Emerging energy and water harvesting technologies encompass a suite of materials, devices, and systems designed to capture, convert, and store dispersed environmental resources such as solar radiation, wind, moisture, and ambient heat. Work in this area integrates atmospheric water harvesting architectures, triboelectric and moisture-induced generators, solar thermal and molecular solar thermal storage, barocaloric and magnetic cooling, and long-duration energy storage concepts. These approaches often rely on nanoengineered surfaces, phase-change and barocaloric materials, and hybrid thermodynamic cycles to improve efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of power, cooling, and freshwater supply.
Engineering
When we think about renewable energy, images of sprawling solar farms or towering coastal wind turbines usually come to mind. Yet, there is a quieter, more compact option: a slender strip of material fluttering in the breeze, ...
Engineering
Fresh drinking water is a vital yet limited resource that will only grow scarcer over the next few years, according to the World Resources Institute. Desalination, the process of removing salt from water, is an established ...
May 14, 2025
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Engineering
A small team of engineers from the U.S., Chile and Ireland has found a way to extract more water from drier air, allowing for water production in arid places like the Atacama Desert. Their paper is published in Device.
Energy & Green Tech
The soft, waxy "solid refrigerant" being investigated in a UK laboratory may not look very exciting, but its unusual properties promise an air-conditioning revolution that could eliminate the need for greenhouse gases.
May 12, 2025
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Engineering
Engineers from Australia and China have invented a sponge-like device that captures water from thin air and then releases it in a cup using the sun's energy, even in low humidity where other technologies such as fog harvesting ...
May 7, 2025
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Energy & Green Tech
A research team has developed the world's first next-generation betavoltaic cell by directly connecting a radioactive isotope electrode to a perovskite absorber layer. By embedding carbon-14-based quantum dots into the electrode ...
May 2, 2025
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Energy & Green Tech
It is becoming harder and harder to ignore the environmental costs of textiles, and demand is still growing by leaps and bounds each year.
Apr 25, 2025
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Business
The basic technology behind Ambient Photonics's solar cells is so simple that it's routinely assembled as a high school science experiment. In labs across the U.S., students sandwich blackberries' potent pigment between glass ...
Apr 24, 2025
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Energy & Green Tech
Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity, heat, and water. Because this conversion process doesn't generate any carbon emissions, fuel cells are seen as a valuable source of green energy that could ...
Apr 22, 2025
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Energy & Green Tech
When two materials come into contact, charged entities on their surfaces get a little nudge. This is how rubbing a balloon on the skin creates static electricity. Likewise, water flowing over some surfaces can gain or lose ...
Apr 16, 2025
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