Tiny probe could produce big improvements in batteries and fuel cells

02-Jun-2016 - A team of American and Chinese researchers has developed a new tool that could aid in the quest for better batteries and fuel cells. Although battery technology has come a long way since Alessandro Volta first stacked metal discs in a "voltaic pile" to generate electricity, major improvements are ...

Graphene membrane could lead to better fuel cells, water filters

19-Mar-2015 - An atomically thin membrane with microscopically small holes may prove to be the basis for future hydrogen fuel cells, water filtering and desalination membranes, according to a group of 15 theorists and experimentalists, including three theoretical researchers from Penn State.The team, led by ...

Fuel cells in operation: A closer look

11-Oct-2010 - Measuring a fuel cell's overall performance is relatively easy, but measuring its components individually as they work together is a challenge. That's because one of the best experimental techniques for investigating the details of an electrochemical device while it's operating is x-ray ...

ORNL scientists reveal battery behavior at the nanoscale

20-Sep-2010 - As industries and consumers increasingly seek improved battery power sources, cutting-edge microscopy performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is providing an unprecedented perspective on how lithium-ion batteries function. A research team led by ORNL's Nina Balke, ...

New material could expand applications and lower costs for solid oxide fuel cells

05-Oct-2009 - A new ceramic material described in the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells - devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels without the need to separate hydrogen. Though the long-term durability of the new mixed ...

Pitt researchers harness carbon nanomaterials for drug delivery systems, oxygen sensors

Researchers describe carbon nanocapsules for drug and energy storage in Advanced Materials, creation of highly sensitive oxygen sensors in Nature Chemistry

19-Aug-2009 - Two nanoscale devices recently reported by University of Pittsburgh researchers in two separate journals harness the potential of carbon nanomaterials to enhance technologies for drug or imaging agent delivery and energy storage systems, in one case, and, in the other, bolster the sensitivity of ...

New way to make sensors that detect toxic chemicals

10-Jul-2009 - Ohio State University researchers have developed a new method for making extremely pure, very small metal-oxide nanoparticles. They are using this simple, fast, and low-temperature process to make materials for gas sensors that detect toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) and biological warfare ...

UGA researchers achieve breakthrough in effort to develop tiny biological fuel cells

23-Jun-2009 - University of Georgia researchers have developed a successful way to grow molecular wire brushes that conduct electrical charges, a first step in developing biological fuel cells that could power pacemakers, cochlear implants and prosthetic limbs. The journal Chemical Science calls the technique ...

New catalyst paves the path for ethanol-powered fuel cells

28-Jan-2009 - A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Delaware and Yeshiva University, has developed a new catalyst that could make ethanol-powered fuel cells feasible. The highly efficient catalyst ...

ORNL researchers analyze material with 'colossal ionic conductivity'

04-Aug-2008 - A new material characterized at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory could open a pathway toward more efficient fuel cells. The material, a super-lattice developed by researchers in Spain, improves ionic conductivity near room temperature by a factor of almost 100 million, ...