The lithium-ion battery isn’t going anywhere soon. That’s what M. Stanley Whittingham, the Nobel laureate who created the first rechargeable lithium-ion battery some 50 years ago, told attendees of the SLAC-Stanford Battery Research Center Launch Symposium on Thursday. The new organization aims to bridge gaps between organizations that research, manufacture, and deploy large-scale energy storage […]
As smart devices, wearable sensors, IoT technologies, and implantable electronics shrink in size, so too should the energy storage devices they rely on. Supercapacitors—with high capacity for energy storage but also a capability to handle rapid charge-discharge cycles that would founder a conventional chemical battery—have in recent years shrunk to “micro” size. Now researchers in […]
Even though they were discovered only about a dozen years ago, MXenes (max-eens) have delighted materials engineers with their versatility. These conductive 2D layered nanomaterials are exceptionally durable, impermeable to electromagnetic radiation, and can store energy faster that materials currently used in batteries and supercapacitors. MXenes are a large family of nitrides and carbides of […]
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. Water heaters are, according to new research, sizing up to be more than just water heaters in the modern, renewably-powered home. They could, in fact, be something closer to a battery. The concept is simple but effective—when energy supply […]
This sponsored article is brought to you by COMSOL. As we try to objectively study nature, we are often reminded of how natural forces affect us personally. We can sit at a desk and consider heat in its various forms, but we might be distracted if our toes are cold! When we turn up the […]
A Sea-Monster-Proof Internet The initial segment of what will be the first underwater fiber-optic link to skirt the North Pole, connecting Japan and Europe, will light up in early 2023. This stretch, called Iris, will link Iceland to Ireland. In subsequent years, the Far North Fiber project will lay down a cable through the Northwest […]
If grain must be dragged to market on an oxcart, how far can it go before the oxen eat up all the cargo? This, in brief, is the problem faced by any transportation system in which the vehicle must carry its own fuel. The key value is the density of energy, expressed with respect to […]
Geothermal systems carry warmth from Earth’s interior up to the surface for heating or electricity. But geothermal power plants are expensive to build, and will get even less economically viable as wind and solar power get cheaper and more plentiful. However, even as wind and solar grow, so does the need to store electricity from […]
In a leap toward low-cost batteries for large-scale grid storage, an international team of researchers led by MIT material chemist Donald Sadoway have invented a battery made of aluminum and sulfur, two of the most abundant and low-cost materials in the world. The nascent battery already has an energy density comparable to that of today’s […]
As the number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads explodes, electric utilities are grappling with increasing demand while simultaneously having to stabilize their grids where more intermittent renewable-energy sources like wind and solar are coming online. For utilities looking for ways to store power for later use, all those shiny new EVs might look […]