Improving the safety of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles

Better understanding of the problems associated to the thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries

08-Mar-2022 - Researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), belonging to the CMT-Motores Térmicos research institute, are working on different national and international projects to improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries, the most currently used in electric vehicles. As pointed out by ...

Wood pellets: Renewable, but not carbon neutral

26-Mar-2018 - A return to firewood is bad for forests and the climate. So reports William Schlesinger, President Emeritus of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in an Insights article published today in the journal Science. In the race to meet clean energy standards, biomass energy is often touted as ...

Removing the roadblocks to a more efficient car engine

22-Sep-2017 - Almost 160 years after the invention of the internal combustion engine, a new type of engine - operating at low-temperature, allowing it to consume less fuel - offers promise for the transportation industry as it plans for the future. But the next-generation engine requires a next-generation ...

Better 'fingerprints' to detect elusive, valuable chemical compounds

28-Jun-2017 - Imagine being able to see the entire Statue of Liberty and a small ant on its nose simultaneously. The drastic difference in size between the two objects would seem to render this task impossible. On a molecular level, this is exactly what a team led by Sandia National Laboratories chemists David ...

Four-stroke engine cycle produces hydrogen from methane and captures CO2

20-Feb-2017 - When is an internal combustion engine not an internal combustion engine? When it's been transformed into a modular reforming reactor that could make hydrogen available to power fuel cells wherever there's a natural gas supply available. By adding a catalyst, a hydrogen separating membrane and ...

Nano-spike catalysts convert carbon dioxide directly into ethanol

14-Oct-2016 - In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. Their finding, which involves ...

Study finds declining sulfur levels

11-May-2016 - Air pollution legislation to control fossil fuel emissions and the associated acid rain has worked - perhaps leading to the need for sulfur fertilizers for crop production. A University of Illinois study drawing from over 20 years of data shows that sulfur levels in Midwest watersheds and rivers ...

Electricity, heating most climate-friendly uses for natural gas

10-Mar-2016 - Rice University researchers have determined a more effective way to use natural gas to reduce climate-warming emissions would be in the replacement of existing coal-fired power plants and fuel-oil furnaces rather than burning it in cars and buses. The Rice study by environmental engineer Daniel ...

Catalysts for heavy oil extraction developed at Kazan University

The catalysts speed up heavy oil extraction under the conditions of in-situ combustion

03-Feb-2016 - Projected heavy oil and viscous oil reserves in Russia are up to 40 - 50 billion barrels and a significant portion of that volume lies within Tatarstan. Heavy oil extraction warrants special technological processes, and research in that direction is currently becoming the center of attention in ...

Could metal particles be the clean fuel of the future?

11-Dec-2015 - Metal powders, produced using clean primary energy sources, could provide a more viable long-term replacement for fossil fuels than other widely discussed alternatives, such as hydrogen, biofuels or batteries. "Technologies to generate clean electricity - primarily solar and wind power - are ...