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Powering up Africa through innovation
January 16, 2018 Editor 0
Recent World Bank investment climate surveys find that the top two constraints for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Africa are access to finance and access to energy. Given that SMEs contribute disproportionately to boosting job creation, GDP, and exports, addressing these two constraints is critical to promoting economic development on the continent. A new […]
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Engineering a better biofuel
August 12, 2016 Editor 0
New protein process in E. coli could lead to more efficient options for ‘tiniest of factories’ While the bacteria E. coli is often considered a bad bug, researchers commonly use laboratory-adapted E. coli that lacks the features that can make humans sick, but can grow just as fast. That same quality allows it to transform […]
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New lithium-oxygen battery greatly improves energy efficiency, longevity
July 27, 2016 Editor 0
CAMBRIDGE, Mass — Lithium-air batteries are considered highly promising technologies for electric cars and portable electronic devices because of their potential for delivering a high energy output in proportion to their weight. But such batteries have some pretty serious drawbacks: They waste much of the injected energy as heat and degrade relatively quickly. They also […]
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One-stop shop for biofuels
January 25, 2016 Editor 0
The falling price of gasoline at the pumps may warm the hearts of consumers but it chills the souls of scientists who recognize that humankind must curtail the burning of fossil fuels to reduce the threat of climate change. Biofuels can help mitigate climate change and provide us with a sustainable source of transportation energy […]
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Stanford technology makes metal wires on solar cells nearly invisible to light
November 26, 2015 Editor 0
A solar cell is basically a semiconductor, which converts sunlight into electricity, sandwiched between metal contacts that carry the electrical current. But this widely used design has a flaw: The shiny metal on top of the cell actually reflects sunlight away from the semiconductor where electricity is produced, reducing the cell’s efficiency. Now, Stanford University […]
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Rice researchers demo solar water-splitting technology
September 7, 2015 Editor 0
HOUSTON — (Sept. 4, 2015) — Rice University researchers have demonstrated an efficient new way to capture the energy from sunlight and convert it into clean, renewable energy by splitting water molecules. The technology, which is described online in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters, relies on a configuration of light-activated gold nanoparticles that […]
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