Industrial Symbiosis Systems

In a world hungry for clean energy, engineers have created a new material that converts the simple mechanical vibrations all around us into electricity to power sensors in everything from pacemakers to spacecraft.

An increasing number of people are riding electric bikes. Compared to cars, electric bikes are cheaper, more environmentally friendly, healthier for every-one and free up space in urban areas. The drawback is that there are often no spare parts for defective components such as motors or batteries, meaning they have to be completely replaced with expensive new components.

Nuclear power is the single largest source of carbon-free energy in the United States and currently provides nearly 20 percent of the nation’s electrical demand. Many analyses have investigated the potential of future nuclear energy contributions in addressing climate change. However, few assess the value of existing nuclear power reactors.

University of Queensland researchers have worked with industry to map how Australia could move towards decarbonizing its heavy haulage rail network.

In a world that is slowly distancing itself from carbon-based energy, there has been a meteoric rise in the use of lithium-ion batteries as a next-generation energy storage solution. However, this has resulted in another problem—an increase in the amount of lithium battery waste.

All-perovskite tandem solar cells, stacks of p-n junctions formed from perovskites with different energy bandgaps, have the potential of achieving higher efficiencies than conventional single-junction solar cells. So far, however, most proposed all-perovskite tandem cells have not achieved the desired power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), often due to difficulties associated with creating suitable narrow- and wide-bandgap subcells.

A crowd gathers around a black wooden box that resembles a short refrigerator, waiting for the motion of a pair of robotic arms sitting just outside the box. When the arms move, a wave of excited energy in the room at Idaho National Laboratory conveys how this simple action may alter the future of international radioactive source removal and disposal.