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ScienceDaily (May 4, 2011) - The world's first interactive paper computer is set to revolutionize the world of interactive computing.

Duke University engineer Nico Hotz has proposed a hybrid solar system in which sunlight heats a combination of water and methanol in a maze of tubes on a rooftop to produce hydrogen. The device is a series of copper tubes coated with a thin layer of aluminum and aluminum oxide and partly filled with catalytic nanoparticles. A combination of water and methanol flows through the tubes, which are sealed in a vacuum. Once the evaporated liquid achieves higher temperatures, tiny amounts of a catalyst are added, which produces hydrogen. This combination of high temperature and added catalysts produces hydrogen very efficiently, Hotz said. The resulting hydrogen can then be immediately directed to a fuel cell to provide electricity to a building during the day, or compressed and stored in a tank to provide power later. After two catalytic reactions, the system produced hydrogen much more efficiently than current technology without significant impurities, Hotz said. The resulting hydrogen can be stored and used on demand in fuel cells. "This set-up allows up to 95 percent of the sunlight to be absorbed with very little being lost as heat to the surroundings," he said. "This is crucial because it permits us to achieve temperatures of well over 200 degrees Celsius within the tubes. By comparison, a standard solar collector can only heat water between 60 and 70 degrees Celsius." Holtz performed a cost analysis, comparing a standard photovoltaic cell, a photocatalytic system, and the hybrid solar-methanol system.  He found that the hybrid system is the least expensive solution, with a total installation cost of $7,900 if designed to fulfill the requirements in summer. The paper describing the results of Hotz's analysis was named the top paper during the ASME Energy Sustainability Fuel Cell 2011 conference in Washington, D.C. Topics: Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

In a paper published in Nature Photonics, University of Toronto researchers report the first efficient two-layer solar cell based on colloidal quantum dots (CQD) to capture both visible and near-infrared rays. CQDs are nanoscale materials that can be tuned to respond to specific wavelengths of the visible and invisible spectrum. By capturing such a broad range of light waves - wider than normal solar cells - tandem CQD solar cells can in principle reach up to 42 per cent efficiencies. The best single-junction solar cells are constrained to a maximum of 31 per cent efficiency. (In reality, solar cells that are on the roofs of houses and in consumer products have 14 to 18 per cent efficiency.) The researchers expect that in five years, solar cells using the graded recombination layer paper will be integrated into building materials and mobile devices.

The work, which appears in a paper in the October 28 issue of the journal Nature, shows that "individuals can rapidly, consciously, and voluntarily control neurons deep inside their head," says Koch, the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology and professor of computation and neural systems at Caltech.

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2011) - In a paper published in Nature Photonics, U of T Engineering researchers report a new solar cell that may pave the way to inexpensive coatings that efficiently convert the sun's rays to electricity.

Get the latest market trends in North America vibration monitoring market which is forecast grow by 2024, due to growing focus of companies towards reducing maintenance & labor costs, process and boosting productivity.

Global automatic content recognition (ACR) market is projected to exhibit a CAGR of over 29% by 2024, due to increasing integration of ACR in wearable devices, smartphones & smart TVs.

Global DDI market is projected to grow to $ 1699.87 million by 2024, exhibiting a CAGR of over 14% during the forecast period, due to increasing IoT platforms and rising demand for IPAM solutions. Read: https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/global-ddi-market/3861.html