Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory
UPTON, NY A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied an elusive property in cathode materials, called a valence gradient, to understand its effect on battery performance. The findings, published in
Nature Communications, demonstrated that the valence gradient can serve as a new approach for stabilizing the structure of high-nickel-content cathodes against degradation and safety issues.
High-nickel-content cathodes have captured the attention of scientists for their high capacity, a chemical property that could power electric vehicles over much longer distances than current batteries support. Unfortunately, the high nickel content also causes these cathode materials to degrade more quickly, creating cracks and stability issues as the battery cycles.
An engineering researcher from the University of Sydney, in collaboration with a team at the University of Toronto, has developed an electrochemical system that coverts a greater amount of CO2 into valuable products, such as ethylene and ethanol. These are used in everyday materials, from plastic to Lycra.
The study, led by Tengfei Luo, a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, will be initiated by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
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IMAGE: With Army funding, Kent State University creates an immersive virtual reality lab that can be used in tandem with other biophysiological technologies to advance an interdisciplinary understanding of group dynamics. view more
Credit: Kent State
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. Immersive virtual reality isn t just for amusement parks, the U.S. Army is funding research that uses it to understand group dynamics.
The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory funded scientists at Kent State University s Electrophysiological Neuroscience Laboratory to create an immersive virtual reality lab that can be used in tandem with their other biophysiological technologies to advance an interdisciplinary understanding of group dynamics.
New research from Georgia Tech finds that elephants dilate their nostrils in order to create more space in their trunks, allowing them to store up to nine liters of water. They can also suck up three liters per second a speed 50 times faster than a human sneeze. The findings could inspire different ways to building robots that manipulate air to move or hold things.