The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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To gain a better understanding of the potential for critical minerals in the Ozarks, the U.S. Geological Survey has partnered with Arkansas and Missouri geologists on a $2.75 million program that will result in collecting "the largest continuous swath of geophysical data in the United States focused on critical mineral resources." This program is being carried out under the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, or Earth MRI, a partnership between the USGS, Association of...
Seeing a win-win-win situation that revitalizes an old Superfund site, creates jobs for New Yorkers, and supercharges a cutting-edge renewable energy storage technology, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, picked up the phone and called Zinc8 Energy Solutions CEO Ron MacDonald to urge the energy-storage technology company to manufacture zinc-air batteries in his home state. During this pivotal call to MacDonald, Sen. Schumer touted the cleaned up and refurbished...
It is going to require enormous quantities of graphite for the lithium batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution, and Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. has taken another step toward feeding North American EV supply chains with this critical battery anode material. On July 6, the Canadian battery materials company unveiled the results of a feasibility study that demonstrates strong economics for its plan to build a graphite mine and a coated spherical graphite anode...
Due to the alarming increase in mercury emissions into the atmosphere, researchers have been working for many years to develop systems to remove this heavy metal from water. Now, a team at Drexel University in Philadelphia might have found just the right material to efficiently catch the elusive quicksilver and clean up contaminated waters – MXene. It is estimated that mercury emissions in the atmosphere have quadrupled since the Industrial Revolution. The l...
Without any outside forces, a sky train levitates 30 feet above the ground in China's Jiangxi Province, thanks to the powerful forces of rare earth permanent magnets. Unlike magnetic levitation trains that float on a cushion of magnetic resistivity below, the world-first air train effortlessly floats from a rail above. With permanent rare earth magnets on both the rail and an arm above the "Red Rail" train resisting each other, the train can levitate above the ground below,...
Recognizing the meteoric rise in demand for minerals and metals critical to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and the American economy at large, the U.S. Department of Energy is requesting public input on the development and implementation of a $675 million critical materials research, development, demonstration, and commercialization program. Funded by the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this program is being established to address vulnerabilities in the...
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, is holding up the nominations of three senior Department of Defense nominees until he gets some answers on why the Biden administration pulled the permits for a road to the Ambler Mining District, a region of Alaska with deposits of copper, cobalt, zinc, and other minerals critical to the renewable energy and defense technologies. The Alaska senator made the announcement while questioning two of the nominees – Radha Plumb, nominated to b...
While renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar have become significantly cheaper and more available in recent years, many challenges still need to be overcome to achieve decarbonization in most industries. To help supplement energy needs, researchers from the University of Cambridge have designed an ultrathin, flexible device intended to mimic nature's best energy convertor – leaves! For several years, Professor Erwin Reisner's research group at Cambridge has been...
Launches $20M consortium to boost American-made CdTe cells Increasing federal backing of American-made thin-film solar technologies is likely to increase the demand for tellurium, a key ingredient of cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells. Tellurium is a metalloid, one of seven elements with properties that fall between metals like aluminum and tin and non-metals like carbon and phosphorus. These semimetals, which also include silicon and germanium, have natural semiconductive...
Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi Corp. has entered into a deal to gain a foothold in a potential nickel-cobalt mine at Giga Metals Corp.'s Turnagain project in Northern British Columbia, Canada. Best known for manufacturing automobiles, Mitsubishi is involved with a broad spectrum of businesses including industrial materials and mineral resources. The Turnagain project offers this diversified company a potential carbon-neutral source of the nickel and cobalt that are in...
Vital Metals Ltd. has received an AU$45 million (US$31.6 million) infusion of cash to fund its expanding rare earths business in Canada. "Vital Metals is on the threshold of becoming North America's only company capable of producing a refined rare earth product from its own mine, completing our transition from exploration and development to production and operations," said Vital Metals Managing Director Geoff Atkins. "This is an important milestone, not only in the development...
For years, researchers have sought a viable method for making the common zinc alkaline battery rechargeable. Now, a team of international researchers has developed a technique for doing just that. Prolonged research led the scientists to develop a new electrode design that is set to enable the rechargeability of alkaline zinc, one of the most common types of non-rechargeable batteries used in our daily lives. The technique also sheds light on a potentially wider application of...
A team of University of British Columbia researchers has designed a new copper coating that can kill bacteria more quickly and in greater quantities than current chemistries and could soon be available for hospitals and other high-traffic facilities. The group, led by Amanda Clifford, an assistant professor in the department of materials engineering, has designed a nano-copper coating that includes bacteria-killing nanoscale features and zinc. Although current formulations...
Looking to secure the materials required for the lithium batteries that will deliver power to more than 2 million electric vehicles per year by 2026, Ford Motor Company is adding the clout of its Blue Oval emblem to mining companies and projects that can offer low-carbon supplies of the aluminum, battery materials, and copper needed to build its envisioned e-mobility future. "Ford's new electric vehicle lineup has generated huge enthusiasm and demand, and now we are putting...
Researchers from Northeastern University in Boston have identified a novel class of catalysts that, because of their particular non-noble-metal nature, could offer a lower-cost alternative to the platinum-based standard that has prevented hydrogen from advancing in the fuel sector. In the most basic terms, a fuel cell transforms hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen into electricity, water vapor, and a little heat. Using platinum as a catalyst, hydrogen is split and fed into one...
To bolster supplies of the lithium-ion battery materials needed for America's transition to electric vehicles, the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office is loaning Syrah Resources Ltd. $102.1 million to expand Vidalia, a processing facility in Louisiana that upgrades mined graphite into a material needed in the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles and modern electronics. "Securing critical materials, such as lithium and graphite, is essential to...
Umicore to invest C$1.5B on lithium battery materials plant in Ontario. To establish the missing link between Ontario's abundant lithium battery metal resources and the established automotive industry in the Canadian province, Belgium-based Umicore plans to invest C$1.5 billion (US$1.2 billion) to build a plant that will feed cathode battery materials into the North American EV supply chain. "Canada and the Ontario province have all it takes for Umicore to establish a...
Just when you would think graphene could not possibly be more amazing than it already is, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology prove that to be furthest from the truth, discovering that if two or more graphene layers are stacked at an offset angle, the conductive properties of graphene become superconductive. Initially discovered in 2018, the MIT researchers recently published a new finding in Nature Materials that if you just keep stacking graphene with a...
Redwood Materials Inc. has partnered with yet another auto giant, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., to create a new circular supply chain for recycled Volkswagen and Audi electric vehicle batteries in the United States. After announcing a partnership with Toyota Motor North America in late June, it was not long before Volkswagen – which has already been taking steps to prepare for its end-of-life EV batteries for some time now – sought the California battery recycler to loc...
After several months of waiting, RecycLiCo Battery Materials (previously American Manganese) has announced the results of a life cycle assessment for its lithium-ion battery recycling-upcycling RecycLiCo process. Conducted by London-based and globally recognized sustainability consultancy Minviro Ltd., the life cycle assessment is a standardized, scientific method for quantifying the direct and embodied environmental impacts associated with the RecycLiCo process. By...
The carbon dioxide emissions of electric vehicles are not measured by exhaust from the tailpipes, but from the greenhouse gasses associated with building and charging these zero-emission vehicles. Understanding this, Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. has gone to great lengths to minimize the CO2 footprint of the battery-grade graphite anode material it will produce in Quebec. An independent life cycle assessment verifies that the Canadian company's production of coated spherical...
The U.S. Geological Survey has identified 50 minerals and metals critical to the economic wellbeing and security of the United States, uranium is not one of them. This omission of a mineral that plays a critical role in America's energy security does not sit well with a bipartisan group of congressmen that have introduced legislation to rectify this oversight. "Energy security is national security. We should not be reliant on our foreign adversaries like China and Russia to...
To help ensure it has reliable and plentiful supplies of the minerals and metals essential to the high-tech and green energy future, the United Kingdom has announced the launch of its Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre in Nottingham, England. Critical minerals are essential for the manufacturing of smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, fighter jets, and an enormous array of other products essential to the UK's economy and national security. With the global...
As it advances the development of a lithium-ion battery materials park centered on its cobalt refinery in Ontario, Electra Battery Materials Corp. is considering the potential of building a second similar facility in a battery materials park being developed near the town of Becancour in the neighboring province of Quebec. "Given a forecasted deficit in domestic cobalt sulfate production by 2025, we have received significant interest from industry and government stakeholders...
HydroGraph Clean Power Inc., a commercial manufacturer of high-quality nanomaterials and alternative-energy fuels, reported June 23 the opening of a 13,000-square-foot manufacturing facility for graphene and other products in Manhattan, Kansas. Using its patented Hyperion detonation process, the company intends to produce high-quality graphene in what it describes as a low-cost and environmentally friendly manner due to low energy consumption and the absence of emissions....
