#power

#power

This Material Can Turn Any Surface Into A Power Source The bonus is, the material is so light and thin you wouldn’t really expect its complexity! Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created ultralight fabric solar cells that can quickly turn any surface into a power source.The team, led by Vladimir Bulović, the leader of the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory (ONE Lab), and director of MIT.nano, published their results in Small Methods. Bulovic was joined by Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, an electrical engineering, and computer science graduate student at MIT; and Jeremiah Mwaura, a research scientist in the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics.The new cells are durable and flexible. They are also thinner than a human hair. They are easy to use, as they are glued to a lightweight fabric that allows installation on a fixed surface. They can generate 18 times more power per kilogram than conventional heavy solar panels.Created from semiconducting inks, what makes these power cells unique, aside from their thinness, is that you can integrate them to any surface, and they will be able to provide power. The material can be attached to the sails of the boat, tents, tarps, and even drones. “The lightweight solar fabrics enable integrability, providing impetus for the current work. We strive to accelerate solar adoption, given the present urgent need to deploy new carbon-free sources of energy,” Bulović said. Image credit: Melanie Gonick, MIT#power #sources #solarpower #MIT #research #solarcells

This New Battery Is Made From Low-Cost Materials Will this new battery be the next cheap alternative for limited power sources in a container?Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new battery from inexpensive materials that are very much available in big amounts in the world. This project was done to provide an alternative option to lithium-ion batteries, which are too expensive for operations and other processes.The new battery architecture uses aluminum, sulfur, and a molten salt electrolyte to provide power to machines and systems. The researchers used aluminum and sulfur as the electrode materials for the battery in charge of providing electrons to the external circuit. Researchers picked aluminum for being the second most abundant metal in the market, as it has the right electrochemical properties for an efficient battery. The dominant one, iron, did not fit what the experts wanted for their battery.Sulfur became the second electrode material because of its accessibility and cheap market price. The salt electrolyte was chosen because the team didn’t want to use volatile, flammable organic liquids. This is because they can lead to fires in cars and other technologies that need a battery.The study was done by MIT Professor Donald Sadoway, along with 15 others at MIT and in China, Canada, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Image credit: Rebecca Miller#MIT #research #development #battery #aluminum #sulfur #alternatives #energy #power #science