Building a better, cheaper battery for power grids
Batteries do the heavy lifting to store excess solar energy on power grids for use after sundown, but to operate, they also rely on pricey elements like platinum.
May 5, 2022
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25
Energy & Green Tech
Batteries do the heavy lifting to store excess solar energy on power grids for use after sundown, but to operate, they also rely on pricey elements like platinum.
May 5, 2022
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25
Energy & Green Tech
As drivers around the world switch to electric cars, new batteries that can store more energy, translating to longer driving distances before a car needs recharging, can't come soon enough. But researchers at NTNU have discovered ...
Apr 26, 2022
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7
Electronics & Semiconductors
A new spin on one of the 20th century's smallest but grandest inventions, the transistor, could help feed the world's ever-growing appetite for digital memory while slicing up to 5% of the energy from its power-hungry diet.
Apr 11, 2022
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973
Energy & Green Tech
Producing gas in your own backyard has become a real alternative to dependence on imported gas thanks to innovative processes. Essential for this are technologies to enhance the fermentation processes as well as methods for ...
Apr 8, 2022
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4
Electronics & Semiconductors
Computers may be growing smaller and more powerful, but they require a great deal of energy to operate. The total amount of energy the U.S. dedicates to computing has risen dramatically over the last decade and is quickly ...
Apr 8, 2022
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582
Electronics & Semiconductors
Over the past decades, engineers have created increasingly advanced and highly performing integrated circuits (ICs). The rising performance of these circuits in turn increased the speed and efficiency of the technology we ...
Energy & Green Tech
Electric cars are the future; they will help reduce air pollution and end our dependence on fossil fuels. However, there is one glaring problem with this potentially disruptive technology: the availability of sufficient lithium ...
Feb 7, 2022
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6
Energy & Green Tech
The climate crisis requires ramping up usage of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, but with intermittent availability, scalable energy storage is a challenge.
Jan 14, 2022
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124
Machine learning & AI
A unique material, nickel oxide demonstrates the ability to learn things about its environment in a way that emulates the most basic learning abilities of animals, as my colleagues and I describe in a new paper.
Dec 22, 2021
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54
Automotive
A new study carried out by researchers from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) with testing partner HORIBA India is among the first to quantify the real-world emissions from Bharat Stage (BS) VI diesel ...
Dec 20, 2021
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4
An oxide ( /ˈɒksaɪd/) is a chemical compound that contains at least one oxygen atom in its chemical formula. Metal oxides typically contain an anion of oxygen in the oxidation state of −2.
Most of the Earth's crust consists of solid oxides. Oxides result when elements are oxidized by oxygen in air. Combustion of hydrocarbons affords the two principal oxides of carbon, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Even materials that are considered to be pure elements often contain a coating of oxides. For example, aluminium foil has a thin skin of Al2O3 that protects the foil from further corrosion.
Virtually all elements burn in an atmosphere of oxygen, or an oxygen rich environment. In the presence of water and oxygen (or simply air), some elements—lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, strontium and barium—react rapidly, even dangerously, to give the hydroxides. In part for this reason, alkali and alkaline earth metals are not found in nature in their metallic, i.e., native, form. Caesium is so reactive with oxygen that it is used as a getter in vacuum tubes, and solutions of potassium and sodium, so called NaK are used to deoxygenate and dehydrate some organic solvents. The surface of most metals consists of oxides and hydroxides in the presence of air. A well known example is aluminium foil, which is coated with a thin film of aluminium oxide that passivates the metal, slowing further corrosion. The aluminium oxide layer can be built to greater thickness by the process of electrolytic anodising. Although solid magnesium and aluminium react slowly with oxygen at STP, they, like most metals, will burn in air, generating very high temperatures. Finely grained powders of most metals can be dangerously explosive in air. Consequently, they are often used in Solid-fuel rockets.
In dry oxygen, iron readily forms iron(II) oxide, but the formation of the hydrated ferric oxides, Fe2O3−2x(OH)x, that mainly comprise rust, typically requires oxygen and water. The production of free oxygen by photosynthetic bacteria some 3.5 billion years ago precipitated iron out of solution in the oceans as Fe2O3 in the economically important iron ore hematite.
Due to its electronegativity, oxygen forms chemical bonds with almost all elements to give the corresponding oxides. Noble metals (such as gold or platinum) resist direct chemical combination with oxygen, and substances like gold(III) oxide must be generated by indirect routes.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA