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THE ORIGINAL COLLECTION · SINCE 2010

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Research announcements from universities, hospitals and scientific institutions. Explore the stories, people and discoveries behind the headlines.

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Waterpower scarcity and coal use during the Industrial Revolution
Energy

Waterpower scarcity and coal use during the Industrial Revolution

A study combining history, economics, and fluvial geomorphology examines the causes of the adoption of coal power during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. At the beginning of the mechanization of the textile industry in Britain, most machines were powered with waterpower. Eventually waterpower was replaced by using coal to make steam power and the causes of this shift have long been debated. One influential hypothesis has been that waterpower became scarce in the industrial heartland of northwest England during the early 19th century, as all available suitable sites were already fitted with ...

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Kenyan crop contamination outbreak inspires grad student to improve rice storage
Energy

Kenyan crop contamination outbreak inspires grad student to improve rice storage

By Maddie Johnson University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — While half the global population relies on rice as a staple, about 15 percent of rice produced each year is contaminated by potentially fatal aflatoxins. Seeing this threaten lives in her home country of Kenya prompted a graduate research assistant to focus on eradicating the risk through safer storage methods. Faith Ouma, a Ph.D. student in the food science department at the University of Arkansas, was the lead author of “Investigating safe storage conditions to mitigate aflatoxin contamination in rice.” It was published ...

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Energy

Electric aviation: Batteries that stay strong for the flight duration

Images A battery component innovation could help keep power delivery high when electric aircraft land with low charge, according to a study led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with expertise from the University of Michigan. The research provides a solution to a problem identified in 2018 in a study led by Venkat Viswanathan, a professor of aerospace engineering at U-M and a coauthor of the new work published in Joule. "Both takeoff and landing require high power, and landing is more challenging because you’re not fully charged," Viswanathan said. "To get high power you ...

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Hydrogen flight looks ready for take-off with new advances
Energy

Hydrogen flight looks ready for take-off with new advances

The possibility of hydrogen-powered flight means greater opportunities for fossil-free travel, and the technological advances to make this happen are moving fast. New studies from Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, show that almost all air travel within a 750-mile radius (1200 km) could be made with hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2045, and with a novel heat exchanger currently in development, this range could be even further. “If everything falls into place, the commercialisation of hydrogen flight can go really fast now. As early as 2028, the first commercial hydrogen flights in Sweden could be in the air," says Tomas Grönstedt, Professor at Chalmers ...

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UTSA joins new consortium dedicated to nuclear security and nonproliferation
Energy

UTSA joins new consortium dedicated to nuclear security and nonproliferation

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has joined one of two newly established university consortia committed to nuclear security and nonproliferation. The consortia were awarded $50 million in cooperative agreements by the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation in the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE NNSA). “The pressing challenges of nuclear security and nonproliferation require a concerted effort from experts across the country,” said JoAnn Browning, UTSA interim vice president for research. ...

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The forbidden propagation of hyperbolic phonon polaritons and applications in near-field energy transport
Energy

The forbidden propagation of hyperbolic phonon polaritons and applications in near-field energy transport

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oes.2024.230053 , discusses forbidden propagation of hyperbolic phonon polaritons and applications in near-field energy transport. Manipulating photons on the nanoscale to develop integrated and miniaturized optoelectronic devices as well as photonic chips has been a strong pursuit of the nanophotonics community. Among them, phonon polaritons supported by two-dimensional layered van der Waals (vdW) materials, which have emerged in recent years, have attracted much attention by virtue of their ultra-long lifetimes, ultr-low losses, and strong confinement capabilities, ...

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New director appointed to lead U.S. Department of Energy’s Jefferson Lab
Energy

New director appointed to lead U.S. Department of Energy’s Jefferson Lab

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, today announced that Kim Sawyer will become the new director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, effective Aug. 2. Sawyer will serve as the lab’s fifth director in its 40-year history. In this role, Sawyer will be responsible for leading all activities in support of the world’s premiere research institution for exploring the nature of matter. “We are pleased that Kim has been selected to lead Jefferson Lab,” said ...

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Energy

Sauer receives funding for project studying tunable RF atomic magnetometer as an electrically small receiver

Sauer Receives Funding For Project Studying Tunable RF Atomic Magnetometer As An Electrically Small Receiver Karen Sauer, Professor, Physics and Astronomy, College of Science, received funding for the project: “Tunable RF Atomic Magnetometer as an Electrically Small Receiver.” Sauer will complete work for this project in three phases. In Phase 1, she will focus on developing and investigating novel bias-field control based on fully atom-based measurements as well as testing the performance ...

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Energy

Texas Tech professor receives DOE grant to advance clean energy

Texas Tech University’s Qingwang Yuan, an assistant professor in the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering, has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM). Yuan and Texas Tech will take the lead on a project titled, “Incubating Next Generation Clean Energy Scientists and Engineers Through Minority-Scholar Exchange and In-Situ Hydrogen Production Research.” The research will be funded as part of an investment of more than $17 million from the DOE into 19 early-stage ...

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Energy

Federal grid reforms alone are not enough to solve clean energy interconnection problem

Although energy production from wind and solar has grown rapidly in the United States, its integration into the national electric grid has been impeded by poor grid interconnection policies, leaving thousands of new facilities for generating renewable energy waiting to be connected to the grid. In a Policy Forum, Les Armstrong and colleagues highlight the interconnection problem and discuss whether federal grid policy reforms alone are enough to address it. Armstrong et al. argue that while the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) recent orders to improve this bottleneck are a step in the right direction, fundamental issues remain unaddressed. In the ...

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A New Blue: Mysterious origin of the ribbontail ray’s electric blue spots revealed
Energy

A New Blue: Mysterious origin of the ribbontail ray’s electric blue spots revealed

Researchers have discovered the unique nanostructures responsible for the electric blue spots of the bluespotted ribbontail ray (Taeniura lymma), with possible applications for developing chemical-free colouration. The team are also conducting ongoing research into the equally enigmatic blue colouration of the blue shark (Prionace glauca). Skin colouration plays a key role in organismal communication, providing life-critical visual clues that can warn, attract or camouflage. Bluespotted ribbontail ...

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Efficient hydrogenolysis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural over Ni-C3N4 catalysts
Energy

Efficient hydrogenolysis of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural over Ni-C3N4 catalysts

Utilization of biomass as the basic feedstock for the production and chemicals and energy storage has been demonstrated to be an important alternative to achieve sustainable society, which has attracted increasing interests in both academic and industrial communities for decades. 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), one of the most important bio-based platform compounds, could serve as a bridge feedstock between biomass resources and chemicals. It is possible to synthesize a series of high-value added chemicals from HMF through hydrogenation, ...

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Energy

U.S. Department of Energy issues request for proposals for contractor to manage and operate Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFPs) for the competitive selection of a management and operating contractor for the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF). TJNAF is a DOE national laboratory and DOE-sponsored Federally Funded Research and Development Center that has a mission focused on delivering breakthrough science and technology in nuclear physics. DOE expects to award the contract before the current agreement with Jefferson Science Associates, LLC expires on May 31, 2025, allowing for an anticipated three-month transition. DOE expects the selected ...

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How to avoid wasting huge amounts of energy
Energy

How to avoid wasting huge amounts of energy

Norway wastes huge amounts of energy. Surplus heat produced by industry is hardly exploited at all. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have been looking at the possibilities for doing something about this. “Surplus heat from industrial processes is a huge resource,” says Kim Kristiansen. He has just completed his PhD on a technology that can harness some of the surplus heat that currently goes to waste. Almost all the heat generated by industrial processes is currently released directly into the air or the ocean, and we are not talking about small amounts. In Norway alone, industry produces ...

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KIER develops 'viologen redox flow battery' to replace vanadium’
Energy

KIER develops 'viologen redox flow battery' to replace vanadium’

A technology has been developed to replace the active material in large-capacity ESS 'redox flow batteries' with a more affordable substance. *Redox Flow Battery: A term synthesized from Reduction, Oxidation, and Flow. It is a battery that stores electrical energy as chemical energy through oxidation and reduction reactions of active materials in the electrolyte at the electrode surface and converts it back to electrical energy when needed. It is capable of large-scale storage, can be used long-term through periodic replacement of the electrolyte, and its major advantage is the absence of fire risk. Dr. Seunghae Hwang’s ...

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Binghamton University marks official launch of federally funded battery initiative
Energy

Binghamton University marks official launch of federally funded battery initiative

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- National Science Foundation (NSF) officials joined Binghamton University, State University of New York to officially launch the Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine. After winning the designation earlier this year, Binghamton University and its New Energy New York and Engine coalition partners gathered to celebrate what this all means to the region. At a press conference on Thursday, Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger welcomed NSF Assistant Director of the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate Erwin Gianchandani to Binghamton to help launch the Engine program. Erwin ...

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What was behind the 2021-2022 energy crisis within Europe?
Energy

What was behind the 2021-2022 energy crisis within Europe?

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2024 – An energy crisis hit Europe in 2021-2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent electricity prices skyrocketing — even within countries that don’t rely on Russian gas. It begs the question: Was there more to it? A team of researchers from the Institute for Energy and Climate Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich, the University of Cologne, and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences had already been working with electricity price data for years, exploring statistics and developing forecasting methods. Adopting a European perspective, ...

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Soft, stretchy electrode simulates touch sensations using electrical signals
Energy

Soft, stretchy electrode simulates touch sensations using electrical signals

A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has developed a soft, stretchy electronic device capable of simulating the feeling of pressure or vibration when worn on the skin. This device, reported in a paper published in Science Robotics, represents a step towards creating haptic technologies that can reproduce a more varied and realistic range of touch sensations. The device consists of a soft, stretchable electrode attached to a silicone patch. It can be worn like a sticker ...

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University of Houston strengthens commitment to clean energy with key partnerships
Energy

University of Houston strengthens commitment to clean energy with key partnerships

HOUSTON, June 25, 2024 - The University of Houston, the energy university with multiple energy-focused research centers, last week signed two memorandums of understanding with industry partners Promethean Energy and Endeavor Management. The agreements formalize the partnership to address the challenges of repurposing offshore infrastructure for clean energy use. Both companies will work closely with UH Energy, the University’s interdisciplinary energy initiative, and members of UH’s Repurposing Offshore Infrastructure for Clean ...

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Novel application of optical tweezers: colorfully showing molecular energy transfer
Energy

Novel application of optical tweezers: colorfully showing molecular energy transfer

A novel technique with potential applications for fields such as droplet chemistry and photochemistry has been demonstrated by an Osaka Metropolitan University-led research group. Professor Yasuyuki Tsuboi of the Graduate School of Science and the team investigated Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), a phenomenon seen in photosynthesis and other natural processes where a donor molecule in an excited state transfers energy to an acceptor molecule. Using dyes to mark the donor and acceptor molecules, the team set out to see if FRET could be controlled by the intensity of an optical force, in this case a laser beam. By focusing a laser beam on an isolated polymer droplet, the team ...

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25 years of massive fusion energy experiment data completely open on the “cloud”, to be available to everyone
Energy

25 years of massive fusion energy experiment data completely open on the “cloud”, to be available to everyone

Background High-temperature fusion plasma experiments conducted in the Large Helical Device (LHD) of the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), have renewed the world record for an acquired data amount, 0.92 terabytes (TB) per experiment, in February 2022, by using a full range of state-of-the-art plasma diagnostic devices*1. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is currently under construction in France through the international collaboration of seven parties, is expected to generate ...

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New perspectives of perovskites-based ferroelectric ceramics for energy storage applications
Energy

New perspectives of perovskites-based ferroelectric ceramics for energy storage applications

With the escalating impacts of climate change and depletion of resources, dielectric capacitors are emerging as promising high-demanded candidates for high-performance energy storage devices. However, due to the shortcomings of various dielectric ceramics (e.g., paraelectrics, ferroelectrics, and antiferroelectrics), their low polarizability, low breakdown strength, and large hysteresis loss limit their standalone use in the advancing of energy storage ceramics. Therefore, synthesizing novel perovskite-based materials that exhibit high energy density, high energy efficiency, and low loss is crucial in achieving superior energy ...

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Energy

Scientists unlock secrets of how the third form of life makes energy

Scientists unlock secrets of how the third form of life makes energy. An international scientific team has redefined our understanding of archaea, a microbial ancestor to humans from two billion years ago, by showing how they use hydrogen gas. The findings, published today in Cell, explain how these tiny lifeforms make energy by consuming and producing hydrogen. This simple but dependable strategy has allowed them to thrive in some of Earth’s most hostile environments for billions of years. The paper, led by Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute scientists, including ...

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Sky’s the limit for biofuels
Energy

Sky’s the limit for biofuels

The United States has enough biomass potential to produce 35 billion gallons per year of aviation biofuel by 2050, a new report confirms. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s John Field provided biomass feedstock production expertise to the report focused on the role of the bioeconomy in U.S. decarbonization strategies, which was produced by the Department of Energy’s DECARB program. The report examined the role of biomass in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the economy, including opportunities to reach negative emissions. It includes data ...

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Energy

DOE announces new decadal fusion energy strategy

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today marked the two-year anniversary of the Biden-Harris Administration's launch of the U.S. Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy with the release of the DOE Fusion Energy Strategy 2024 and an event at the White House co-hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. At the inaugural event where the Bold Decadal Vision was unveiled, DOE launched a Department-wide initiative to develop a strategy for accelerating the viability of commercial fusion energy in partnership with the private sector. The newly released DOE Fusion Energy ...

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