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Scientists with the University of Chicago have discovered a way to create a material that can be made like a plastic, but conducts electricity more like a metal.

The research, published Oct. 26 in Nature, shows how to make a kind of material in which the molecular fragments are jumbled and disordered, but can still conduct electricity extremely well.

This goes against all of the rules we know about for conductivity—to a scientist, it’s kind of like seeing a car driving on water and still going 70 mph. But the finding could also be extraordinarily useful; if you want to invent something revolutionary, the process often first starts with discovering a completely new material.

Ultrasound sensors as small as a thumbnail can scan lithium-ion batteries to check their charge, health, and safety, a new study finds.

The findings suggest that ultrasound—that is, sound waves at frequencies higher than human hearing can detect—might one day help electric vehicles better estimate how much charge remains in their batteries. This approach might also help detect unstable batteries on the verge of disaster, quickly test battery quality during manufacturing, and identify which used batteries are healthy enough to be resold to reduce waste, says study lead author Hongbin Sun, an ultrasonic engineer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee.

Estimating how much charge is left in a commercial lithium-ion battery is currently a challenging task. For instance, electric vehicles typically experience an uncertainty of about 10 percent when estimating battery charge. This in turn reduces their driving range by about 10 percent, to ensure that they stay within their batteries’ safety margins.

Ka-52s have taken the brunt of rotary-wing losses during the invasion and their relevance is waning as Ukraine’s air defenses improve.

They’re tiny but have a knack for saving human life.

The Belgian non-profit organization APOPO trains rats to help earthquake survivors. Called RescueRATs, these rats are preparing to save those under the earthquake debris with their high-tech backpacks on their backs.

Continue reading “Rats with backpacks will be the savior of earthquake survivors” »

Tesla is rumored to be looking to invest in Nuevo Leon, a Mexican state bordering Texas, as CEO Elon Musk meets with the governor.

Earlier this year, people crossing the border between Texas and Nuevo Leon were surprised to see not just the usual marked lanes for cars and trucks but also one marked “Tesla” – pictured above.

We ended up finding out that Tesla had struck a deal with the state of Nuevo Leon to have its own lane at the border crossing in order to reduce wait times for cargo going through the border. Or at least that was the explanation of Ivan Rivas, the economy minister of Nuevo Leon.

Bill Gates founded Breakthrough Energy and has recently announced that its first Catalyst project funding will come in the form of a $50 million grant to LanzaJet’s Freedom Pines Fuels sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plant in Soperton, Georgia.

Breakthrough Energy Catalyst is a unique program that brings together businesses and nonprofits to fund key first-of-its-kind commercial-scale projects that speed up the deployment of essential technologies.

Most efforts so far have relied on external heating and cooling systems, but these add a lot of bulk and also tend to use up a considerable amount of energy themselves. The researchers’ innovation, outlined in a recent paper in Nature , was to add an extra component to the batteries: a sheet of nickel foil just a few micrometers thick between the stacked electrodes of each cell.

This ultra-thin sheet is used as a heating element, and when a current is passed through it the cell heats up to 149° Fahrenheit in about a minute. This temperature is maintained through charging, but the cell then quickly cools back to room temperature as soon as the current is switched off.

When they tested their approach, the researchers found that they could charge a 265 watt-hour battery to 70 per cent in 11 minutes. They also showed that heating the battery didn’t seriously affect its lifetime, as it survived 2,000 cycles of charging, which would provide enough energy to drive more than 500,000 miles overall.

A collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Washington State University opens the door to sustainable jet fuel.

An underused natural resource might be just what the airline industry needs to reduce carbon emissions.

U.S. researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT.

The Indian Electric Vehicle market is set to reach a sales volume of 10.8 lakh units by 2025. However, these vehicles are currently at a high price and are not affordable to consumers in low-income categories.

To bridge this gap, a team of seven students at the KL University, Hyderabad have retrofitted an old and discarded bike into an EV.

“We also added futuristic features including wireless charging and cell balancing, which ensures equalised charging,” says Charan Sai (21), a fourth-year student of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and the lead of the project.