The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Evaluation conducted by DOE finds American Battery Technology Company prime candidate to build another recycling facility in U.S. Having earned an initial $20 million tax credit award under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit, otherwise known as 48C, American Battery Technology Company has been selected for an additional $40.5 million to support the design and construction of a new, next-generation commercial battery recycling facility within the United States....
Researchers in Denmark are experimenting with a selenium–silicon tandem solar cell. While an increasingly common clean energy resource for individual homes and grid-scale production alike, solar cells are shockingly inefficient – at best capturing less than 30% of the energy from the sunlight that strikes them. Rasmus Nielsen and his team of physicists and engineers at the Technical University of Denmark have found a possible method to boost that efficiency to 40% by cre...
Pulsar's timely discovery of a massive helium deposit in Minnesota may keep our medical scanners, rockets, and nuclear reactors going. Despite being the second most abundant gas in the universe, there is a definite helium shortage in America, risking the operation of everything from medical diagnostics to cooling nuclear reactors. But the U.S. might finally be in luck – a recently discovered reservoir in Minnesota boasts concentrations pushing 13.8%, the highest the i...
On track for key goal in 2024, headed steadily onward in aims for 2025. Nextgen solid-state battery tech leader QuantumScape has started customer shipments of its Alpha-2 prototype battery cells, on target for its 2024 goal. Toward achieving its mission to transform energy storage with solid-state lithium-metal battery technology, the company began shipping its A0 prototypes to potential automotive customers for qualification at the end of 2022. The company's new Alpha-2...
Queensland government offers grant to enable development of graphene aluminum-ion batteries. Recognizing the potential of homemade graphene, the government of Queensland has signed an A$2 million funding agreement with Graphene Manufacturing Group Ltd. to support the company's proposed automated graphene aluminum-ion battery pilot plant in Brisbane, Australia. "We want to thank the Queensland Government and acknowledge its commitment to supporting the critical and battery manu...
University convened with key leaders across government, industry, and academia on Capitol Hill to discuss sustainable production and cultivating the next generation of miners. In a pivotal move to safeguard the U.S. critical mineral supply chain, the University of Arizona has taken center stage in pioneering sustainable mining practices, nurturing a skilled domestic workforce, and powering the national transition to renewable energy and next-gen defense technology at an event...
A cheaper and more sustainable LiDFOB electrolyte reduces lithium salts while maintaining battery performance. An international research team has developed an electrolyte with a very low concentration of lithium salt for a cheaper, safer alternative to conventional lithium batteries. According to the report, battery cells using these LiDFOB – lithium difluoro (oxalato) borate – electrolytes in batteries with standard electrodes have demonstrated outstanding performance, pro...
Findings reveal high concentrations of lithium in pyrite. The golden glitter of a faceted nugget of pyrite has earned it the moniker "fool's gold" for its abundance, showy false promise and low value as a common sulfide – until recently. Lithium, on the other hand, has been the modern day's elusive "white gold" prize in many searches, from hard rock mines to brines and more experimental sources such as mine tailings and drill cuttings. Recent research led by a team from W...
Trucks send seismic waves beneath cities to explore the terrain for oil, gas, faults and geothermal. In 2017, two fleets of massive trucks crossed from Long Beach into Orange County in southern California, sending literal shock waves through the streets. And now, in Germany, they're going to be at it again. The vehicle used to create these vibrations is a seismic vibrator truck or thumper. These trucks use a large weight to thump the ground's surface while sophisticated...
Car and battery manufacturers are getting in on the critical minerals mining business. There has been an increasing trend of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them are moving upstream in the global metals supply chain to secure deals for their own feedstocks of critical minerals – entering into mineral offtake agreements directly with mining companies, investing in mining projects, and joint mining ventures. Until r...
Advanced materials firm reports the successful integration of graphene into construction materials. Trailblazing the development of eco-friendly graphene and its integration into the production process of other products, Premier Graphene Inc. has announced the successful incorporation of graphene with construction materials, marking a groundbreaking leap forward in the construction and materials science industries. Founded in 2010, California-based Premier Graphene is a global...
Will now extend capability for all feedstocks including rare earth ores. Purdue University has expanded ReElement Technologies Corp.'s exclusive use of the patents for ligand assisted displacement (LAD) chromatography and knowhow for all feedstocks to now include rare earth ores. When ReElement first began to employ the unique technology developed at Purdue, its license covered critical minerals from recycled permanent magnets and lithium-ion batteries, and was capable of...
An efficient e-waste recycling process is made possible by whey, a byproduct of cheesemaking. Scientists in Switzerland have recovered high-purity gold through a scalable process using food scrap-derived sponges that efficiently adsorb the precious metal from tricky e-waste. The final result is 450 milligrams of 22-carat gold recovered from 20 discarded motherboards. Because the method utilizes industry byproducts, it is doubly sustainable and cost-effective as well. Gold...
The Metals Company and SGS have produced nickel from harvested polymetallic nodules. As part of The Metals Company's (TMC) pilot-scale processing, the world's first nickel sulfate has been produced from polymetallic nodules harvested from the seabed, further solidifying the resource's promise for battery markets. "The production of the world's first nickel sulfate from deep-seafloor nodules is an important milestone, confirming that our custom flowsheet configuration can be de...
Rio Tinto invests in tech startups, partners with Founders Factory to help establish Western Australia as Silicon Valley of mining tech. Global mining company Rio Tinto has teamed up with world-leading venture studio and start-up investor Founders Factory to help establish the city of Perth on Australia's west coast as the Silicon Valley of mining technologies. As the capital of Western Australia, one of the most productive and diversified mining regions in the world, Perth...
Company signs agreement with Khalifa University of Science and Technology to advance graphene in various sectors. What started as an explosive discovery of graphene production has led to HydroGraph Clean Power Inc.'s development of graphene-enhanced electromagnetic shielding and biomedical sensors for the early detection of cancer. Now, the innovative graphene company has signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate with Khalifa University of Science and Technology on r...
Cheap and safe, water-based organic redox flow batteries are coming – an interview with Quino Energy's founder Eugene Beh. Quino Energy CEO and co-founder Eugene Beh is a chemist and physicist with an impressive history of accolades from Harvard to Stanford and back again and deep expertise in electrochemical systems, be it a postdoctoral fellowship working on aqueous organic flow batteries at Harvard University or inventing and commercializing a redox flow desalination t...
New material bridges anti-gravity tech and super-sensitive instruments. Flying cars and personal jetpacks notwithstanding, a new carbon-based material is bringing us closer to stable levitation technologies with no need for mechanical or electrical assists. Today's levitation uses electrically manipulated magnetic fields, superconductors or diamagnetic (magnetically repelled) materials to float above magnets. The primary use for this is in developing super-sensitive...
Inlyte Energy's endeavors to bring back sodium-metal-halide batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are today's most common energy storage technology, with uses large and small, ranging from smartphones and other electronic devices to electric cars and stationary. But science is far from resting on this standard – battery efficiency and durability are still in high demand. With sodium easier to source and exponentially cheaper than lithium, a redesigned sodium-metal-halide battery m...
Japan's Kajima Corp. is well on its way to supplying the world with carbon-negative concrete. A little over an hour from Tokyo, nestled in the mountains near Nagano, a house has been built in Karuizawa with the world's first carbon dioxide-removing concrete walls produced by replacing a percentage of the cement content with an industrial byproduct and adding a CO2-absorbing admixture of dicalcium silicate. Karuizawa is one of Japan's oldest and most famous forested mountain re...
Belgian precious metals recycler Umicore unveils Nexyclus certifications, a green guarantee at every step of its process. Leveraging the might of its precious metals refining and jewelry and industrial metals capabilities, Umicore SA has launched Nexyclus to address resource scarcity and the increased demand for recycled, responsibly sourced and low-carbon metals. Based out of Belgium, Umicore is a multinational materials technology firm that was formed through the merger of...
With $20 million in DOE funding, MIT and 15 others are carrying out research that will open Schrödinger's box of potentially low-cost source of abundant green energy fuel. Hydrogen is the Schrödinger's Cat of clean energy fuels – it is both an abundant and affordable clean burning gas that fuels the dreams of a green energy future and a scarce element that comes with a carbon footprint that does not justify the cost to produce it. The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Res...
The 24th sample taken by the six-wheeled scientist offers new clues about Jezero Crater and the lake it may have once held. As of April 4, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 1,110 sols or three years, one month, and 17 days in Earth time since its landing. In that time, the lonely rover collected 24 samples, but the latest embodies exactly why NASA sent the six-wheeled scientist to the Red Planet. The mission of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is to focus on...
Space Agency finds costs and timeframe of previous plan too high, seeks public and private sector innovation to get samples to Earth. In response to Perseverance's successful sample collection efforts, a discussion on returning these samples of Martian geology and potential signs of life back to Earth has been revisited. During a teleconference held early this morning, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration outlined its recommendations regarding a path forward for t...
Partnership addresses various options to create value in mining waste through remining and restoration. Regeneration Enterprises and Cobalt Blue have partnered up to tackle the growing inventory of legacy mine sites and waste. The partnership's projects are expected to transform these sites into ecological assets by producing much-needed green energy minerals through climate-positive means. The focus is on identifying new value in waste by remining and restoring sites,...