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
A Korean research team has developed a two-electrode-based real-time diagnostic technology capable of precisely analyzing the causes of performance degradation in anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) systems ...
Apr 20, 2026
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Energy & Green Tech
While sustainable solar energy can potentially meet our global power needs, it has one major flaw. When sunlight disappears, solar panels stop generating electricity. The problem is that while they do an excellent job of ...
Consumer & Gadgets
Researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) have designed a portable game console powered by solar panels and a cranking device. They embedded the crank into the gameplay experience, allowing users to—for example—fire ...
Apr 15, 2026
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47
Engineering
For many people living in developed nations, towns and cities take care of ensuring that residents' water is clean and safe. Municipalities have advanced filters and UV light disinfection technologies at their disposal. Some ...
Apr 7, 2026
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47
Energy & Green Tech
Researchers have developed a solar-powered reactor to break down hard-to-recycle forms of plastic waste—such as drink bottles, nylon textiles and polyurethane foams—using acid recovered from old car batteries, and converting ...
Apr 6, 2026
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184
Energy & Green Tech
A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source.
Apr 3, 2026
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86
Engineering
A research team from Taiwan has developed a novel hybrid air-conditioning system integrating shallow geothermal energy and a desiccant wheel. Field tests confirm it significantly reduces energy consumption by up to 34.3% ...
Mar 30, 2026
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7
Electronics & Semiconductors
Consider the chief difference between living systems and electronics: The first is generally soft and squishy while the latter is hard and rigid. Now, in work that could impact human-machine interfaces, biocompatible devices, ...
Mar 30, 2026
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15
Engineering
Solar energy is abundant and frustratingly ill-timed. A sunbeam can become either electricity (useful for running modern life) or heat (useful for keeping spaces warm). But conventional solar hardware is single-minded: Photovoltaic ...
Mar 25, 2026
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31
Engineering
Data centers—the warehouse-sized buildings that store photos, stream movies and train artificial intelligence—are voracious consumers of electricity. A surprisingly large share of that power never reaches a microchip. Instead, ...
Mar 4, 2026
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