New battery holds promise for green energy

Redox-flow battery eliminates costly and inefficient membrane

11-Sep-2023 - Jimmy Jiang envisions a future where every house is powered by renewable energy stored in batteries. In his chemistry lab, Jiang and his students at the University of Cincinnati have created a new battery that could have profound implications for the large-scale energy storage needed by wind and ...

Sweet research: chemists unlock secrets of molten salts

Scientists discover thermodynamic properties of molten salts, used in solar and nuclear energy

26-Jul-2022 - A chemist at the University of Cincinnati has come up with a novel way to study the thermodynamic properties of molten salts, which are used in many nuclear and solar energy applications. UC College of Arts and Sciences research associate and computational chemist Yu Shi and his collaborators ...

A new way to generate electricity from waste heat: using an antiferromagnet for solid devices

Giant thermoelectric effect in an antiferromagnet discovered

25-Nov-2021 - Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany, together with collaborators at the Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati, have discovered, for the first time, a giant thermoelectric effect in an antiferromagnet. The study published in ...

Carbon dioxide reactor makes Martian fuel

A gas station on Mars? Chemical engineers envision the possibilities: “In the next 10 years, we’ll have a lot of startup companies to commercialize this technique”

27-Sep-2021 - Engineers at the University of Cincinnati are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel to address climate change and get astronauts home from Mars. UC College of Engineering and Applied Science assistant professor Jingjie Wu and his students used a carbon catalyst in a reactor to ...

Carbon is the new black

12-Jul-2018 - Engineers with the University of Cincinnati are leveraging a partnership with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to create clothing that can charge your cell phone. Move over, Iron Man. What makes this possible are the unique properties of carbon nanotubes: a large surface area that is strong, ...

Gold coating to control luminescence of nanowires

17-Mar-2017 - Physicists at the University of Cincinnati are working to harness the power of nanowires, microscopic wires that have the potential to improve solar cells or revolutionize fiber optics. Nanotechnology has the potential to solve the bottleneck that occurs in storing or retrieving digital data - or ...

Geologists identify sources of greenhouse gas, in Ohio, Colorado and Texas

18-May-2016 - Researchers from the University of Cincinnati recently studied the sources of methane at three sites across the nation in order to better understand this greenhouse gas, which is much more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than is carbon dioxide. The UC team, led by Amy Townsend-Small, ...

Tapping a valuable resource or invading the environment?

Research examines the start of fracking in Ohio

01-Oct-2013 - A new study is examining methane and other components in groundwater wells, in advance of drilling for shale gas that’s expected over the next several years in an Ohio region. The team of UC researchers spent a year doing periodic testing of groundwater wells in Carroll County, Ohio, a section of ...

Secret of the crystal's corners

New nanowire structure has potential to increase semiconductor applications

25-Apr-2013 - New research led by University of Cincinnati physics professors Howard Jackson and Leigh Smith could contribute to better ways of harnessing solar energy, more effective air quality sensors or even stronger security measures against biological weapons such as anthrax. And it all starts with ...

Urban grass might be greener, but that doesn't mean it's 'greener'

UC research explores how efforts to keep urban lawns looking green and healthy might negate the soil's natural ability to store atmospheric toxins

11-Apr-2013 - Amy Townsend-Small, a UC assistant professor of geology and geography, shows the effects lawn management techniques have on greenhouse gas production in urban landscapes. She says there's a high energy cost associated with common lawn-care methods such as mowing, irrigation and fertilization due ...