mitigate air pollution and global warming.

• share
• favorite_border

The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) in The Woodlands, Texas has been awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to assist public and private entities considering Combined Heat and Power (CHP).

• share
• favorite_border

The innovative products developed by the University of Vermont spinoff company Packetized Energy take a new approach to helping utilities tap the power of renewables. The rapidly growing company is being watched by the utility industry as demonstration projects with two Vermont utilities play out in 2018.

• share
• favorite_border

Brookhaven Lab chemists and other experts in nitrogen research have identified several potential routes for transforming nitrogen that are more environmentally and energy-friendly than today’s chemical processes.

• share
• favorite_border

Study reveals surprising, bad chemical reactivity in battery components previously considered compatible.

• share
• favorite_border

Water changes how cobalt-based molecule turns carbon dioxide into chemical feedstock.

• share
• favorite_border

In the new book, Can Business Save the Earth? Innovating Our Way to Sustainability (Stanford University Press, 2018), Darden School of Business Professor Mike Lenox and Fuqua School of Business Professor Aaron Chatterji dissect the shortcomings of sustainability efforts and detail a path on which business innovation could lead to a truly sustainable future.

• share
• favorite_border

This week UVA Darden’s Batten Institute released the second in a series of sector-focused research reports – Path to 2060: Decarbonizing the Electric Utility Industry – that looks at the role of technology and innovation in addressing climate change and the levers that can help facilitate the shift to cleaner electricity generation. We explore four zero-emission technologies: hydropower, nuclear, wind, and solar.

• share
• favorite_border

The Latest News On Marijuana Research

• share
• favorite_border

The latest research and experts on Wildfires in the Wildlife News Source

• share
• favorite_border

The eDumper dump truck is the largest electric vehicle in the world and will be in operation in the quarry from 20 April. In cooperation with industry partners, the Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH, the NTB Interstaatliche Hochschule für Technik Buchs and Empa have developed the environmentally friendly truck.

• share
• favorite_border

As increasing consumer interest in electric vehicles drives the demand for supplies of lithium and cobalt (ingredients in lithium-ion batteries), the Critical Materials Institute will begin new efforts this July to maximize the efficient processing, use, and recycling of those elements.

• share
• favorite_border

A biologically inspired membrane intended to cleanse carbon dioxide almost completely from the smoke of coal-fired power plants has been developed by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Ithaca College has made the important decision to transition its electricity supply exclusively to clean and renewable sources, significantly reducing its carbon footprint and helping move the college toward its goal of becoming carbon neutral.Since February 2018, 100 percent of the colleges electricity has been purchased from Green-e certified national wind farms.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley decided to analyze the cost, energy, and environmental implications of a fleet of self-driving electric vehicles operating in Manhattan. They found that shared automated electric vehicles, or SAEVs, could get the job done at a lower cost – by an order of magnitude – than present-day taxis while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.

• share
• favorite_border

Using genetic engineering, scientists improve biomass growth and conversion in woody and grassy feedstocks.

• share
• favorite_border

Electric vehicles may one day be able to recharge while driving down the highway, drawing wireless power directly from plates installed in the road that would make it possible to drive hundreds—if not thousands—of miles without having to plug in.

• share
• favorite_border

Argonne researchers conducted basic science computational studies as part of a collaboration with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago to design a “beyond-lithium-ion” battery cell that operates by running on air over many charge and discharge cycles. The design offers energy storage capacity about three times that of a lithium-ion battery, with significant potential for further improvements.

• share
• favorite_border

Iowa State engineers have developed a process called autothermal pyrolysis that breaks down biomass for fuel and fertilizer. A recently announced grant from the Department of Energy will support studies of the process, including development of models and design tools that could reduce the risk of scaling up the technology for commercial use.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from Arizona State University shows that using a 3-dimensional layer of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) can mitigate dendrite formation and stands to both dramatically extend battery life and diminish safety risks.

• share
• favorite_border

New composite materials make wind energy even greener by making the turbines themselves recyclable.

• share
• favorite_border

In a new Perspective article, published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, researchers are aiming to tackle a fundamental debate in key reactions behind fuel cells and hydrogen production, which, if solved, could significantly bolster clean energy technologies.

• share
• favorite_border

By getting your next package delivered by drone, you could be saving energy, but only if companies deploy drones sensibly. New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, SRI International and the University of Colorado at Boulder shows that drone-based delivery could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in the transportation sector.

• share
• favorite_border

A multi-institution team of scientists led by Texas A&M University chemist Sarbajit Banerjee has discovered an exceptional metal-oxide magnesium battery cathode material, moving researchers one step closer to delivering batteries that promise higher density of energy storage on top of transformative advances in safety, cost and performance in comparison to their ubiquitous lithium-ion (Li-ion) counterparts.

• share
• favorite_border

Engineered stacked perovskite layers harvest light or create light via layer edges.

• share
• favorite_border

West Virginia University researchers are leading commercial-scale research and development of two new innovations at the country's most efficient coal-fired power plant. The devices could make coal combustion more efficient with fewer emissions and fewer unplanned outages saving millions of dollars.

• share
• favorite_border

A particular set of chemical reactions governs many of the processes around us—everything from bridges corroding in water to your breakfast breaking down in your gut. One crucial part of that reaction involves electrons striking water, and despite how commonplace this reaction is, scientists still have to use ballpark numbers for certain parts of the equation when they use computers to model them. A study offers a new and better set of numbers, which may help scientists and engineers create better ways to split water for hydrogen fuel and other chemical processes.

• share
• favorite_border

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an energy-efficient recycling process that restores used cathodes from spent lithium ion batteries and makes them work just as good as new. The process involves harvesting the degraded cathode particles from a used battery and then boiling and heat treating them. Researchers built new batteries using the regenerated cathodes. Charge storage capacity, charging time and battery lifetime were all restored to their original levels.

• share
• favorite_border

A Tulane University researcher is leading a U.S. Department of Energy project to develop a hybrid solar energy converter that generates electricity and steam with high efficiency and low cost.

• share
• favorite_border

Plastics are often derived from petroleum, contributing to reliance on fossil fuels and driving harmful greenhouse gas emissions. To change that, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) scientists are trying to take the pliable nature of plastic in another direction, developing new and renewable ways of creating plastics from biomass.

• share
• favorite_border

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by researchers at the Technical University of Denmark, the DOE Joint Genome Institute and the Joint BioEnergy Institute report the first outcome from the large-scale sequencing of 300+ Aspergillus species.

• share
• favorite_border

Two scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have been named to the Web of Science’s Highly Cited List of 2017, ranking in the top 1 percent of their peers by citations and subject area. Materials Scientist Khalil Amine and Energy and Environmental Policy Scientist David Streets say they are thrilled to see their work — and the laboratory — recognized in such a way.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Engineers at The Ohio State University are developing technologies that have the potential to economically convert fossil fuels and biomass into useful products including electricity without emitting carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Both batteries could work about 50 percent longer with a device provisionally patented by Vanderbilt University engineers.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have discovered the first methane-producing microbe that is active in an oxygen-rich environment -- a finding that suggests today's global climate models may be misjudging the amount of methane being released into the atmosphere.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Clarkson University discovered a new process to eliminate the release of dangerous carbon monoxide gas from wood pellets in storage. The use of wood pellet boilers and stoves to replace heating oil, propane or older wood boilers supports Governor Cuomo's energy goals.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

An international researcher team used neutron analysis at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, x-ray crystallography and other techniques to study chlorite dismutase, an enzyme that breaks down the environmental pollutant chlorite into harmless byproducts. The results shed light on the catalytic process and open possibilities for bioremediation.