Research Laboratory news

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) use an electrolyte consisting of a solid oxide material which conducts negative oxygen ions from the cathode to the anode. The electrochemical oxidation of the oxygen ions with hydrogen or carbon monoxide takes place on the anode side. This kind of fuel cell operates at very high temperatures (500 - 1,000°C) and does not need expensive platinum catalysts which are vulnerable to carbon monoxide catalyst...

Plant seed oil is a highly useful and important bioresource. It has a wide variety of applications, ranging from being an essential part of human nutrition to being used as industrial feedstock. Many plant species produce and store triacylglycerol (TAG) in their seeds, which is mainly used as a carbon and energy source to support seedling development. However, increasing the sugar content in oilseed crops can, under certain...

In the constant search for cleaner transportation and industry fuels as well as means of power generation, scientists have long been concerned with finding more eco-friendly ways to produce hydrogen as this energy source usually does not release CO2 emissions. Its generation, however, is responsible for a lot of pollution, since most of the production processes rely on fossil fuels as feedstock. Also, it needs to be transported to the...

Lithium-ion batteries have played an important role in the commercialisation of portable consumer electronics. It is small wonder therefore that their production is assumed to increase significantly in the next few decades, whereas battery prices are expected to decrease. Lithium-ion batteries are used for electric vehicles as well as large-scale energy storage applications. As the demand for energy density is ever increasing and...

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting uses sunlight and photoelectrochemical materials to produce hydrogen from water. These photoelectrochemical materials help to directly split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The semiconductor materials used in the process are similar to those used in photovoltaic solar electricity generation. The difference is that the semiconductor is kept in a water-based electrolyte and sunlight...

Molten sodium sulphur batteries were originally designed by the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s and later sold to the Japanese spark plug manufacturer NGK. Apart from automotive applications, the batteries also have a long history of being used as energy storage media for renewable sources including solar and wind energy. Sodium sulphur batteries operate under high temperatures reaching up to 300°C and use a solid electrolyte. One...

In the past few years, a broad variety of different solar cells fabricated from various materials have been designed by engineers around the globe. Some of them consist of cadmium telluride (CdTe), which is a stable crystalline semiconducting compound comprised of cadmium and tellurium. Solar cells consisting of this material are able to produce electricity at a low cost and have a lot of advantageous features, including fast cadmium...

Constructing a reliable lithium-metal battery has long been a major interest of scientists around the world, as it is safe to assume that one day they may play an important role in next-generation battery technology. Lithium-metal batteries have a higher energy capacity than lithium-ion batteries and could potentially last longer and weigh less. However, a major problem concerning lithium-metal batteries is the low Coulombic...

In the future of our industrialised world, electricity demand is projected to increase more than tenfold within the next 10 years. This means that society is going to need better battery storage systems with a larger storage capacity. By far the greatest concern in this matter is that the supply of the main raw materials, cobalt and nickel, will not suffice to satisfy future demands. Now (2021), scientists at Berkeley Lab have...

Every year, more than 380 million tonnes of plastic are produced around the globe which greatly contribute to global pollution as a large part of it remains in the environment or enters the oceans. Only a small percentage of the plastic waste produced is subjected to some form of recycling. About 12 percent is incinerated and the remaining 79 percent is left to decay without receiving any further treatment. One viable solution to...