Clay Minerals and Metal Oxides Change How Uranium Travels Through Sediments
Montmorillonite clays prevent uranium from precipitating from liquids, letting it travel with groundwater.
Tundra Loses Carbon with Rapid Permafrost Thaw
Seven-year-study shows plant growth does not sustainably balance carbon losses from solar warming and permafrost thaw.
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Critical Materials Institute Develops New Acid-Free Magnet Recycling Process
A new rare-earth magnet recycling process developed by researchers at the Critical Materials Institute (CMI) dissolves magnets in an acid-free solution and recovers high purity rare earth elements.
Cotton Gin Trash Finding New Life for Electrical Power
COLLEGE STATION - Finding sustainable markets for gin trash, wood chips and other waste products could be viable in producing more electrical power for a growing global population, according to researchers. A demonstration was held recently on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station showcasing a biomass-fueled fluidized bed gasifier, utilizing cotton gin trash and wood chips to power an electric generator. The fluidized bed gasification system was developed in the 1980s when a patent was issued to Drs. Calvin Parnell Jr. and W.A. Lepori, who were both part of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station now Texas A&M AgriLife Research.
Iowa State Physicists Contribute to Higgs Boson Analysis, Understanding
Iowa State physicists have been part of the search for evidence the Higgs boson, as predicted, most often decays into two bottom quarks. It has been a challenge -- billions of the quarks are produced in the Large Hadron Collider and most aren't tied to the Higgs.
Argonne Efforts Accelerate 3-D Printing Journey
Argonne scientists' first glimpse inside additive manufacturing process yields important advancements
Finding Better Wind Energy Potential with the New European Wind Atlas
Over the last 25 years, the world has seen an increased dependency on wind energy that promises to continue growing. This has created an ever-evolving process to develop a method that can accurately assess a region's wind energy potential. The European Union and other countries have begun development of the New European Wind Atlas, the details of which a Danish researcher discusses in this week's Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
Newly-Discovered Semiconductor Dynamics May Help Improve Energy Efficiency
Researchers examining the flow of electricity through semiconductors have uncovered another reason these materials seem to lose their ability to carry a charge as they become more densely "doped."
Deforestation Long Overlooked as Contributor to Climate Change
When it comes to tackling climate change, the focus often falls on reducing the use of fossil fuels and developing sustainable energy sources. But a new Cornell University study shows that deforestation and subsequent use of lands for agriculture or pasture, especially in tropical regions, contribute more to climate change than previously thought.
Engineers Develop Tools to Share Power From Renewable Energy Sources During Outages
A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego developed algorithms that would allow homes to use and share power from their renewable energy sources during outages by strategically disconnecting these devices, called solar inverters, from the grid. The algorithms work with existing technology and would improve systems' reliability by 25 to 35 percent.
Carbon in Floodplain Unlikely to Cycle into the Atmosphere
Microbes leave a large fraction of carbon in anoxic sediments untouched, a key finding for understanding how watersheds influence Earth's ecosystem.
X-Ray Footprinting Solves Mystery of Metal-Breathing Protein
Berkeley Lab scientists have discovered the details of an unconventional coupling between a bacterial protein and a mineral that allows the bacterium to breathe when oxygen is not available.
Artificial Intelligence Analyzes Gravitational Lenses 10 Million Times Faster
Researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have for the first time shown that neural networks - a form of artificial intelligence - can accurately analyze the complex distortions in spacetime known as gravitational lenses 10 million times faster than traditional methods.
Two for the Price of One: Exceeding 100 Percent Efficiency in Solar Fuel Production
Scientists capture excess light energy to produce fuel, essentially storing sunlight's energy for a rainy day.
The Tricky Trifecta of Solar Cells
The quest for solar cell materials that are inexpensive, stable, and efficient leads to a breakthrough in thin film organic-inorganic perovskites.
Discovery Suggests New Significance of Unheralded Chemical Reactions
Argonne and Columbia researchers reveal new significance to a decades-old chemical reaction theory, increasing our understanding of the interaction of gases, relevant to combustion and planetary atmospheres.
Ames Laboratory Scientists Move Graphene Closer to Transistor Applications
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory were able to successfully manipulate the electronic structure of graphene, which may enable the fabrication of graphene transistors-- faster and more reliable than existing silicon-based transistors.
High-Tech Electronics Made from Autumn Leaves
Northern China's roadsides are peppered with deciduous phoenix trees, producing an abundance of fallen leaves in autumn. These leaves are generally burned in the colder season, exacerbating the country's air pollution problem. Investigators in Shandong, China, recently discovered a new method to convert this organic waste matter into a porous carbon material that can be used to produce high-tech electronics. The advance is reported in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
Photosynthesis Discovery Could Help Design More Efficient Artificial Solar Cells
A natural process that occurs during photosynthesis could lead to the design of more efficient artificial solar cells, according to researchers at Georgia State University.
New X-Ray Laser Technique Reveals Magnetic Skyrmion Fluctuations
A new way of operating the powerful X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has enabled researchers to detect and measure fluctuations in magnetic structures being considered for new data storage and computing technologies.
The Outsized Role of Soil Microbes
Three scientists have proposed a new approach to better understand the role of soil organic matter in long-term carbon storage and its response to changes in global climate and atmospheric chemistry.
New Results Reveal High Tunability of 2-D Material
A science team at Berkeley Lab has precisely measured some previously obscured properties of a 2-D semiconducting material known as moly sulfide, which opens up a new avenue to applications. "That provides very important guidance to all of the optoelectronic device engineers. They need to know what the band gap is" in orderly to properly connect the 2-D material with other materials and components in a device, Yao said. Obtaining the direct band gap measurement is challenged by the so-called "exciton effect" in 2-D materials that is produced by a strong pairing between electrons and electron "holes" - vacant positions around an atom where an electron can exist. The strength of this effect can mask measurements of the band gap. Nicholas Borys, a project scientist at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry who also participated in the study, said the study also resolves how to tune optical and electronic properties in a 2-D material. "The real power of our technique, and an importa
A Low-Cost Method for Solar-Thermal Conversion That's Simpler and Greener
Researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a simple, low-cost, and environmentally sound method for fabricating a highly-efficient selective solar absorber (SSA) to convert sunlight into heat for energy-related applications. The team used a "dip and dry" approach whereby strips coated with a reactive metal are dipped into a solution containing ions of a less reactive metal to create plasmonic-nanoparticle-coated foils that perform as well or better than existing SSAs, regardless of the sun's angle.
Trash to Treasure: The Benefits of Waste-to-Energy Technologies
Using landfill waste to produce energy generates less greenhouse gases than simply letting the waste decompose. The study highlights the benefits of food waste as a potential source of energy.
UNLV Preps to Again Shine at International Solar Homebuilding Contest
Team Las Vegas readying 'Sinatra', its aging-in-place solar home for the prestigious U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition.