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 new battery binder—the glue that holds together a battery's internal parts—could make lithium-ion batteries more environmentally friendly and easier to recycle without sacrificing performance. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-binder-battery-recycling-sacrificing.html Engineering Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:40:27 EDT news711040501 Around half of the energy used to train AI can be saved without affecting speed or performance, using software developed at the University of Michigan Engineering. Now, U-M researchers are working with NVIDIA to integrate their new approach into Megatron-LM, NVIDIA's open-source platform for training AI. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-software-tools-ai-energy.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 12 Oct 2026 16:20:11 EDT news711040381 Zinc-air batteries can store significantly more energy than lithium-ion batteries, but until now have been virtually impossible to recharge. A team led by Professor Jörg J. Schneider from the Department of Chemistry has now demonstrated how a material made of iron, nickel and carbon enables the battery to be charged and discharged up to 500 times. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-zinc-air-batteries-gain-momentum.html Energy & Green Tech Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:20:01 EDT news710759710 Wind turbines, devices that can convert energy from the wind into electricity, do not burn fuel during operation and could thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite their possible environmental advantages, building these devices depends heavily on the mines and factories supplying the metals they are made of. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-high-rare-earth-demand-complicate.html Business Sat, 10 Oct 2026 11:20:07 EDT news710757587 A team co-led by researchers at the University of California San Diego has developed a new way to make perovskite solar cells—a promising next-generation solar technology—more efficient and durable. By creating a temporary liquid while the material crystallizes, researchers were able to grow perovskite crystals that were larger, more uniform and contained fewer defects. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-temporary-liquid-perovskite-solar-cells.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 09 Oct 2026 13:20:01 EDT news710768221 Heating and cooling buildings account for a large portion of global energy use. A research team in the Texas A&M University Department of Materials Science and Engineering was featured on the cover of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces for a study that aims to reduce that energy consumption. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-gel-energy-consumption.html Engineering Thu, 08 Oct 2026 16:40:04 EDT news710696101 To mitigate climate change, direct air capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere has emerged as an increasingly attractive option for limiting global warming. But scaling up systems to remove and safely store enough CO₂ faces major obstacles, according to researchers at the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-simple-modification-commercial-resin-air.html Engineering Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:40:12 EDT news710677588 Researchers from Nagoya University in Japan have developed a durable fuel-cell catalyst by wrapping platinum nanoparticles in nitrogen-containing graphene and placing them on carbon nanotubes. This design retained 96.9% of its active surface after 30,000 durability cycles, pointing towards fuel cells with longer lifespans and lower platinum demand. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-platinum-fuel-cells-longer-nitrogen.html Engineering Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:20:01 EDT news710668801 Most electricity is generated by using heat to produce steam, which then turns a turbine. Although this approach performs exceptionally well in the high-temperature, superheated-steam regime, we currently lack widely applicable technologies that can exploit the much more abundant resource of low-temperature heat. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-method-reveals-efficiently-based-cells.html Engineering Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:20:14 EDT news710600798 Solar cells absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity. This process, however, is not perfect, and a large part of the solar energy is simply lost along the way. Some of it is lost as heat, while photons with insufficient energy pass through the cell without generating electricity. These are the sources of loss that most scientists in the field try to minimize, but there is another important one known as Boltzmann loss. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-solar-cells-gain-efficiency-emitting.html Engineering Tue, 06 Oct 2026 13:00:06 EDT news710508901 Wireless charging has already transformed how people power phones, wearables and even electric vehicles. The next leap is to advance wireless technologies beyond delivering electrical energy to directly producing nonelectrical outputs, such as optical, thermal and mechanical energy, according to actual needs. This would create an energy delivery network as flexible and efficient as the internet. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-wireless-energy-internet-roadmap-path.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:00:11 EDT news710416081 Oregon State University scientists have filed a patent application for a new carbon-capture material that turns water in factory flue emissions from a problem into an advantage. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-material-boost-carbon-capture-technologies.html Energy & Green Tech Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:40:11 EDT news710147868 Water electrolyzers are promising devices that use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. If powered by solar cells or other renewable energy technologies, they could contribute to the sustainable production of hydrogen used to make ammonia, which in turn is used to produce fertilizers and other valuable compounds. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-scaled-seawater-hydrogen-fresh-higher.html Engineering Sat, 03 Oct 2026 09:00:01 EDT news709821798 Anyone calculating how much electricity an offshore wind farm will deliver looks at the wind and not at the clouds. Researchers at the University of Twente show that this leaves part of the yield unaccounted for. Low cloud cover speeds up the recovery of the wind behind a wind farm and can benefit the next farm in line. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-cloud-offshore-farms-easing-shadows.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 02 Oct 2026 11:40:10 EDT news710159521 What if the energy powering your home or office could be generated, stored and used all in the same place? This is the hope for the next generation of buildings, powered by renewable sources with energy stored nearby—possibly even within the concrete used to construct the building itself. Reporting in ACS Nano, researchers have developed an efficient, energy-storing cement supercapacitor that holds up as well as commercial concrete in tests. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-cement-based-supercapacitors-power-generation.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:09:19 EDT news710093324 Satellite data could help governments decide where to build the data centers behind the growth of AI by showing where renewable power, water and land are available and where drought and climate risks are highest, according to researchers at the University of Surrey. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-require-satellite-ai-centers-urge.html Business Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:00:05 EDT news710084182 Garbage left outside starts smelling unpleasant very quickly, especially in warm, humid climates that accelerate food decay. In ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, researchers report a solar-powered lid insert that fits onto standard wheeled trash bins and helps combat the stench. In tests with real food, the lid insert efficiently breaks down acetic acid, the main culprit released from rotting waste that's responsible for its odors, and continues working for more than a month. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-solar-powered-trashcan-lid-insert.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:40:09 EDT news710072127 Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the main gases contributing to climate change on Earth. Removing this gas directly from the air could help to limit climate change, alongside other efforts to reduce emissions from industrial processes and other human activities. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-battery-based-device-carbon-capture.html Engineering Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:20:15 EDT news710072066 Water scarcity is becoming increasingly serious worldwide as population growth and climate change increase demand for freshwater. Seawater desalination is therefore attracting growing attention, especially in arid regions. However, desalination plants also generate large volumes of highly concentrated brine. Globally, roughly 50 trillion liters (13 trillion gallons) of brine are produced every year, exceeding the amount of freshwater produced by desalination. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-liquid-metal-tin-desalination-brine.html Engineering Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:40:01 EDT news710062621 Rice University researchers in the departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry and Materials Science and Nanoengineering and at the Rice Advanced Materials Institute have developed a relatively soft, flexible material that can selectively transport lithium ions. It offers a new approach to porous solid electrolytes that combine efficient ion movement with better mechanical adaptability inside a battery. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-soft-material-lithium-ions-solid.html Engineering Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:40:21 EDT news709999261 To develop batteries that last longer on a single charge, more energy must be stored without increasing their size or weight. A research team led by Dr. San Moon and Dr. Jungdon Suk at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) has developed a dry thick-film cathode technology by incorporating graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) as a cathode additive for the first time. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-lithium-ion-traffic-ease-additive.html Engineering Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:00:13 EDT news709998902 Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are a promising next-generation photovoltaic technology that can achieve high power conversion efficiencies. However, their performance and long-term stability are limited by problems that arise during manufacture and operation. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-prussian-blue-perovskite-solar-small.html Engineering Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:20:15 EDT news709992601 VENTRA is a new sustainable concept car developed by the student team TU/ecomotive. The electric vehicle captures particulate matter generated by tires and brakes while driving, encourages a more sustainable driving style and produces less particulate matter itself. With this concept, the students aim to raise awareness of the dangers of particulate matter and inspire the industry to develop new solutions. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-students-electric-car-captures-particulate.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 29 Sep 2026 16:20:05 EDT news709916222 More than 6 million U.S. homes have solar panels on their roofs—but what if you could generate power inside your house, too? Researchers at Binghamton University have developed a new type of wallpaper that turns moisture in a room into small amounts of electric current. They hope to improve the technology to generate more power. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-wallpaper-generates-power-moisture-air.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 29 Sep 2026 15:00:16 EDT news709912383 As freshwater scarcity becomes more prevalent, solar evaporation is drawing attention as a promising solution. This process uses sunlight to heat the surface of salty or contaminated water, turning it into vapor that can be collected as clean water when it condenses. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-fish-gill-aerogel-tackles-issue.html Engineering Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:20:05 EDT news709903082 What if the blue pigment in your ink or dye could help power the future of clean energy? A recent study suggests it could. A research team led by professor Hiroshi Yabu at Tohoku University's Advanced Institute for Materials Research and professor Dario R. Dekel at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), working with professor Yasutaka Matsuo at Hokkaido University and AZUL Energy, Inc., has developed carbon-supported blue-pigment catalysts for anion-exchange membrane fuel cells. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-green-future-powered-blue-pigments.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:20:16 EDT news709898075 The world needs more wind energy. But anyone designing new wind turbines or trying to squeeze more power out of existing ones faces a stiff challenge when testing new approaches. That's because the atmosphere is a tough place for a controlled experiment. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-pressurized-tunnel-farms-generate-power.html Engineering Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:00:19 EDT news709824962 A new study led by researchers at the Yale Center for Ecosystems and Architecture (Yale CEA), together with NYU, Purdue, YSE, Buro Happold and others, shows how plant-based biofilters could help reduce indoor CO2 to levels below those found outdoors. Conventional HVAC systems cannot achieve this through ventilation alone, making this approach increasingly relevant as climate change drives higher CO2 concentrations and greater demands on indoor environments. The findings are published in the journal Energy and Buildings. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-metabolic-architecture-conventional-hvac.html Engineering Sun, 27 Sep 2026 14:40:01 EDT news709474267 Solar cells, devices that convert energy from sunlight into electricity, are being deployed in increasing numbers in many countries. While most cells on the market today are based on silicon, recent studies have highlighted the potential of a class of photovoltaic materials called perovskites. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-smoother-perovskite-layer-solar-cell.html Engineering Sat, 26 Sep 2026 09:40:06 EDT news709379646 While lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) remain the most widely used rechargeable batteries worldwide, energy engineers have been testing various alternatives with different underlying chemistries. These include lithium-sulfur batteries, which store and release energy by moving lithium ions between two electrodes on opposite sides of a cell, while sulfur undergoes reactions in the cathode (i.e., positive electrode). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-sulfur-electron-boosts-lithium-battery.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:20:01 EDT news709357131