alternative fuel

In a move that promises to change the economics of biodiesel refining, chemical engineers at Rice University have unveiled a set of techniques for cleanly converting problematic biofuels waste into chemicals that fetch a profit.
The latest research is available online in the journal Metabolic Engineering. The new paper and others published earlier this year describe […]

Nanotechnology is paving the way toward improved solar cells. New research shows that a film of carbon nanotubes may be able to replace two of the layers normally used in a solar cell, with improved performance at a lower cost. Researchers have found a surprising way to give the nanotubes the properties they need: add […]

A process used to roast coffee beans could give Britain’s biomass a power boost, increasing the energy content of some of the UK’s leading energy crops by up to 20 per cent.
The study, carried out by engineers from the University of Leeds, examined the combustion behaviour of crops grown specifically for energy creation when put […]

A materials scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has deciphered the structure of a new class of materials that can store relatively large quantities of hydrogen within its crystal structure for later release. The new analysis* may point to a practical hydrogen storage material for automobile fuel cells and similar applications.
The […]

A newly created microbe produces cellulose that can be turned into ethanol and other biofuels, report scientists from The University of Texas at Austin who say the microbe could provide a significant portion of the nation’s transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.
Along with cellulose, the cyanobacteria developed by Professor R. Malcolm Brown Jr. […]

A new approach is able to create a dramatic improvement in cheap solar cells now being developed in laboratories.
By using a popcorn-ball design — tiny kernels clumped into much larger porous spheres — researchers at the University of Washington are able to manipulate light and more than […]

People could live in glass houses and look at the world through rose-tinted windows while reducing their carbon emissions by 50% thanks to Queensland University of Technology Institute of Sustainable Resources (ISR) research.
Professor John Bell said QUT had worked with a Canberra-based company Dyesol, which is developing transparent solar cells that act as both windows […]

Researchers at the University of Minnesota studying bacteria capable of generating electricity have discovered that riboflavin (commonly known as vitamin B-2) is responsible for much of the energy produced by these organisms.
The bacteria, Shewanella, are commonly found in water and soil and are of interest because they can convert simple organic compounds (such as lactic […]

The energy from sunlight falling on only 9 percent of California’s Mojave Desert could power all of the United States’ electricity needs if the energy could be efficiently harvested, according to some estimates. Unfortunately, current-generation solar cell technologies are too expensive and inefficient for wide-scale commercial applications.
A team of Northwestern University researchers has developed a […]

Cardiff University researchers are exploring how waste heat from car exhausts could provide a new greener power supply for vehicles.
Professor Mike Rowe’s long term research interest at the Cardiff School of Engineering has been in thermoelectric generation — employing thermocouples to convert heat into electricity. The conversion technology is used in everyday applications such as […]

On a perfect New Mexico winter day — with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual — Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s […]

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.
Technologies to capture carbon […]

The bio-crude oil can be used to produce high value chemicals and biofuels, including both petrol and diesel replacement fuels.
“By making changes to the chemical process, we’ve been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world,” says Dr Steven Loffler of CSIRO Forest Biosciences.
“This makes […]

You’ve got to be careful with the accelerator because hybrid school buses like to go.
Dan Taghon, the director of transportation for the Sigourney Community School District in southeast Iowa, said his district’s new hybrid bus has been running routes since Jan. 3. And Taghon, who drives the bus on one of the district’s six routes, […]

Drivers can’t pump algal fuel into their gas tanks yet, but Keith Cooksey said the idea holds promise. He felt that way 20 years ago. He feels that way today.
“We would be there now if people then hadn’t been so short-sighted,” Cooksey said.
Cooksey is one of many U.S. scientists who studied the feasibility of turning […]

Ask Iver Anderson at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory about consumer interest in and desire for “ultragreen” electric-drive vehicles, and he’ll reply without a moment’s hesitation that the trend is unstoppable and growing fast.
The Ames Lab senior metallurgist and Iowa State University adjunct professor of materials science and engineering is playing a major […]

In the race to make solar cells cheaper and more efficient, many researchers and start-up companies are betting on new designs that exploit nanostructures — materials engineered on the scale of a billionth of a meter. Using nanotechnology, researchers can experiment with and control how a material generates, captures, transports, and stores free electrons–properties that […]

Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. Unfortunately, one problem remains: Hydrogen is a gas and cannot easily be pumped into a tank like gasoline. Storage in the form of solid hydrides, chemical compounds of hydrogen and a metal or semimetal, are good storage materials in principle, but have not been well suited to automotive […]