lightweight

A structural battery

October 25, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The size and especially the weight of batteries is a critical factor for most things that use them. Battery weight is a key limitation for computers and cell phones. It is even more of a limitation for electric cars, ships, or planes.

If the battery of a device or vehicle can also function as a load-bearing structure, its weight and energy consumption can be dramatically reduced. This concept of a structural battery is sometimes called massless energy storage. It has the potential to halve the weight of a laptop computer, make cell phones as thin as a credit card, and increase the range of an electric car by as much as 70%.

Researchers at Chalmers University in Sweden have been working on structural battery technology for many years. Their first published results in 2018 showed how stiff, strong carbon fibers could be used for chemical storage of electrical energy.

Since then, they have been creating batteries with increasing energy density. Their latest versions still have only a quarter of the capacity of today’s lithium-ion batteries. But if batteries can be part of the structure of a vehicle, for example, and can be made of lightweight materials like carbon fiber, then the overall weight of the vehicle can be greatly reduced and not nearly as much energy will be needed to power it.

The goal of the Chalmers research is to achieve battery performance that makes it possible to commercialize the technology. There is a lot of engineering work to be done before these structural batteries can go from laboratory proofs of concept to real world use. But the potential is quite promising.

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World’s strongest battery paves way for light, energy-efficient vehicles

Photo, posted August 8, 2024, courtesy of NOI Techpark via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Ecofriendly Glass

October 2, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Glass has been used for thousands of years to make everything from windows to bottles to microscope slides. For all that time, most glass has been in the form of soda lime silicate glass, which is made by melting quartz sand with carbon-based ingredients – soda ash and limestone – at high melting temperatures of about 2600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The process results in substantial carbon emissions. Worldwide, glass manufacturing produces over 86 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. Most of that comes from burning fuel to reach the high temperatures needed to make the glass, but about a quarter of it comes from the decomposition of the carbon-based materials used.

Researchers at Penn State University have developed an entirely new type of glass that represents an alternative to soda lime glass. The glass – that they call LionGlass – eliminates the use of carbonate batch materials and has a melting temperature 700 degrees lower than traditional glass. The new material has the potential to cut the carbon footprint of glass manufacturing in half. It is also 10 times more crack-resistant than ordinary glass, which would enable light weighting of glass products, lowering the emissions associated with transporting glass and glass products.

Recently, Penn state has entered into a partnership with the Italian company Bormioli, one of the world’s leading glass manufacturers that specializes in high-end packaging for fragrances, cosmetics, and tableware. By focusing on a smaller, high-end market, the focus can be on fine-tuning the glass and determining the feasibility of scaling it up further for other uses.

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Ecofriendly glass invented at Penn State secures partner for product development

Photo, posted December 26, 2005, courtesy of Lachlan Hardy via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric Motors For Aviation | Earth Wise

July 25, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Aviation contributes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Its carbon footprint is one of the more difficult ones to reduce. Electrifying planes would shrink that footprint considerably, but it represents a significant technical challenge. To date, only small all-electric planes have gotten off the ground. The electric motors in those planes generate hundreds of kilowatts of power. To power large planes, like commercial airliners, megawatt-scale motors are required.

A team of MIT engineers is developing a 1-megawatt motor that could be a key step towards electrifying commercial aircraft. They have designed and tested major components of the motor and have calculated how the completed design could generate one megawatt of power at a weight and size competitive with existing small aircraft engines.

To be suitable for aircraft use, motors have to be compact and lightweight. The more power electric motors generate, the bigger they are and the more heat they produce. Cooling motors requires additional components that take up space and add significant weight. The MIT motor design and associated power electronics are each about the size of a typical checked suitcase and weigh less than an adult passenger.

Once the MIT team can demonstrate an entire functional motor, the design could be used to power regional aircraft and could be the enabling element of hybrid-electric propulsion systems for jet aircraft. Possible future configurations could make use of multiple one-megawatt motors powering multiple fans distributed along aircraft wings.

Electrification of aircraft is a slow but steady area of development and technologies such as that being developed at MIT could end up meeting the practical needs of the aircraft of the future.

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Megawatt electrical motor designed by MIT engineers could help electrify aviation

Photo, posted September 14, 2019, courtesy of Dylan Agbagni via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Sustainable Flip-Flops | Earth Wise

September 9, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Flip-flops are the world’s most popular shoe. They are lightweight, comfortable, affordable, and durable. In fact, the global market for flip-flops is expected to reach a whopping $23.8 billion by the year 2025.

But the popularity comes with a price. Flip-flops account for a troubling percentage of plastic waste that ends up in our landfills and oceans. As a result, demand for alternatives is compelling researchers to develop more sustainable versions of the popular footwear.

Scientists at the University of California San Diego have spent years working on this issue, and recently announced a breakthrough. According to a study recently published in Bioresource Technology Reports, the research team has formulated polyurethane foams – made from algae oil – to meet commercial specifications for mid-sole shoes and the foot-bed of flip-flops. In other words, the scientists have created sustainable, biodegradable, and consumer-ready materials that could replace plastics in some footwear.

The UC San Diego scientists collaborated with Algenesis Materials – a technology startup – on the research. Together, they worked to not only create the shoes, but to degrade them as well. The team tested their customized foams by immersing them in traditional compost and soil. The algae-based materials degraded after just 16 weeks.

The life of any material should be proportionate to the life of the product. The researchers point out that it doesn’t make sense to create a product that will last 500 years if it’ll only be used for a year or two.

The research team is currently working on production details with its manufacturing partners. The creation of biodegradable flip-flops that meet commercial footwear standards could eliminate tons of plastic waste from the environment.

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New science behind algae-based flip-flops

Flip Flops Market Size Worth $23.8 Billion by 2025

Photo, posted December 12, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Squid Skin Blanket

June 25, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Ultra-lightweight space blankets have been around for a long time. Marathon runners wrap themselves in them to avoid losing body heat after a race. They are very effective, but the amount of heat that they trap is fixed. There is no way to regulate how much heat is trapped or released using a space blanket.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have developed a next-generation, adaptive space blanket that allows users to control their temperature. The inspiration for the design was the skins of various species of squids, octopi and cuttlefish. The ability of these aquatic creatures to camouflage themselves by rapidly changing color is due, in part, to skin cells called chromatophores that can instantly change from tiny points to flattened disks.

The Irvine researchers have developed a material that contains a layer of tiny metal islands that border each other. In the relaxed state, the islands are bunched together, and the material reflects and traps heat, much like a conventional Mylar space blanket. But when the material is stretched, the islands spread apart, which allows infrared radiation to go through and heat to escape.

The researchers envision many other applications for the novel material, including adaptable insulation for buildings and tents that can be adapted to different weather conditions. There is even the possibility of clothing that can be adjusted to suit the comfort of each person.

The new material is lightweight, easy and inexpensive to manufacture, and is durable. It can be stretched and returned to its original state thousands of times. Some day we might all be wrapping ourselves in imitation squid skins.

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Squid skin inspires creation of next-generation space blanket

Photo, posted May 29, 2005, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hybrid-Electric Aircraft

May 20, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The commercial aviation industry is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions and, as other industries try to move towards decarbonization, its share is getting larger. But reducing emissions from aircraft is challenging because powering planes without burning fossil fuel is hard to do.

The biggest problem is that powering aircraft with electric motors instead of fossil fuel motors requires so much energy that the batteries needed to supply it become impractically heavy. While research goes on to develop lighter-weight batteries, an interim concept may pay dividends.

Just as hybrid cars represent a stepping stone towards full electrification, hybrid-electric aircraft may be a way to obtain substantial reductions in aircraft emissions. The idea is to use battery-powered electric motors to power planes, but to greatly reduce the capacity requirements of the batteries by having an on-board fossil-fuel generator to charge the batteries and supply additional needed power.

A study by the University of Illinois looked at the potential emissions reductions for hybrid-electric aircraft taking into account the emissions associated with generating the electricity that charges the batteries in the plane. The requirements in the study were that the plane needs to be able to carry the same number of passengers and travel the same distance as current aircraft.

The results were that a drivetrain that gets 50% of its power from battery charge reduced emissions by about 50% over the full lifecycle of the plane.

As batteries get lighter and the electric grid gets greener, the possibility of making major reductions in aircraft carbon emissions looks increasingly realistic. But there is a long way to go.

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Study Examines Commercial Hybrid-Electric Aircraft, Reduced Carbon Emissions

Photo, posted September 26, 2014, courtesy of Jeff Turner via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.