https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/energy-green-tech-news/ en-us The latest news on energy sciences and green technology, energy technology, energy renovation, alternative energy, and green energy. A breakthrough in interface engineering clears the path for sustainable, high-power hydrogen energy. As the world races toward a hydrogen-based society, the quest for a truly green fuel cell has faced a persistent material hurdle. Most modern fuel cells rely on fluorine-based membranes to conduct protons. While effective, these materials are environmentally taxing and expensive to produce. Now, a research team at Kumamoto University's Institute of Industrial Nanomaterials (IINa) has achieved a major milestone in sustainable energy, developing a graphene oxide fuel cell that shatters previous performance records for nanosheet-based electrolytes. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-interface-tweak-triples-graphene-oxide.html Engineering Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news694968406 Researchers have developed a volcanic rock formula that cuts carbon emissions by 67%, potentially offering an affordable alternative to increasingly scarce cement additives. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-volcanic-formula-cement-emissions-thirds.html Engineering Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:10:01 EDT news694957125 In an effort to meet the rising energy demands of data centers, engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new chip design that could improve how graphics processing units (GPUs) convert and manage power. The technology demonstrates a more efficient way to perform a critical task in electronics: converting high voltages into lower levels required by computing hardware. In lab tests, a prototype chip performed the type of voltage conversion used in modern data centers with high efficiency. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-prototype-chip-boost-efficiency-power.html Hardware Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:00:02 EDT news694882441 UNSW researchers have redesigned hydrogen fuel cells to solve a critical flaw, bringing clean energy for aviation, heavy transport and beyond closer to reality. Hydrogen fuel cells, using locally produced green hydrogen as the only fuel, have long been viewed as the ultimate clean energy source, but their commercialization has been difficult. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-hydrogen-fuel-cell-key-energy.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:40:03 EDT news694871424 Some batteries have been known to catch fire or explode at high temperatures or when under stress. This safety concern has pushed researchers to experiment with different ways to design safer batteries that can ideally still perform reliably and efficiently. Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) are considered a promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries, but still face safety risks, especially at high capacities. But now, a team of researchers in China has designed a new type of electrolyte for NIBs that may eliminate these risks, allowing for stable performance across a wide temperature range. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-safer-sodium-battery-thermal-runaway.html Engineering Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:04 EDT news694867883 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 households have additional filters as well. In many places in the Global South, however, these technologies are not widely available. These areas, such as parts of Africa and South America, do have one advantage when it comes to water filtration—sunlight. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-solar-powered-device-disinfects-hour.html Engineering Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:00:06 EDT news694795201 In tropical cities, afternoon thunderstorms can plunge entire neighborhoods into brief moments of darkness. When civil engineer Markus Schläpfer moved to Singapore a decade ago, he recognized these thunderstorms as an emerging engineering challenge. For cities that hope to run on solar energy, these short periods without strong sunlight could destabilize urban power grids and undermine reliability. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-electric-cars-tropical-cities-solar.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:05 EDT news694686121 Researchers from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium and Yachay Tech University in Ecuador have come to a surprising conclusion: wind and solar energy, often criticized for their lack of predictability and dependence on the weather, could make Ecuador's power supply substantially more reliable. Their findings are published in Nature Water in a paper titled "Variable renewables fortify Ecuador's power system against recurrences of drought-driven energy crises." https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-solar-ecuador-power-crisis.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:02 EDT news694712821 While mixing materials typically leads to instability, there exists a phenomenon known as high entropy, where increasing compositional complexity can actually enhance stability. KAIST researchers have leveraged this principle to enable faster proton transport and more efficient reactions within electrochemical cells, developing a technology that significantly improves hydrogen production efficiency. This breakthrough is expected to reduce hydrogen costs and accelerate the transition to clean energy. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-high-entropy-hydrogen-production.html Engineering Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:00:01 EDT news694694242 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 it into clean hydrogen fuel and valuable industrial chemicals. The results are reported in the journal Joule. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-solar-reactor-battery-acid-plastic.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:00:01 EDT news694425241 Rice University scientists and collaborators have created a new type of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor that comes closer than ever to a "perfect" crystal. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Synthesis, could open new possibilities for solar cells and other optoelectronic devices. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-symmetrical-2d-perovskite-boost-tandem.html Electronics & Semiconductors Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:20:02 EDT news694505521 A research team has developed a next-generation platinum-based catalyst that improves both activity and durability in hydrogen fuel cells. The study is published in Advanced Materials. The team was led by Professor Sang Uck Lee of the School of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, with Ph.D. candidate Jun Ho Seok as a co-first author and Dr. Sung Chan Cho, in collaboration with Professor Kwangyeol Lee's team at Korea University and Dr. Sung Jong Yoo's team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-fuel-cell-barriers-platinum-catalyst.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 03 Apr 2026 10:40:01 EDT news694431421 A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-energy-japanese-harness-power-osmosis.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 03 Apr 2026 04:45:09 EDT news694410270 As the demand for more reliable power systems grows in the renewable energy sector, the race is on to develop batteries that cost less but have a longer lifespan. While zinc-based batteries are safer and more cost-effective than lithium-ion batteries, a major obstacle to their use in large-scale, grid storage is their shorter lifespan. They fail sooner because they develop tiny, tree-shaped metal structures on the anode called dendrites, which cause the battery to short-circuit. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-gold-coating-zinc-batteries.html Engineering Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:40:03 EDT news694354561 In a study focused on New York City, MIT researchers have shown that existing sensors and mobile data can be used to generate a near real-time, high-resolution picture of auto emissions, which could be used to develop local transportation and decarbonization policies. The paper, "Ubiquitous Data-driven Framework for Traffic Emission Estimation and Policy Evaluation," is published in Nature Sustainability. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-traffic-emissions-block-real.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:03 EDT news694348321 Electric vehicles (EVs) could do more for our environment than simply replace gasoline. Published in Joule, a new assessment of EV charging strategies suggests that EVs could serve as a vast network of mobile batteries, storing excess energy and feeding it back into the grid when demand surges. This approach could ease grid strain, cut emissions, and create revenue—but only if gradually paired with timely grid upgrades. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-electric-vehicles-power.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:00:01 EDT news694252984 As the electric vehicle and energy storage system (ESS) markets experience rapid growth, the development of next-generation batteries capable of surpassing the energy density limitations of existing lithium-ion batteries is drawing significant attention. Among these, the lithium-air battery is considered a technology with the potential to dramatically increase electric vehicle range, as it can theoretically achieve an energy density more than 10 times that of lithium-ion batteries. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-lithium-air-batteries-barriers-newly.html Engineering Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:00:03 EDT news694266662 A study by the EHU-University of the Basque Country shows how biomass can be used as an alternative in commercial batteries, thus making them more sustainable. The research is published in the Journal of Power Sources. Dr. Nekane Nieto of the EHU's Materials and Solid-State Group has proven that batteries made from biomass materials not only store sufficient energy, but can also withstand up to 1,000 charge and discharge cycles. This discovery paves the way for more environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional batteries, which are more expensive and pollute more. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-rechargeable-batteries-sunflower-seed-shells.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:40:04 EDT news694257841 Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have unveiled a tool to combat climate change, fossil-fuel dependency, skyrocketing home-heating bills, and gentrification all at once—a simple fabric treated with a special photothermal dye that, when placed on outside walls, can help keep a home 8.64ºF warmer over the course of a day. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-photothermal-fabric-panels-energy.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 01 Apr 2026 08:40:05 EDT news694249949 A new way of making sustainable aviation fuel that could cut the reliance on used cooking oil as a feedstock has been developed by a team of engineers led by the University of Sheffield. The new technique captures CO2 from the air, combines it with hydrogen, and then heats it using concentrated solar energy to produce the fuel. For their study published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers used comprehensive computer modeling and simulation to understand how and where this first-of-a-kind technology could function at an industrial scale. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-solar-energy-key-sustainable-aviation.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:20:03 EDT news694177852 New types of semiconductor devices that respond to light could be possible using materials called perovskites, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published in Advanced Materials, shows that halide perovskite crystals reversibly change shape when exposed to light. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-perovskite-crystal-lattice-devices.html Electronics & Semiconductors Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:20:06 EDT news694166401 Solar cells, devices that can convert sunlight into electricity, are among the most promising solutions to source energy without contributing to air pollution. While most commercially available solar cells are based on silicon, energy researchers have been exploring the potential of other materials that could be more affordable and might yield better power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-molecular-additive-boosts-silicon-perovskite.html Engineering Tue, 31 Mar 2026 08:30:01 EDT news694094756 Alkaline industrial wastewaters from steel or cement production are ideally suited to bind and sequester carbon dioxide (CO₂) chemically, safely, and for the long term. This is the result of a study conducted by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. Until now, this wastewater has been disposed of into rivers without using its CO2-sequestration capacity. In the future, it could neutralize millions of tons of CO₂—offering an attractive and implementable option to mitigate climate change. The study was recently published in the journal Environment, Science & Technology Letters. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-alkaline-steel-cement-wastewater-capture.html Engineering Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:40:05 EDT news694087682 The world cannot have enough of the third element on the periodic table. From smartphones and laptops to state-of-the-art EVs, all are powered by lithium batteries. The demand for metal is only going to rise, and projected values suggest nearly a triple increase in demand by 2030. The traditional process of lithium mining is both water and energy-hungry. One such step is the dissolution of lithium salts from other competing minerals during the separation process. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-hygroscopic-salts-lithium-moisture-air.html Engineering Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:40:04 EDT news694085480 A new battery design that could significantly extend the range of electric vehicles and the lifespan of portable electronics has been developed by researchers at the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute (ATI). In a study published in ACS Applied Energy Materials, researchers introduce a novel lithium-ion battery anode that delivers some of the highest energy storage capacities reported for silicon–carbon nanotube systems, while maintaining stability over hundreds of charge cycles. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-lithium-ion-battery-power-longer.html Energy & Green Tech Sun, 29 Mar 2026 10:00:20 EDT news693754399 Perovskite solar cells are among the most promising technologies for making solar power cheaper and more efficient. Working with partners from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchroton), and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the team uncovered the microscopic mechanisms behind the deterioration of the material through temperature swings and developed a strategy to prevent it. Their approach focuses on stabilizing the fragile crystal structure with specially designed molecular "anchors." https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-molecular-anchors-key-weather-resistant.html Energy & Green Tech Sat, 28 Mar 2026 14:00:01 EDT news693826593 Perovskites are semiconducting materials that have rapidly transformed the field of optoelectronics, demonstrating outstanding performance in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodiodes. For their unique properties, they have also gained attention in photovoltaics. After almost two decades of intensive research, this "wonder" class of materials could provide a cost-effective route to significantly enhance energy generation in both large-scale solar farms and rooftop panels. However, maintaining high efficiency upon scaling up device fabrication still remains difficult for the processes that occur on the molecular level, limiting long-term stability of perovskite materials. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-molecular-umbrella-solar-cells-blocking.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:20:04 EDT news693836041 A team of Chinese researchers has modeled the potential global benefits of installing solar panels on outside building walls, a concept known as facade-integrated photovoltaics (FIPV). They found that solar panels installed on building facades not only generate substantial electricity but also reduce cooling demand, thereby reducing carbon emissions and improving urban climate adaptation. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-facade-solar-panels-walls-generate.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:40:01 EDT news693831404 Two stacked layers comprise tandem solar cells (TSCs), with each subcell absorbing different wavelengths of sunlight, which makes TSCs more efficient than single-layer solar cells. All-perovskite TSCs hold great promise for next-generation photovoltaics, with a theoretical efficiency exceeding 40%. However, their practical performance is hampered by mismatched crystallization kinetics between their wide-bandgap (WBG) and narrow-bandgap (NBG) subcells, leading to phase segregation and defect accumulation. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-strategy-efficiency-perovskite-tandem-solar.html Engineering Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:00:01 EDT news693757081 A KAIST research team has solved the "solar cell dilemma," in which increasing efficiency shortens lifespan, while extending lifespan lowers efficiency. The team developed a technology to precisely control the internal structure of a surface passivation layer in perovskite solar cells, successfully achieving both high efficiency exceeding 25% and long-term stability at the same time. The study is published in the journal Joule. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-perovskite-solar-cells-efficiency-lifespan.html Engineering Fri, 27 Mar 2026 10:00:01 EDT news693822601