Notable & Newsworthy

August 2016

Marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy systems generate electricity from ocean waves and tidal currents

DoE to spend over $20M for wave and tidal energy projects

The Energy Department announced 10 organizations selected to receive more than $20 million in funding for new research, development, and demonstration projects that advance and monitor marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy systems, which generate electricity from ocean waves and tidal currents. These projects wi

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08/31/2016

Littelfuse to buy power discrete portfolios from ON Semi

Littelfuse announced it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire the product portfolio of transient voltage suppression ("TVS") diodes, switching thyristors and insulated gate bipolar transistors ("IGBT") for automotive ignition applications from ON Semiconductor for a combined purchase pr

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08/29/2016

Renesas in talks to buy Intersil

Makiko Yamazaki

Japan's Renesas Electronics is in the final stages of negotiations to acquire U.S. chipmaker Intersil for as much as 300 billion yen, an industry source familiar with the deal said on Monday. An agreement on the deal, which would be the latest in a trend of consolidation among global chipmakers, was likely to com

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08/28/2016

Last fall SolidEnergy showed a prototype that's half the size of an iPhone 6 battery but offers more battery life per charge

Better Lithium Batteries to Get a Test Flight

Richard Martin, MIT Technology Review

Scientists have known for decades that lithium-metal batteries offer a powerful combination of energy density and compactness. Unfortunately these batteries also present challenges: they are difficult to recharge and they have an unfortunate tendency to burst into flame. Boston-based startup SolidEnergy Systems,

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08/26/2016

CES celebrates 50 Years of Tech

CES 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the world's leading innovation event, cementing CES' place in history as the global gathering place for innovation and technology. Since its start in 1967, CES has showcased an estimated 700,000 products. These include world-changing innovations such as the VCR (1970), the

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08/26/2016

Nanolithia cathode battery

Novel lithium-oxygen battery design greatly improves energy efficiency, longevity

David L. Chandler

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 an

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08/25/2016

TUfast Eco Team

TUfast Eco Team achieves Guinness World Record for Most Efficient EV

After one year of preparation we achieved our goal: On Saturday, July 16 2016 our world record team undertook the official world record attempt and set a new high mark for vehicle efficiency. The team started at the break of dawn to prepare everything in time at the test track that our long-standing sponsor Au

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08/23/2016

NFCring

World’s first NFC payment ring powered by Infineon’s contactless security chip

Whether at the beach, on the daily jog, or at the gym: from now on, everyone can carry money discreetly on the body. NFCRing has introduced the first EMVCo-compliant payment ring based on a contactless security chip from Infineon Technologies. The tiny, water-proof smart wearable works like a contactless payment ca

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08/23/2016

Prof. Jaephil Cho and his research team are posing in their lab at UNIST. From left are Sujong Chae, Namhyung Kim, Prof. Cho, and Jiyoung Ma

Novel anode material promises to boost Li-ion batteries

Joo Hyeon Heo

A novel approach developed by a team of researchers, led by Prof. Jaephil Cho (UNIST School of Energy and Chemical Engineering) could hold the key to greatly improving the performance of commercial lithium-ion batteries. Prof. Cho and his research team have developed a new type anode material that would be

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08/12/2016

The amount of selenium incorporated into the cadmium-tellurium controls how the small crystals inside the solar cell form

ORNL optimizes formula for cadmium-tellurium solar cells

Solar cells based on cadmium and tellurium could move closer to theoretical levels of efficiency because of some sleuthing by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A team led by Jonathan Poplawsky of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences used advanced microscopy technique

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08/11/2016

Researchers developed a technique for reliably separating Silicene from the metal surface it is grown on

Breakthrough in silicene production

Dexter Johnson

In the expanding universe of two-dimensional materials, perhaps none have been more tempting than silicon and its 2D version, known as silicene. The attraction is obvious: Silicon is the boat on which the computer age has floated for more than 50 years. And its proximity on the periodic table to carbon, whose 2D

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08/05/2016

The European Union is investing in next-gen coffee tech

EU to spend $1.8M for next-gen espresso machines to reduce Europe’s energy bill

Europe loves its coffee. The continent drinks more espressos, doppios, guillermos, and ristrettos than anywhere else in the world, and European nations monopolize the top 10 countries for coffee consumption. (The US, meanwhile, ranks 16th). In the top-ranking Netherlands, residents drink an average of 2.5 cups a

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08/04/2016

Near zero-variable cost energy sources such as solar will continue to drive down energy costs

‘Disruptive Innovation’ seen driving electricity costs to zero

Giles Parkinson for Renew Economy (Australia)

Global investment bank Citi is predicting that the combination of near zero-variable cost energy sources such as solar and wind, along with smart analytics and “big data”, may deliver what the nuclear industry promised nearly half a century ago – free energy. “The notion of free energy came to promin

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08/02/2016

NREL researcher Mengjin Yang examines hybrid perovskite solar cells

NREL technique leads to improved perovskite solar cells

Scientists at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in collaboration with researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), devised a method to improve perovskite solar cells, making them more efficient and reliable with higher reproducibility. The research, funded by the U.S

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08/02/2016