Posts Tagged: university

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24
Aug 10

Solar-Powered Toothbrush Doesn’t Require Toothpaste

Researchers have designed a toothbrush that cleans teeth by creating a solar-powered chemical reaction in the mouth, doing away with the need for toothpaste.

…Dr. Kunio Komiyama, a dentistry professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, designed the first model of the unconventional toothbrush 15 years ago. Today, Komiyama and his colleague Dr. Gerry Uswak are seeking recruits to test their newest model, the Soladey-J3X. The toothbrush, which is manufactured by the Shiken company of Japan, will soon be tested by 120 teenagers to see how it compares to a normal toothbrush.
The Soladey-J3X has a solar panel at its base that transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire. The electrons react with acid in the mouth, creating a chemical reaction that breaks down plaque and kills bacteria. The toothbrush requires no toothpaste, and can operate with about the same amount of light as needed by a solar-powered calculator.
The researchers have already tested the toothbrush in cultures of bacteria that cause periodontal disease, and demonstrated that the brush causes…

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Solar-Powered Toothbrush Doesn’t Require Toothpaste

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16
Apr 10

Welcome to the Solar Century

Until a few years ago the suggestion that solar power might provide the answer to the intertwined problems of long term energy security and climate change would have been dismissed as a pipedream.

…s an area not much bigger than the UK. There seems little reason why one day huge areas of Saudi Arabian, Australian or Saharan desert couldn’t be filled with massive solar power plants.
So why won’t it happen tomorrow? Well for a start, whilst a few western European nations are implementing the German model, most western governments are simply failing to support fledgling renewable energy companies. For example, last year the UK government decided to plough millions into extending the life of its nuclear and fossil infrastructure and provided limited help for energy startups, let alone potential consumers of renewable energy.
There are also still a plethora of technical issues to overcome. Firstly, new research has shown that the small windmills and solar panels that are fitted to our rooftops often create more greenhouse emissions during manufacture than their use curtails. Secondly, how do we store the energy solar power creates for a rainy day? Hydrogen is notoriously dangerous to transport and there are…

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Welcome to the Solar Century

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9
Mar 10

From Peas to Power (Solar, That Is)

A scientist at the University of Tel Aviv (Dept. of Biochemistry) thinks that someday the same natural power system that peas use to convert sunlight into sugar could create electricity for your home.

…solar cells projected for use in solar-energy generating clothing, tents or BIPV (building integrated photovoltaic) applications.The university reportedly intends to work on the size in the near future, producing bio-based solar cells closer to one centimeter, or 0.39 inches.The actual solar cell itself is fashioned of about 200 chlorophylls (the basic substance in photosynthesis). These are layered with proteins between two exterior layers, an inorganic semiconductor (silicon, gallium or arsenide?) and a conductor (copper, for example).The basic science behind photosynthesis was formulated in 1905 by Albert Einstein, who concluded that photons delivering a charge to electrons triggered a biochemical reaction that resulted in glucose, or plant sugars….

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From Peas to Power (Solar, That Is)

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16
Feb 10

Energy expert discusses the future of solar power

Watch video of Lawrence Kazmerski, director of the National Center for Photovoltaics in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, discussing the prospects of solar-photovoltaic (PV) technologies, arguing that this solar-electricity source is at a tipping point in the very complex realm of worldwide energy at Vanderbilt University Dec. 3, 2007.

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4
Feb 10

Largest Solar-Power Park in the World Opens in Germany

A total of about 16,5 km (10 miles) of solar panels mounted on a former military grounds at Pocking, near Passau in Bavaria. The installation saves 10,000 tons of CO2 yearly–the equivalent of 1,000 hectares of woodlands.

…The ribbon was cut on the World’s largest continguous solar plant on 27th April 2006 in Germany. Construction on the 40 million euro (US$48 million) photovoltaic installation started August 2005. This plant demonstrates new standards in cost-efficiency for solar power. Using the master-slave inverter concept developed by Shell, the plant delivers the optimized energy output. Also, flexible installation technology–such as the use of either aluminum, wood or steel racks depending on material prices and the foundation on either concrete or piles–optimizes the costs. And if solar is viable in Germany, just imagine the efficiencies possible where the sun really shines!…

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Largest Solar-Power Park in the World Opens in Germany

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2
Feb 10

New Solar Cell is the Size of a Lowercase Letter

The solar cells, about the size of a 12-point font letter ‘o,’ are being tested to eventually power microscopic machines, such as those used to test chemical leaks in the air.

…Interested in solar power? See if group discounts are available in your city
A panel, made from a non-silicon organic polymer, is not quite powerful enough to run the tiny chemical sensor, which the researchers are using to test the device. However, it can already can act as a 7.8 volt source, easily enough for many common hand-held devices like cell phones or iPods.
Lead researcher Xiaomei Jiang said the array will be optimized for higher voltage by the end of the year.
I think these materials have a lot more potential than traditional silicon, said Jiang regarding the use of organic polymers rather than traditional silicon. They could be sprayed on any surface that is exposed to…

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New Solar Cell is the Size of a Lowercase Letter

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30
Jan 10

Solar Cell Innovation: Silicon Nanoparticles Improve Performance

Solar is booming, as it should. Third generation solar cells are seeing rapid growth, organic solar is breaking records, and the solar power bikini is the latest rage. But don’t count plain old silicon out of the game just yet

…Solar Cell Innovation: Silicon Nanoparticles Improve Performance
Solar is booming, as it should. Third generation solar cells are seeing rapid growth, organic solar is breaking records, and the solar power bikini is the latest rage. But don’t count plain old silicon out of the game just yet. Munir Nayfeh (pictured), a physicist at the University of Illinois, has developed a process that harnesses more out of a sunny day in the sand.

“Integrating a high-quality film of silicon nanoparticles 1 nanometer in size directly onto silicon solar cells improves power performance by 60 percent in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum.” Says Nayfeh.

Furthermore, it was found that particles of 2.8 nanometers show an enhancement of around 67 percent in the ultraviolet range, and 10 percent in the visible spectrum. The improved performance highlights the importance of charge transport assisted by the nanostructured design created by the film of silicon nanoparticles….

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Solar Cell Innovation: Silicon Nanoparticles Improve Performance

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26
Jan 10

Scientists show that asteroids are solar powered

Sunlight can cause asteroids to spin more quickly, scientists said on Wednesday, showing anew just how dynamic a place our solar system can be.

…Science

International teams of scientists studying two asteroids, one about a mile wide and the other about 375 feet

wide, confirmed a previously unproven theory that sunlight can affect the rotation of asteroids because they tend to be irregularly shaped and not perfectly round.

Stephen Lowry of Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland said the findings boost the understanding of the physical properties and dynamics of asteroids — hunks of metal and rock rattling around in space.

“This is important as asteroids are leftovers from the formation of the solar system, along with comets, and so by studying them we gain insights into what the solar system was like some 4.5 billion years ago,” Lowry said by e-mail.

In research appearing in the journals Nature and Science, the scientists focused on the so-called YORP effect, named for four scientists who inspired the theory.

The idea is the Sun’s heat serves as a propulsion engine on the irregular features of an asteroid’s surface. “YORP can…

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Scientists show that asteroids are solar powered

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26
Jan 10

Solar-powered sea slug harnesses stolen plant genes

It’s the ultimate form of solar power: eat a plant, become photosynthetic. Now researchers have found how one animal does just that.

…after all, it does gain the genes from the chloroplasts that it ingested. Second, we don’t know if it can actually incorporate those genes into it’s genome anyway. It may be a plasmid (a self-replicating, double stranded segment of DNA) or an episome (a plasmid that has been integrated into the host genome). I know that this applies mainly towards bacterial and viral genetics, but then again, nobody thought that an animal could become an autotroph, so who am I to discard a good theory? Anyway, if it can integrate, then that tells us that it could, in theory, make a genetically viable gamete (It’s highly unlikely, because it would cause a Robertsonian translocation mutation or a Robertsonian fusion mutation, which in turn would create unbalanced gametes unless the the Robertsonian mutations balance out. A few gametes may be viable because of this, but that’s a bit of a stretch.). It’s significantly more probable that it cannot integrate those plasmids into its genome, strictly so that it can increase its…

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Solar-powered sea slug harnesses stolen plant genes