Tag: energy
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An Edible Rechargeable Battery
Edible electronics is a growing field that aims to produce digestible devices using only food ingredients and additives, thus addressing many of the shortcomings of ingestible electronic devices. Edible electronic devices will have major implications for gastrointestinal tract monitoring, therapeutics, as well as rapid food quality monitoring. Recent research has demonstrated the feasibility of edible…
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A new concept for low-cost batteries
As the world builds out ever larger installations of wind and solar power systems, the need is growing fast for economical, large-scale backup systems to provide power when the sun is down and the air is calm. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are still too expensive for most such applications, and other options such as pumped hydro…
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Living Light – plants become an energy system
We create a world in which plants become part of our energy system and where technology and nature will merge. ‘Living Light’, a lamp which harvests its energy by the electrons released through bacteria in the soil during the photosynthetic process of the plant. Softly stroking the leafs transforms this ordinary plant into a Living…
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Ambio, bacterial lamp
Ocean waves glowing blue in the dark of night, anyone who has ever experienced this knows how magical it looks. The phenomenon is caused by bioluminescent micro-organisms in seawater that emit light when provided with oxygen every time a wave turnes. This principle inspired me to combine my passion for design and biology in a…
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Electricity with living plants
Plant-e develops products in which electricity is generated with living plants. The products are based on a technology that was developed at Wageningen University. In 2007 the technology was patented, and Plant-e was able to get the patents from the university in 2009. The technology enables us to generate electricity with living plants at practically…
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Building living, breathing supercomputers
The substance that provides energy to all the cells in our bodies, Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), may also be able to power the next generation of supercomputers. That is what an international team of researchers led by Prof. Nicolau, the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at McGill, believe. They’ve published an article on the subject…
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Electricity from plants
Do you want to use your lawn to charge your electric car? Use your green roof to power your house? Would you like to see each wetland and rice paddy field in the world turned into a power plant without harvesting the plants? Plant-e is a company that develops and produces products in which living…
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Power from Tidal and Ocean Currents
Imagine that you are standing on a beach flying a kite in the wind, you feel a strong force from the kite in the rope and notice that the kite flies fast, way faster than the wind is blowing. If you would attach a turbine to the kite and put it in the ocean, where…
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Sugar battery offers green-powered tools
Scientists in the US have developed a sugar-powered “biobattery” that they say stores 10 times more energy than the equivalent-size lithium-ion batteries found in smartphones. According to the team at Virginia Tech university, the results of their work could be in use within three years – and recharging could be a matter simply of adding…
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Ambient Backscatter
As computing devices become smaller and more numerous, powering them becomes more difficult; wires are often not feasible, and batteries add weight, bulk, cost, and require recharging/replacement that is impractical at large scales. Ambient backscatter communication solves this problem by leveraging existing TV and cellular transmissions, rather than generating their own radio waves. This novel…
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Plug it on the window
The Window Socket offers a neat way to harness solar energy and use it as a plug socket. So far we have seen solutions that act as a solar battery backup, but none as a direct plug-in. Simple in design, the plug just attaches to any window and does its job intuitively. http://www.yankodesign.com/2013/04/26/plug-it-on-the-window/
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Electricity through cycling
The Atom is a lightweight, highly efficient bicycle generator and rechargeable battery pack designed to power virtually any of your electronic or mobile devices via USB. Our generators easily mount on most standard bicycle frames and the battery packs detach easily to quickly extend your battery life. The Atom is for the modern commuter cyclist,…
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Future energy
Future Energy is a series of startup-investor pitch events that connects entrepreneurs, researchers, and private investors in the energy and clean-tech industries to develop and commercialize radical solutions to the world’s energy challenges. The Problem Step change in Energy demand – In coming decades, the world will need huge amounts of energy to support population and economic…
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Electric Bacteria for Bio-Batteries
In an important step toward the creation of “bio-batteries,” a new study reveals how bacteria produce electricity when proteins in their cell membranes come into contact with a mineral surface. Scientists have known for some time that a family of marine bacteria known as Shewanella oneidensi, found in deep ocean sediments and soil, can create…
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Scientists Create Recyclable Solar Cells From Trees
Last year in April 2012, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology created the first plastic solar cell which they hope will help change requirements for manufacturing of organic printed electronics. That plastic solar cell was created through a special program at called the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE), which studies the use and development of…
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Recyclable organic solar cells on cellulose nanocrystal substrates
Solar energy is potentially the largest source of renewable energy at our disposal, but significant advances are required to make photovoltaic technologies economically viable and, from a life-cycle perspective, environmentally friendly, and consequently scalable. Cellulose nanomaterials are emerging high-value nanoparticles extracted from plants that are abundant, renewable, and sustainable. Here, we report on the first…
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Electricity from the marshes
“An unexpected source of new, clean energy has been found: the Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell that can generate electricity from the natural interaction between living plant roots and soil bacteria. The technique already works on a small scale and will soon be applied in larger marshland areas throughout the world. On 23 November, researcher Marjolein Helder…