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
Some four miles off the Southern California coast, a company is betting it can solve one of desalination's biggest problems by moving the technology deep below the ocean's surface.
Jan 15, 2026
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Energy & Green Tech
Solar power has a dark side: panels are still built to be thrown away, and we risk creating a mountain of waste that locks away valuable minerals.
Jan 13, 2026
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Engineering
Researchers have developed a heat storage unit that takes up less space than a regular hot water tank. It charges when electricity is cheap and releases heat when needed.
Jan 9, 2026
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Electronics & Semiconductors
Hydrogen, the lightest element on the periodic table, is a master of escaping almost any container it's stored in. Its extremely small size allows it to squeeze through atomic-scale gaps in the storage materials, which is ...
Engineering
Professor Ole Gunnar Dahlhaug and postdoctoral fellow Wolf Ludwig Kuhn at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have three goals: To understand the problem of gas supersaturation at hydropower plants, ...
Dec 30, 2025
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Engineering
A research team affiliated with UNIST has introduced a technology that generates electricity from raindrops striking rooftops, offering a self-powered approach to automated drainage control and flood warning during heavy ...
Dec 29, 2025
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Engineering
Northeastern University researchers have discovered that materials used in the development of transient electronics—devices designed to biodegrade at the end of their life—can break down into microplastics, casting doubt ...
Dec 22, 2025
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Consumer & Gadgets
Electronic gifts are very popular, and in recent years, retailers have been offering significant discounts on smartphones, e-readers and other electronics labeled as "pre-owned." Research I have co-led finds that these pre-owned ...
Dec 10, 2025
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Energy & Green Tech
Researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), in collaboration with Stanford University, Antwerp University and Hasselt University, have achieved an advance in the development of sustainable materials for the production ...
Dec 8, 2025
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Energy & Green Tech
Adopting digital twin technology to manage the power consumption of idle devices could save organizations thousands of pounds a year and help reduce their carbon footprint, new research suggests.
Dec 5, 2025
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