Tag: electricity

Powering the future of clean energy

Powering the future of clean energy

Hydrogen gas can be used to power vehicles and has the potential to provide electricity to homes

The global quest for clean energy is championed by researchers in Canada who are focused on harnessing the potential of hydrogen.

The idea of the hydrogen economy was first proposed 50 years ago as a way to combat the negative effects of fossil fuels. Its future is the focus of new research from the University of Toronto’s Thermofluids for Energy and Advanced Materials (TEAM) lab, whose work relied on the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to visualize performance.

Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Image: Adam Webb (CLS), Sergey Gasilov (CLS), Manojkumar Balakrishnan (U of T), Jason Keonhag Lee (U of T), Denise Miller (CLS), Kieran Fahy (U of T) on the BMIT beamline at CLS.

Feeling the strain: shear effects in magnetoelectric switching

Feeling the strain: shear effects in magnetoelectric switching

Diamond uncovers unexpected complexity that may aid magnetoelectric data storage devices.

The high resolution and wealth of data provided by an experiment at Diamond can lead to unexpected discoveries. The piezoelectric properties of the ceramic perovskite PMN-PT (0.68Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.32PbTiO3) are widely used in commercial actuators, where the strain that is generated varies continuously with applied voltage. However, if the applied voltage is cycled appropriately then there are discontinuous changes of strain. These discontinuous changes can be used to drive magnetic switching in a thin overlying ferromagnet, permitting magnetic information to be written electrically. An international team of researchers used beamline I06 to investigate a ferromagnetic film of nickel when it served as a sensitive strain gauge for single-crystal PMN-PT. Their initial interpretation of the results suggested that ferroelectric domain switching rotated the magnetic domains in the film by the expected angle of 90°, but a closer examination revealed the true picture to be more complex. Their work, recently published in Nature Materials, shows that the ferroelectric domain switching rotated the magnetic domains in the film by considerably less than 90° due to an accompanying shear strain. The findings offer both a challenge and an opportunity for the design of next-generation data storage devices, and will surely be relevant if the work is extended to explore the electrically driven manipulation of more complex magnetic textures.

>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website

Image: Magnetic vector map (50 µm field of view) describing the magnetisation of a Ni film while applying 50 V across the ferroelectric substrate of PMN-PT. The colour wheel identifies magnetisation direction. Yellow and brown denotes regions whose magnetisation was unaffected by the voltage.

Improving engine performance and fuel efficiency

Improving engine performance and fuel efficiency

A study conducted in part at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan suggests reformulating lubricating oils for internal combustion engines could significantly improve not only the life of the oil but the life of the engine too.
Dr. Pranesh Aswath with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and his research colleagues focused on the role soot plays in engine wear, and its effect on the stability of engine oil.
He described the research as “one piece of a broader story we’re trying to write” about how the reformulation of engine oils can reduce emissions, decrease wear and increase the longevity of engines.
Soot is a carbon-based material that results from incomplete combustion of fuel in an internal combustion engine, he explained. The soot ends up in crankcase oil where it is trapped by additives, but that leads to reduced engine efficiency and a breakdown of lubricating oil.

>Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Cause of cathode degradation identified for nickel-rich materials

Cause of cathode degradation identified for nickel-rich materials

Combination of research methods reveals causes of capacity fading, giving scientists better insight to design advanced batteries for electric vehicles

A team of scientists including researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have identified the causes of degradation in a cathode material for lithium-ion batteries, as well as possible remedies. Their findings, published on Mar. 7 in Advanced Functional Materials, could lead to the development of more affordable and better performing batteries for electric vehicles.

Searching for high-performance cathode materials
For electric vehicles to deliver the same reliability as gas vehicles they need lightweight yet powerful batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are the most common type of battery found in electric vehicles today, but their high cost and limited lifetimes are limitations to the widespread deployment of electric vehicles. To overcome these challenges, scientists at many of DOE’s national labs are researching ways to improve the traditional lithium-ion battery.

>Read more on the NSLS-II at Brookhaven Lab website

Image: Members of the Brookhaven team are shown at NSLS-II’s ISS beamline, where part of the research was conducted. Pictured from front to back are Eli Stavitski, Xiao-Qing Yang, Xuelong Wang, and Enyuan Hu.

SESAME fully powered by renewable energy

SESAME fully powered by renewable energy

SESAME becomes the world’s first large accelerator complex to be fully powered by renewable energy.

Today (26 February 2019), a ceremony was held to mark the official inauguration of the solar power plant of SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East).
Constructed on grounds next to JAEC (Jordan Atomic Energy Commission) that is located some 30kms from SESAME, electricity from the solar power plant will be supplied by an on-grid photovoltaic system having a total power capacity of 6.48 MW, which will amply satisfy SESAME’s needs for several years.
Thanks to this power plant SESAME is now not only the first synchrotron light facility in the region, but also the world’s first large accelerator complex to be fully powered by renewable energy. “As in the case of all accelerators, SESAME is  in dire need of energy, and as the number of its users increases so will its electricity bill” said the Director of SESAME, Khaled Toukan. “Given the very high cost of electricity in Jordan, with this solar power plant the Centre becomes sustainable” he continued to say.
The power plant, which uses monocrystalline solar panels, was built by the Jordanian company Kawar Energy under the supervision of the consultancy firm Consolidated Consultants Group representing the owner, SESAME. Power from the solar power plant will be transmitted to the grid through the wheeling mechanism by JEPCO (Jordan Electric Power Company). The power that the solar power plant sends to the grid will be accounted for to the credit of SESAME.

>Read more on the SESAME website

Image: SESAME’s solar power plant.
Credit: SESAME.

Spin-momentum locking in cuprate high-temperature superconductors

Spin-momentum locking in cuprate high-temperature superconductors

The results open a new chapter in the mystery of high-temperature superconductors, suggesting that new, unexplored interactions and mechanisms might be at play.

In the world of superconductors, “high temperature” means that the material can conduct electricity without resistance at temperatures higher than expected, but still far below room temperature. Within this special class of high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs), cuprates—consisting of superconducting CuO2 layers separated by spacer layers—are some of the best performers, generating interest in these materials for potential use in super-efficient electrical wires that can carry power without any loss of electron momentum.

A new spin on cuprate HTSCs

Two kinds of electron interactions have been known to give rise to novel properties in new materials, including superconductors. Scientists who study cuprate superconductors have focused on just one of those interactions: electron correlation—electrons interacting with each other. The other kind of electron interaction found in exotic materials is spin-orbit coupling—the way in which an electron’s magnetic moment interacts with atoms in the material.

>Read more on the Advanced Light Source website

Image: Chris Jozwiak, Alessandra Lanzara, Kenneth Gotlieb, and Chiu-Yun Lin.
Credit: Peter DaSilva/Berkeley Lab

Unlocking the secrets of metal-insulator transitions

Unlocking the secrets of metal-insulator transitions

X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy at NSLS-II’s CSX beamline used to understand electrical conductivity transitions in magnetite.

By using an x-ray technique available at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), scientists found that the metal-insulator transition in the correlated material magnetite is a two-step process. The researchers from the University of California Davis published their paper in the journal Physical Review Letters. NSLS-II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has unique features that allow the technique to be applied with stability and control over long periods of time.
“Correlated materials have interesting electronic, magnetic, and structural properties, and we try to understand how those properties change when their temperature is changed or under the application of light pulses, or an electric field” said Roopali Kukreja, a UC Davis professor and the lead author of the paper. One such property is electrical conductivity, which determines whether a material is metallic or an insulator.

If a material is a good conductor of electricity, it is usually metallic, and if it is not, it is then known as an insulator. In the case of magnetite, temperature can change whether the material is a conductor or insulator. For the published study, the researchers’ goal was to see how the magnetite changed from insulator to metallic at the atomic level as it got hotter.

>Read more on the NSLS-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory website

Image: Professor Roopali Kukreja from the University of California in Davis and the CSX team Wen Hu, Claudio Mazzoli, and Andi Barbour prepare the beamline for the next set of experiments.

Pressure tuning of light-induced superconductivity in K3C60

Pressure tuning of light-induced superconductivity in K3C60

Unlike ordinary metals, superconductors have the unique capability of transporting electrical currents without any loss. Nowadays, their technological application is hindered by their low operating temperature, which in the best case can reach -70 degrees Celsius. Researchers of the group of Prof. A. Cavalleri at the Max Planck Institute of the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg have routinely used intense laser pulses to stimulate different classes of superconducting materials. Under specific conditions, they have detected evidences of superconductivity at unprecedented high temperatures, although this state persisted very shortly, just for a small fraction of a second.
An important example is that of K3C60, an organic molecular solidformed by weakly-interacting C60 “buckyball” molecules (60 carbon atoms bond in the shape of a football),which is superconducting at equilibrium below a critical temperature of -250 degrees Celsius. In 2016, Mitrano and coworkers at the MPSD discovered that tailored laserpulses, tuned to induce vibrations of the C60 molecules,can induce a short-lived, highly conducting state with properties identical to those of a superconductor, up to a temperature of at least -170 degrees Celsius, far higher than the equilibrium critical temperature (Mitrano et al., Nature, 530, 461–464 (2016)).

In their most recent investigation, A. Cantaluppi, M. Buzzi and colleagues at MPSD in Hamburg went a decisive step further by monitoring the evolution of the light-induced state in K3C60 once external pressure was applied by a diamond anvil cell (Figure 1). At equilibrium, when pressure is applied, the C60 molecules in the potassium-doped fulleride are held closer to each other. This weakens the equilibrium superconducting state and significantly reduces the critical temperature. The steady state optical response of K3C60 at different pressures and temperatures was determined via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, by exploiting the high brightness of the synchrotron radiation available at the infrared beamline SISSI at Elettra.

>Read more on the Elettra website

Image:   Light-induced superconductivity in K3C60 was investigated at high pressure in a Diamond Anvil Cell.
Credit: Jörg Harms / MPSD

An electrifying view on catalysis

An electrifying view on catalysis

The future of chemistry is ‘electrifying’: With increasing availability of cheap electrical energy from renewables, it will soon become possible to drive many chemical processes by electrical power. In this way, chemical products and fuels can be produced via sustainable routes, replacing current processes which are based on fossil fuels.

In most cases, such electrically driven reactions make use of so-called electrocatalysts, complex materials which are assembled from a large number of chemical componentAs. The electrocatalyst plays an essential role: It helps to run the chemical reaction while keeping the loss of energy minimal, thereby saving as much renewable energy as possible. In most cases, electrocatalysts are developed empirically and the chemical reactions at their interfaces are poorly understood. A better understanding of these processes is essential, however, for fast development of new electrocatalysts and for a directed improvement of their lifetime, one of the most important factors that currently limit their applicability.

>Read more on the Elettra website

Figure:  Introducing well-defined model electrocatalysts into the field of electrochemistry.

Perovskites, the rising star for energy harvesting

Perovskites, the rising star for energy harvesting

Perovskites are promising candidates for photovoltaic cells, having reached an energy harvesting of more than 20% while it took silicon three decades to reach an equivalent. Scientists from all over the world are exploring these materials at the ESRF.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels exist in our society since several years now. The photovoltaic market is currently dominated by wafer-based photovoltaics or first generation PVs, namely the traditional crystalline silicon cells, which take a 90% of the market share.

Although silicon (Si) is an abundant material and the price of Si-PV has dropped in the past years, their manufacturing require costly facilities. In addition, their fabrication typically takes place in countries that rely on carbon-intensive forms of electricity generation (high carbon footprint).

But there is room for hope. There is a third generation of PV: those based on thin-film cells. These absorb light more efficiently and they currently take 10% of the market share.

>Read more on the European Synchrotron website

Image: The CEA-CNRS team on ID01. From left to right: Peter Reiss, from CEA-Grenoble/INAC, Tobias Schulli from ID01, Tao Zhou from ID01, Asma Aicha Medjahed, Stephanie Pouget (both from CEA-Grenoble/INAC) and David Djurado, from the CNRS. 
Credits: C. Argoud.

The power supplies giving Diamond a boost

The power supplies giving Diamond a boost

The electrons that produce Diamond’s ultra-bright light whizz round the storage ring fast enough to travel around the entire world 7.5 times in a single second. But they don’t start out life super speedy, and they need a huge energy boost to get them ready for work!

Diamond’s electrons are generated in the injection system, where they are produced by a glowing filament (just like a dim light bulb) and accelerated to ninety thousand electron volts (90 keV). From there, a linear accelerator (linac) takes over, accelerating the electrons to a hundred million electron volts (100 MeV, or 0.1 GeV).

That’s not fast enough though, so the electrons from the linac are fed into the booster ring, where they’re are accelerated to 3 GeV by passing through an RF cavity millions of times. It’s like microwaving the electrons to get them to accelerate, which is not an easy task. The electrons want to travel in a straight line, and have to be forced to bend around the ring by dipole bending magnets. As the energy of the electrons increases, it gets harder to keep them moving around the booster ring, and the bending magnets need more power.

>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website

Image: Members of the Power Supply team working in the Booster Supply Hall.

Scientists discover material ideal for smart photovoltaic windows

Scientists discover material ideal for smart photovoltaic windows

Berkeley Lab researchers make thermochromic windows with perovskite solar cell

Smart windows that are transparent when it’s dark or cool but automatically darken when the sun is too bright are increasingly popular energy-saving devices. But imagine that when the window is darkened, it simultaneously produces electricity. Such a material – a photovoltaic glass that is also reversibly thermochromic – is a green technology researchers have long worked toward, and now, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated a way to make it work.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab, a Department of Energy (DOE) national lab, discovered that a form of perovskite, one of the hottest materials in solar research currently due to its high conversion efficiency, works surprisingly well as a stable and photoactive semiconductor material that can be reversibly switched between a transparent state and a non-transparent state, without degrading its electronic properties.

>Read more on the Advanced Light Source website

Image Credit: iStock

 

Surprising Discovery Could Lead to Better Batteries

Surprising Discovery Could Lead to Better Batteries

Scientists have observed how lithium moves inside individual nanoparticles that make up batteries. The finding could help companies develop batteries that charge faster and last longer

UPTON, NY – A collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has observed an unexpected phenomenon in lithium-ion batteries—the most common type of battery used to power cell phones and electric cars. As a model battery generated electric current, the scientists witnessed the concentration of lithium inside individual nanoparticles reverse at a certain point, instead of constantly increasing. This discovery, which was published on January 12 in the journal Science Advances, is a major step toward improving the battery life of consumer electronics.

“If you have a cell phone, you likely need to charge its battery every day, due to the limited capacity of the battery’s electrodes,” said Esther Takeuchi, a SUNY distinguished professor at Stony Brook University and a chief scientist in the Energy Sciences Directorate at Brookhaven Lab. “The findings in this study could help develop batteries that charge faster and last longer.”

 

>Read more on the NSLS-II website

Picture: Brookhaven scientists are shown at the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department’s TEM facility, where part of the study was conducted. Pictured from left to right are Jianming Bai, Feng Wang, Wei Zhang, Yimei Zhu, and Lijun Wu.

 

 

Electrical hiding of magnetic information

Electrical hiding of magnetic information

Results have been published in Sientific Reports.

Researchers have proved the ability of peculiar magnetic materials to hide magnetic information and reveal it under certain conditions and at room temperature.

Since the 1950’s, magnetic materials have been used to store all kinds of information. Magnetically stored information is convenient because it is easily accessible using very well-known magnetic data reading procedures. However, sensitive information must be carefully stored to ensure confidentiality; thus easy access becomes a bad instead of a good feature. The optimal way to prevent unauthorised information access is to make it invisible.

>Read more on the ALBA website

Bing-Joe Hwang received National Chair Professorship from Ministry of Education

Bing-Joe Hwang received National Chair Professorship from Ministry of Education

Exceptional award for this NSRRC User

The Ministry of Education recently announced the recipients of the 21st National Chair Professorships and the 61st Academic Awards. Prof. Bing-Joe Hwang, a long-term user of NSRRC, was given the National Chair Professorship in the category of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Prof. Hwang is a Chair Professor in Chemical Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He is also an adjunct scientist of NSRRC. His research interests include electrochemistry, nanomaterials, nanoscience, fuel cells, lithium ion batteries, solar cells, sensors, and interfacial phenomena.

 

>Read More on the NSRRC website

Fuel cell X-Ray study details effects of temperature and moisture on performance

Fuel cell X-Ray study details effects of temperature and moisture on performance

Experiments at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source help scientists shed light on fuel-cell physics

Like a well-tended greenhouse garden, a specialized type of hydrogen fuel cell – which shows promise as a clean, renewable next-generation power source for vehicles and other uses – requires precise temperature and moisture controls to be at its best. If the internal conditions are too dry or too wet, the fuel cell won’t function well.

But seeing inside a working fuel cell at the tiny scales relevant to a fuel cell’s chemistry and physics is challenging, so scientists used X-ray-based imaging techniques at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Argonne National Laboratory to study the inner workings of fuel-cell components subjected to a range of temperature and moisture conditions.

The research team, led by Iryna Zenyuk, a former Berkeley Lab postdoctoral researcher now at Tufts University, included scientists from Berkeley Lab’s Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division and the Advanced Light Source (ALS), an X-ray source known as a synchrotron.

>Read More on the ALS website

Image: This animated 3-D rendering (view larger size), generated by an X-ray-based imaging technique at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, shows tiny pockets of water (blue) in a fibrous sample. The X-ray experiments showed how moisture and temperature can affect hydrogen fuel-cell performance.
Credit: Berkeley Lab