Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability

Light is all around us, essential for one of our primary senses (sight) as well as life on Earth itself. It underpins many technologies that affect our daily lives, including energy harvesting with solar cells, light-emitting-diode (LED) displays and telecommunications through fiber optic networks.

The smartphone is a great example of the power of light. Inside the box, its electronic functionality works because of quantum mechanics. The front screen is an entirely photonic device: liquid crystals controlling light. The back too: white light-emitting diodes for a flash, and lenses to capture images.

We use the word photonics, and sometimes optics, to capture the harnessing of light for and technologies. Their importance in is celebrated every year on 16 May with the International Day of Light.

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A team of chemists, materials scientists and engineers affiliated with several institutions in China, working with a colleague from Taiwan, has developed a new way to remove uranium from seawater that is much more efficient than other methods. Their paper is published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

The current method for obtaining uranium for use in nuclear power plants is mining it from the ground. Canada, Kazakhstan and Australia are currently the largest producers of uranium, accounting for nearly 70% of . Other countries such as the U.S., China and Russia would like to overcome their reliance on foreign providers of the radioactive element, and have been looking for ways to efficiently extract it from seawater.

The world’s oceans have far more uranium than ground sources, but it is highly dilute, which makes harvesting difficult and expensive. In this new effort, the team working in China has found a way to do it much more efficiently, resulting in lower costs. Notably, China builds more than any other country and would very much like to be able to produce its own uranium.

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As demand surges for batteries that store more energy and last longer—powering electric vehicles, drones, and energy storage systems—a team of South Korean researchers has introduced an approach to overcome a major limitation of conventional lithium-ion batteries (LIBs): unstable interfaces between electrodes and electrolytes.

Most of today’s consumer electronics—such as smartphones and laptops—rely on graphite-based batteries. While graphite offers long-term stability, it falls short in .

Silicon, by contrast, can store nearly 10 times more lithium ions, making it a promising next-generation anode material. However, silicon’s main drawback is its dramatic volume expansion and contraction during charge and discharge, swelling up to three times its original size.

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Fresh drinking water is a vital yet limited resource that will only grow scarcer over the next few years, according to the World Resources Institute. Desalination, the process of removing salt from water, is an established method used to increase the fresh water supply, especially in coastal regions. However, current desalination systems are dependent on large-scale centralized infrastructure and filtration membranes prone to fouling and degradation.

A team of Rice University engineers has developed a system that could transform practices, making the process more adaptable, resilient and cheaper.

The new system, described in a study published in Nature Water, is designed to be powered by sunlight and uses a creative approach to heat recovery for extended water production—with and without sunshine. In contrast to conventional systems, the setup is made from nondegradable materials and can handle high-salinity brines.

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Ava Community Energy just rolled out a new program in California that pays EV and plug-in hybrid drivers for charging their cars when electricity on the grid is cleaner and cheaper.

The new Ava SmartHome Charging program, launched in partnership with home energy analytics platform Optiwatt, offers up to $100 in incentives in the first year. And because the program helps shift home charging to lower-cost hours, Ava says drivers could save around $140 a year on their energy bills.

EV and PHEV owners who are Ava customers can download the Optiwatt app for free, connect their vehicle, and let the app handle the rest. The app uses an algorithm to automatically schedule charging when demand is low and more renewable energy is available, typically overnight or during off-peak hours.

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Sustainably produced, biodegradable materials are an important focus of modern materials science. However, when working with natural materials such as cellulose, lignin or chitin, researchers face a trade-off. Although these substances are biodegradable in their pure form, they are often not ideal when it comes to performance. Chemical processing steps can be used to make them stronger, more resistant or more supple—but in doing so, their sustainability is often compromised.

Empa researchers from the Cellulose and Wood Materials laboratory have now developed a bio-based material that cleverly avoids this compromise. Not only is it completely biodegradable, it is also tear-resistant and has versatile functional properties. All this takes place with minimal processing steps and without chemicals—you can even eat it. Its secret: It’s alive.

The study is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

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A small team of engineers from the U.S., Chile and Ireland has found a way to extract more water from drier air, allowing for water production in arid places like the Atacama Desert. Their paper is published in Device.

Instead of looking for ways to improve sorbent materials, the team sought to optimize the way -based water-capture systems work.

Scientists believe there will be a global water crisis in the coming years. As the demand for fresh water increases and existing sources become depleted, new sources are required. One popular area of study involves extracting water from the air.

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A group of researchers affiliated with the Center for Innovation in New Energies (CINE) has developed a method for purifying materials that is simple, economical and has a low environmental impact. The scientists have managed to improve the efficiency of a film that can be used in some green hydrogen production processes.

Known as mullite-type bismuth ferrite (Bi₂Fe₄O₉), the material has been used as a photoelectrocatalyst in the production of hydrogen by photoelectron oxidation, a process in which molecules of water or biomass derivatives are oxidized using sunlight as an energy source. The role of bismuth ferrite films in this process is to absorb light and drive the electrochemical reactions that “separate” the hydrogen from the original molecules (water, glycerol, ethanol, etc.).

However, the performance of these photoelectrocatalysts has been limited in the production of hydrogen due, among other factors, to the presence of unwanted compounds in the material itself, known as secondary phases. Now, research carried out by CINE members in the laboratories of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil has brought a solution to the problem: a purification method that has managed to eliminate these unwanted compounds.

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The present century has witnessed a proactive shift toward more sustainable forms of energy, including renewable resources such as solar power, wind, nuclear energy, and geothermal energy. These technologies naturally require robust energy storage systems for future usage. In recent years, lithium-ion batteries have emerged as dominant energy storage systems. However, they are known to suffer from critical safety issues.

In this regard, zinc-ion batteries based on water-based electrolytes offer a promising solution. They are inherently safe, environmentally friendly, as well as economically viable. These batteries also mitigate fire risks and thermal runaway issues associated with their lithium-based counterparts, which makes them lucrative for grid-scale energy storage.

Furthermore, zinc has high capacity, low cost, ample abundance, and low toxicity. Unfortunately, current collectors utilized in zinc-ion batteries, such as graphite foil, are difficult to scale up and suffer from relatively poor mechanical properties, limiting their industrial use.

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The soft, waxy “solid refrigerant” being investigated in a UK laboratory may not look very exciting, but its unusual properties promise an air-conditioning revolution that could eliminate the need for greenhouse gases.

The substance’s temperature can vary by more than 50 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) under pressure, and unlike the gases currently used in appliances solid refrigerants, it does not leak.

“They don’t contribute to , but also they are potentially more energy efficient,” Xavier Moya, a professor of materials physics at the University of Cambridge, told AFP.

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