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. Inspired by the cracked, water-trapping skin of elephants, Penn researchers have developed a low-cost cement tile that cools buildings by capturing and slowly evaporating water—turning a structural flaw into a climate solution. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-elephant-cement-tiles-cool-electricity.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:00:06 EDT news703939623 Semi-transparent solar cells that could be added to windows to efficiently harvest energy from indoor light as well as the sun have been developed by an international team led by UCL researchers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-solar-windows-harvest-indoor-sunlight.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:30:01 EDT news703772363 An aircraft powered by a megawatt-class hybrid-electric engine developed in collaboration with NASA and built by GE Aerospace, demonstrated flight of an innovation that can inform new generations of fuel-saving aircraft power systems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-hybrid-electric-aircraft-feet-flights.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:00:09 EDT news703784641 It is common for solar panels to be shaded by trees, clouds, birds or buildings. For thin-film solar technologies, however, such shading can cause shaded areas to develop reverse-bias stress (negative voltage), which can reduce power-generation efficiency and even damage solar cell modules. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-resistant-solar-cells-efficiency-2000hour.html Engineering Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:40:05 EDT news703780586 An international team of researchers has built the first high-performance, commercial-size tandem solar cell that doesn't rely on the scarce and expensive metal indium. The breakthrough, published in Science, replaces indium-based oxide with abundant tin oxide, a material that costs 1% as much, without sacrificing performance. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-tin-oxide-scarce-indium-solar.html Energy & Green Tech Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:00:06 EDT news703496983 Concrete is the most widely used building material on Earth, and producing it is one of the largest single sources of carbon emissions. One promising way to reduce its environmental footprint is to 3D-print concrete, laying it down bead by bead like a giant icing-piping robot. This process eliminates the labor-intensive formwork of pouring it into molds and places the material only where a structure needs it. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-3d-bridge-greener.html Engineering Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:01 EDT news703403011 Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a joint research team led by Professor Tae-Woo Lee of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at SNU and Professor Samuel D. Stranks of the University of Cambridge has developed a vapor-deposited perovskite light-emitting diode (PeLED) with world-leading efficiency. The team achieved this by discovering a new X-type perovskite emitter capable of thermodynamically stabilizing a luminescence-favorable phase during the vacuum deposition process. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-perovskite-emitter-boosts-vapor-deposited.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:00:01 EDT news703512015 Developing thermoelectric materials that efficiently convert waste heat into electricity remains challenging because high electrical performance and low thermal conductivity are difficult to achieve simultaneously. Researchers at Science Tokyo developed a layered crystal, TlFe1.6Se2, that embeds atomically thin iron selenide (FeSe) layers within a bulk material. The crystal combines a high thermoelectric power factor with exceptionally low thermal conductivity, demonstrating a promising strategy for designing next-generation materials for waste heat energy recovery. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-layered-crystal-embeds-atom-thin.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:20:01 EDT news703498452 The success of a promising class of next-generation batteries may hinge on something almost impossibly thin: a coating just a nanometer thick—roughly 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. In new research, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory combined computation and experiment to find candidate protective coatings for sulfide-based solid electrolytes and uncover what makes those coatings work. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-magnesium-oxide-emerges-coating-sulfide.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:20:13 EDT news703496854 Georgia's $41 billion forest products industry needs a transformation, and a Georgia Tech research team is reimagining how pulp mills use energy and what they can make from their byproduct streams. For nearly a decade, Sankar Nair, professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a longtime researcher with the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI), has led a collaborative effort to develop technologies that can radically improve the efficiency and profitability of kraft pulp mills. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-pulp-mills-generation-biorefineries.html Engineering Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:00:13 EDT news703496845 Solar panels, wind turbines and other renewable energy technologies are becoming increasingly widespread worldwide. Most of these technologies generate electricity from natural sources, such as sunlight and wind, which are more abundant on some days, months and seasons. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-zinc-slurry-battery-energy-longer.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:20:05 EDT news703406663 A newly developed material for the electron contact improves the efficiency of single perovskite solar cells and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The new material is based on a carborane molecule. It offers several advantages over the standard material C60, as shown by the study led by Steve Albrecht's team. The new material has since been patented and is already commercially available. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-contact-material-efficiency-stability-perovskite.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:40:01 EDT news703427730 Will a warming climate and changing weather patterns lead to more grid blackouts and other energy disruptions? Answering that question requires studying both regional climate forecasts and local energy systems, including emerging renewable generation, storage, transmission lines and demand forecasts. The lack of such studies is one reason energy developers and grid operators rarely consider climate change when deciding where to build their next project. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-energy-power-reliable-grid-blackouts.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 16 Jul 2026 05:00:04 EDT news703325681 For grid-scale energy storage and national energy resilience, the U.S. needs better batteries. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are tackling that challenge in many ways, but one approach is making a significant impact: physics-informed machine learning. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-machine-embrace-atomic-scale-complexity.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:30:01 EDT news703346410 Solar energy is becoming one of the world's most important sources of electricity. In Lithuania, the number of solar power plants is also growing rapidly, and the energy they produce is playing an ever more significant role in the country's energy system. At the same time, however, one of the key challenges is becoming more pronounced: Solar power generation remains highly dependent on weather conditions. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-ai-clouds-solar-power-output.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:20:01 EDT news703246063 Researchers from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) have developed a European energy system model that pits two technologies against each other—future unidirectional smart charging (V1G) and vehicle-to-grid charging (V2G)—to determine which mode is most economically advantageous for EU countries in a 2050 energy system. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-customized-ev-eu-energy.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:20:06 EDT news703242137 As global demand for electricity storage grows alongside the rise of renewable energy and AI-driven data centers, researchers are racing to find battery technologies that can store large amounts of energy cheaply and safely over long periods. Soluble lead flow batteries are a strong candidate: They are inexpensive, easy to scale up and built from lead that can be recycled from the existing lead-acid battery supply chain. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-smarter-interfaces-longer-soluble-batteries.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:40:10 EDT news703232958 Engineers have developed a new way to pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere using a process similar to charging and discharging a battery—an advance that could help address the planet's excess CO2 problem. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-battery-device-air-electricity-saltwater.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:40:08 EDT news703173572 Nuclear reactors are traditionally powered with dense fuel rods that can produce about 1 gigawatt of carbon-free electricity, enough to power about 100,000,000 lightbulbs. Newer power plant designs using molten salt for cooling instead of the water found in traditional reactors could offer better efficiency and stability, but they face a problem—the extreme chemical environment created by the molten salt can corrode the metal comprising the reactor. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-metals-atomic-corrosion-highways-nuclear.html Engineering Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:20:05 EDT news703173377 Researchers in chemistry and materials science at Kiel University are working with partners to develop new water sources for the Mediterranean region. "Regions like these are facing rising temperatures and declining rainfall. Our goal is to develop an environmentally friendly technology that converts water molecules from the air into drinking water," says Professor Norbert Stock from CAU's Institute of Inorganic Chemistry. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-porous-material-liters-daily-dry.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:00:03 EDT news703149318 Tires are essential to modern transport, but their production and use raise environmental concerns. One important issue is zinc oxide, a common activator used in rubber vulcanization. Zinc oxide helps rubber form the crosslinked network that gives tires their strength, elasticity and durability. However, zinc can be released into the environment during manufacturing, recycling and tire wear, where it may affect aquatic ecosystems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-fly-ash-greener-rubber.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:20:03 EDT news703149174 Hydrogen could serve as a clean alternative to fossil fuels because, when used as a fuel, it produces water vapor instead of carbon dioxide (CO2). This cleaner fuel has proved particularly promising for the creation of so-called fuel cells, energy storage devices that could power heavy-duty vehicles, airplanes, trains and energy-intensive manufacturing machinery. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-catalyst-enable-safer-electrolyzers-hydrogen.html Energy & Green Tech Sun, 12 Jul 2026 14:10:01 EDT news702897200 Batteries are part of everyday life, powering everything from phones and laptops to electric cars. Most rechargeable batteries use a liquid to help lithium ions move during charging and discharging. But this liquid can create safety issues and limit how far battery performance can improve. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-neutrons-track-lithium-solid-state.html Energy & Green Tech Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:08 EDT news702822170 Organic semiconductors are paving the way for a new generation of lightweight, flexible electronics, including bendable displays, printable circuits, wearable sensors and devices that harvest energy from their surroundings. A key factor behind the performance of these technologies is doping—a process in which molecules are introduced into a semiconductor to control the number of charge carriers it can support. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-method-semiconductor-doping-flexible-electronics.html Electronics & Semiconductors Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:10:01 EDT news702896423 Worldwide, discarded electronic toys, computers and smartphones are becoming an increasingly significant source of electronic waste. Electronic circuits are based on printed circuit boards (PCBs), which are typically made of glass fiber-reinforced fossil epoxy resin, making them difficult to recycle, let alone biodegrade. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-compostable-circuit-boards-citric-acid.html Electronics & Semiconductors Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:09 EDT news702888613 Catalysts that convert waste carbon dioxide into valuable products like acetate are designed to run continuously on electricity for the conversion process. But electricity from renewable energy sources, such as solar or hydroelectric power, often runs intermittently, which can damage parts of the catalyst and reduce performance. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-current-standby-carbon-dioxide-catalysts.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:20:01 EDT news702832105 Perovskite semiconductors efficiently convert sunlight into electrical energy; they are also inexpensive and extremely lightweight. A team at HZB has developed a triple-junction solar cell comprising different perovskite semiconductors, with a novel bilayer of graphene oxide (GO) and a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) as the hole conductor. This bilayer significantly increases both efficiency and long-term stability. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-perovskite-triple-junction-solar-cells.html Electronics & Semiconductors Thu, 09 Jul 2026 11:00:04 EDT news702711383 Buildings are responsible for around 40% of CO2 emissions in the European Union. This means the building sector has a central role to play in achieving the EU's climate targets by 2050. An EU research project involving Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) has analyzed CO2 emissions from the European building stock over its entire life cycle and identified ways to reduce them. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-smaller-homes-europe-emissions.html Engineering Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:10 EDT news702802169 Two sets of roles emerge when couples consider installing solar panels on their house, a new study shows: in sync, when partners with shared goals and defined tasks end up adopting solar, and oppositional, marked by discord and not making the solar investment. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-rooftop-solar-hinge-household-champion.html Business Thu, 09 Jul 2026 05:00:03 EDT news702711310 In the future, iron might be used as a chemical energy storage material, making large quantities of renewable energy available in the long term. Iron powder is combusted in a cyclic process that is carbon neutral and then reconverted to its original state using energy input. Scientists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) were the first to conduct an extensive study to evaluate the potential of this technology for power generation. Their results show that iron, while not superseding hydrogen, may usefully complement it in a climate-neutral energy system. The findings have been published in Chem Circularity. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-rust-iron-term-storage-renewable.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:10:01 EDT news702724666