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Credit: Photo courtesy Justine Sauvage
NARRAGANSETT, R.I. - February 26, 2021 - A team of researchers from the University of Rhode Island s Graduate School of Oceanography and their collaborators have revealed that the abundant microbes living in ancient sediment below the seafloor are sustained primarily by chemicals created by the natural irradiation of water molecules.
The team discovered that the creation of these chemicals is amplified significantly by minerals in marine sediment. In contrast to the conventional view that life in sediment is fueled by products of photosynthesis, an ecosystem fueled by irradiation of water begins just meters below the seafloor in much of the open ocean. This radiation-fueled world is one of Earth s volumetrically largest ecosystems.
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Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have discovered new fundamental insights for developing lithium metal batteries that perform well at ultra-low temperatures; mainly, that the weaker the electrolyte holds on to lithium ions, the better. By using such a weakly binding electrolyte, the researchers developed a lithium metal battery that can be repeatedly recharged at temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius a first in the field.
Researchers report their work in a paper published Feb. 25 in
Nature Energy.
In tests, the proof-of-concept battery retained 84% and 76% of its capacity over 50 cycles at -40 and -60 degrees Celsius, respectively. Such performance is unprecedented, researchers said.
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Organic molecules that capture photons and convert these into electricity have important applications for producing green energy. Light-harvesting complexes need two semiconductors, an electron donor and an acceptor. How well they work is measured by their quantum efficiency, the rate by which photons are converted into electron-hole pairs.
Quantum efficiency is lower than optimal if there is self-quenching , where one molecule excited by an incoming photon donates some of its energy to an identical non-excited molecule, yielding two molecules at an intermediate energy state too low to produce an electron-hole pair. But if electron donors and acceptors are better spaced out, self-quenching is limited, so that quantum efficiency improves.
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IMAGE: Michael Grätzel, winner of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences. view more
Credit: BBVA FOUNDATION
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category has gone in this thirteenth edition to Paul Alivisatos (University of California, Berkeley, United States) and Michael Grätzel (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) for their fundamental contributions to the development of new nanomaterials already in use for the production of renewable energies and in latest-generation electronics. Grätzel s groundbreaking work includes the invention of a dye-sensitized solar cell named after him, reads the committee s citation, while Alivisatos has made pioneering contributions in using semiconductor nanocrystals for energy and display applications.
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IMAGE: To realize a hydrogen fuel-based future, it is necessary to be able to produce it efficiently in an eco-friendly manner view more
Credit: Incheon National University
To combat climate change, shifting from fossil fuels to clean and sustainable energy sources is imperative. A popular candidate in this regard is hydrogen, an eco-friendly fuel that produces only water when used. However, the efficient methods of hydrogen production are usually not eco-friendly. The eco-friendly alternative of splitting water with sunlight to produce hydrogen is inefficient and suffers from low stability of the photocatalyst (material that facilitates chemical reactions by absorbing light). How does one address the issue of developing a stable and efficient photocatalyst?