Research Laboratory news

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants have been in use for energy production for a long time. Among the commonly used designs are parabolic trough systems, which employ heat absorber tubes along curved concentrating mirrors to absorb solar energy. During this process the organic-based fluid that delivers heat from the parabolic trough receivers to the electricity-generating steam turbine undergoes a small but constant thermal...

As the prices for solar modules have constantly been decreasing in the international market for many years, cost reduction is crucial for module manufacturers to remain competitive. One possibility to cut costs is to reduce the content of silver in a solar module, which is contained in its contact fingers. Contact fingers, i.e. its conductive lines made of metal, are applied to the solar cell surface to transport the produced energy...

Redox flow batteries are electrochemical energy storage devices which can transform chemical energy into electrical energy through reversible oxidation and reduction of working fluids. Due to the flexibility in its system design, redox flow batteries are promising media in stationary storage of energy from sources such as solar and wind. They can also provide high functionality at low cost, with little harm to the environment. To...

Catalysts are at the heart of many chemical reactions involving carbon dioxide. These catalysts often initiate a process known as chemical reduction that forms either carbon monoxide or formic acid (HCO2H) and can be used to produce fuel. The only problem is that they often lack the activity and selectivity to make suitable fuels, such as methanol, ethanol or methane. Now (2020), scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory, in...

Photosynthesis is the process where plants use the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose. Scientists have been trying for years to imitate this process, the only difference being that they want to obtain electricity rather than glucose. So far, they have made some notable progress in this area, even if their achievements have yet to find application in large-scale energy production. Now (2020), scientists...

In the search for a vehicle battery able to extend the driving range of electric vehicles scientists have tried to exchange the currently-used graphite anodes with lithium metal anodes. Lithium can extend an EV’s driving range by 30–50%, but also shortens the battery’s useful life. This is due to dendrites and their needle-like projections called whiskers that can grow inside a lithium battery and impair its proper functioning because...

Perovskite‐based solar cells have been at the centre of scientific interest for several years due to their low cost and high photovoltaic (PV) performance. In addition to their success in the PV sector, there have been growing efforts to employ perovskites in energy‐efficient technologies, such as smart windows and other building technologies because of their large absorption coefficient and colour tunability. Smart windows have the...

Surface coating of cathode materials has been widely investigated with a view to enhance the life and rate capability of lithium-ion batteries, but computationally identifying materials with suitable ionic conductivity can be a very challenging task: creating a more efficient cathode involves addressing a myriad of factors simultaneously, from keeping the cathode of a battery electrically and ionically conductive to making sure that...

Perovskite solar cells are a very promising technology as their performance has increased rapidly over the past years and currently exceeds 20%. It is also possible to produce them more cost-effectively than commercial solar cells. However, so far science has not been able to solve one of the main problems of perovskite cells: poor stability, which is caused by the perovskite layer when it comes into contact with water. Now (2020),...

Global consumption of the alkali metal lithium is growing rapidly. During the past decade annual production of lithium has risen to 85,000 tons. This is mainly due to its use in batteries of electric vehicles as well as laptop batteries and smartphones. Several million tons of lithium are mined in countries such as Australia, Argentina and Chili every year, which account for more than 80% of global production. Chile has the world’s...