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Category: sustainability – Page 104

A research team led by Professor Jong-min Choi of the Department of Energy Engineering has developed a technology that can significantly improve the efficiency of quantum dot photovoltaic cells by introducing organic solvent dispersible MXene.

The findings were published in Advanced Energy Materials (“Organic solvent dispersible MXene integrated colloidal quantum dot photovoltaics”).

Comparison of the dispersibility of quantum dot solar cell ink organic solvent according to surface modification of MXene. (Image: DGIST)

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Immigration to and living on Mars have often been themes in science fiction. Before these dreams can become reality, humanity faces significant challenges, such as the scarcity of vital resources like oxygen needed for long-term survival on the Red Planet. Yet, recent discoveries of water activity on Mars have sparked new hope for overcoming these obstacles.

Scientists are now exploring the possibility of decomposing water to produce oxygen through electrochemical water oxidation driven by solar power with the help of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. The challenge is to find a way to synthesize these catalysts in situ using materials on Mars, instead of transporting them from the Earth, which is of high cost.

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This was suggested by Gustave Fechner and other philosophers.

How about planets? Can they have minds? This idea, that planets are also conscious beings, seems to be at the heart of a new theory put forth by astrobiologists. The premise of this thought experiment is that bacteria and plants working together have altered planets like Earth, giving them a new lease on life.

This research, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, provides a scale by which planets’ intelligence can be evaluated. It’s shocking to consider an extraterrestrial organism intelligent rather than a sentient animal like a human. But in a way, a planet can have a “green mind”; this paradigm suggests novel approaches to coping with climate change, technological upheaval, and other emergencies.

Planetary intelligence was characterised by the researchers as “cognitive activity” and knowledge functioning on a global scale. We understand that the concept of intelligence may be applied to everything from an individual to a community or even the peculiar actions of a virus or mould. For example, fungi’s webs of mycelium beneath the forest floor are its own breath; together, they make up a living system that can detect and adapt to shifting climates. All of Earth’s conditions will be drastically altered by these factors.

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Advanced infrared mirrors enhance climate and biofuel research via precision trace gas sensing.

An international team of researchers from the United States, Austria, and Switzerland has demonstrated the first true supermirrors in the mid-infrared spectral region. These mirrors are key for many applications, such as optical spectroscopy for environmental sensing, as well as laser cutting and welding for manufacturing.

Achieving Near-Perfect Reflectivity

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Despite facing opposition and controversy, Tesla and Elon Musk continue to revolutionize the industry and gain support, with the company’s valuation and Musk’s outspoken personality driving outsized interest.

Questions to inspire discussion.

What challenges is Tesla facing with Cybertruck deliveries?
—Tesla is facing hindrances in Cybertruck deliveries due to battery production issues, potentially leading to missed production targets.

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East Antarctica’s Conger ice shelf – a floating platform the size of Rome – broke off the continent on March 15, 2022. Since the beginning of satellite observations in the 1970s, the tip of the shelf had been disintegrating into icebergs in a series of what glaciologists call calving events.

Conger was already reduced to a 50km-long and 20km-wide strip attached to Antarctica’s vast continental ice sheet at one end and the ice-covered Bowman Island at the other. Two calving events on March 5 and 7 reduced it further, detaching it from Bowman and precipitating its final collapse a week later.

The world’s largest ice shelves fringe Antarctica, extending its ice sheet into the frigid Southern Ocean. Smaller ice shelves are found where continental ice meets the sea in Greenland, northern Canada and the Russian Arctic. By restraining how much the grounded ice flows upstream, they can control the loss of ice from the interior of the sheet into the ocean. When an ice shelf like Conger is lost, the grounded ice once kept behind the shelf may start to flow faster as the restraining force of the ice shelf is lost, resulting in more ice tumbling into the ocean.

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Emerging technologies such as nanotechnology can provide efficient approaches by which new materials with broad functions, such as durable and fire-retardant properties, can be developed and subsequently used for the treatment of wood materials.

In a study published in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, an international team from New Zealand (Scion) and China (Northeast Forestry University) report a review that nanotechnology-based methods can be employed to mitigate these weaknesses and create durable, sustainable wood materials.

These wood nanotechnologies also can be employed to develop wood products with antimicrobial surfaces for various applications. Furthermore, analytical tools used in nanoscience and nanotechnology enable the precise study of wood structure and its components on a nanometer scale, particularly those aspects that can affect wood products’ biodeterioration resistance properties.

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