The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Sorted by date Results 476 - 500 of 664
Responsible for several important milestones in the study of quantum mechanics, or more specifically quantum dots, the Los Alamos National Laboratory has once more proven to be at the forefront of this field by revealing a plethora of breakthroughs and discoveries. The findings, published in the journal "Science," covers the nearly three decades of research into quantum dots and assesses the technological progress for these nanometer-sized specks of semiconductive matter,...
With the goal of producing 58,000 metric tons of the lithium carbonate needed for the batteries powering electric vehicles and storing renewable energy each year, global miner Rio Tinto has committed US$2.4 billion to the development of Jadar in Serbia, one of the world's largest greenfield lithium projects. "Serbia and Rio Tinto will be well-positioned to capture the opportunity offered by rising demand for lithium, driven by the global energy transition and the project will...
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley announced the development of a two-dimensional cobalt-doped zinc oxide magnet that operates at room temperature and could lead to new applications in computing, electronics, and new tools for the study of quantum physics. The ultrathin magnet, recently reported in the journal "Nature Communications," could make significant advances in next-generation...
While it is not quite a space yacht sailing to Alpha Centauri at 134 million miles per hour, NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Scout will be the first spacecraft to sail on solar winds to a destination beyond Earth's orbit. "NEA Scout will be America's first interplanetary mission using solar sail propulsion," said Les Johnson, principal technology investigator for the mission at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "There have been several sail tests in Earth orbit, and we are now...
From Ebola outbreaks in Africa to illnesses picked up at the local hospital or clinic, finding a highly effective and efficient means of fighting infectious disease has been a priority for healthcare workers long before the coronavirus known as COVID-19 emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan, China, and rapidly spread around the world. Frustrated by the lack of affordable antimicrobial products for use in healthcare facilities, Dr. Alfred Mitchell began investigating the...
A container of mixed rare earth carbonate shipped from Energy Fuels Inc.'s White Mesa Mill in Utah to Neo Performance Materials Inc.'s Silmet rare earths separation facility in Estonia marks the start of what is shaping up to be major new rare earths supply chains in the United States and Europe. "Today, Energy Fuels and Neo took significant steps toward restoring critical U.S. and European rare earth supply chains," Energy Fuels President and CEO Mark Chalmers said as the...
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have found a way to simultaneously increase an alloy's strength and ductility, a measure of a material's ability to stretch and be hammered thin without breaking. "A holy grail of structural materials has long been, 'how do you simultaneously enhance strength and ductility?'" said Easo George, principal investigator of the study and Governor's Chair for Advanced...
In a move to help secure the lithium-ion battery metals required to achieve its aspiration of getting "Everybody in" an electric vehicle, General Motors has forged a strategic partnership with Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd. to source low-cost and environmentally responsible lithium from the Hell's Kitchen project at the Salton Sea Geothermal Field in Southern California. "Lithium is critical to battery production today and will only become more important as consumer...
On June 28, First Nations mining contractor Nahanni Construction Ltd. dug a scoop of ore from the North T open pit at Vital Metals Ltd.'s Nechalacho project in Northwest Territories that marked a momentous milestone – Canada is now a rare earths-producing nation. This first REE ore mined at Nechalacho comes just two years after Australia-based Vital came up with a unique plan to take advantage of relatively small but high-grade mineralization coming to the surface at the p...
From research into a non-invasive mining technique to extract gold from the ground without mining to recycling electronic waste and old car parts, EnviroLeach Technologies Inc. has developed safe and environmentally friendly formulas to recover precious and critical metals. Originally developed as an alternative to cyanide at gold mines, EnviroLeach developed a formula made up of five ingredients that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for human consumption...
To steer away from using expensive and oft controversial cobalt, electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery manufacturers have brewed up new recipes with higher percentages of more abundant nickel and manganese for their newer generation cells. "Modern lithium-ion battery cathode chemistries have rapidly evolved to having less cobalt and more nickel or manganese materials, which does not reflect the cathode chemistries of older batteries approaching their end-of-life," said...
Putting its foot to the "electric pedal" in a race toward the all-electric mobility future it envisions, General Motors has bolstered its investments into electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion from 2020 through 2025, a 75% increase over the $20 billion commitment it made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable futu...
Canada and the European Union have forged a new strategic partnership to help secure the supply chains for minerals and metals critical to the global transition to a low-carbon and digitized economy, as well as reduce dependence on China for the raw materials essential to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and advanced battery storage. Following the G7 summit, held in Cornwall, United Kingdom over the weekend, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau individually met with...
The mountains of material left behind from more than 275 years of mining kaolin, a mineral known as china clay due to its use in the fine white porcelain produced in China for thousands of years, in Cornwall could offer a new source of the lithium vital to the United Kingdom's transition to a zero-carbon economy. To investigate the potential of producing the increasingly important battery metal from the kaolin mined in the southern UK region, Cornish Lithium Ltd. is leading...
On a mission to develop innovative solutions to sustainably produce the enormous quantities of lithium needed for the batteries powering electric vehicles, Schlumberger New Energy is teaming up with Panasonic Energy of North America to validate and optimize the differentiated direct lithium extraction technology to be used at its NeoLith Energy pilot plant in Nevada. "Panasonic is a pioneer in electric vehicle battery technology, and we are excited to collaborate with them in...
Focused on environmentally sound production of lithium, Cornish Lithium Ltd. is testing new technologies to extract the battery metal from geothermal waters at its United Downs facility in Cornwall, a region emblematic of the storied mining history and promising future in the United Kingdom. Cornwall traces its mining roots back more than 4,000 years to mines that churned out Bronze Age tin and copper. Beginning late in the 19th century, however, the enduring and proud traditi...
The Biden administration sees domestic mining as an important segment at the front end of the critical supply chains it endeavors to strengthen, as long as the mining is carried out at the highest environmental, labor, and sustainability standards. The "Executive order on America's Supply Chains" signed by President Joe Biden in February tasked federal agencies to carry out a 100-day assessment of the vulnerabilities to United States supply chains and to find solutions to...
While lithium-ion batteries have a major head start when it comes to the storage of renewable electricity, European analysts predict that flow batteries may overtake the stationary power storage market within a decade, and investments by the Biden administration could help make these forecasts a reality. Vanadium redox flow batteries – variably called flow batteries or vanadium redox batteries – are the most common and technologically advanced of the flow batteries. Tak...
A mine that produced the nickel and cobalt needed for the lithium-ion batteries powering zero-emission electric vehicles and offering the added benefit of locking up carbon dioxide in rocks for geological time periods would be considered an optimum solution in the battle against global warming. Recent tests carried out at the University of British Columbia indicate the potential that Giga Metals Corp.'s Turnagain project in Northern BC could be one such greenhouse gas-absorbin...
Norway-based REEtec has confirmed the quality of a rare earths sample produced from Vital Metals Ltd.'s Nechalacho project in Northwest Territories, which means Vital can finish the first phase of its power-of-partnerships strategy to deliver Canadian rare earths to market by the end of 2021. Under this partnership strategy, a Northwest Territories First Nation contractor is mining high-grade rare earths ore from a near-surface deposit at Nechalacho; Vitals' Canadian...
Chains are only as strong as their weakest link, and two United States federal agencies have determined that cobalt is the weak link in North America's electric vehicle supply chain. First Cobalt Corp. is doing its part to strengthen this link by delivering the cobalt sulfate needed for the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs from its refinery in Ontario and exploring its cobalt-rich Iron Creek project in Idaho. With the First Cobalt refinery in Canada on pace to begin...
Answering Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk's call for new supplies of nickel that are mined "efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Group has struck a deal to supply the electric automaker with this fundamental lithium-ion battery ingredient from its Nickel West operation in Western Australia. "We are delighted to sign this agreement with Tesla Inc., and to collaborate with them on ways to make the battery supply chain more sustainable...
Scandium, one of 35 minerals identified as being critical to future production of high-tech and industrial technologies in the West, is seeing a surge in mining and extraction activity in response to increasing demand for the soft, silvery metallic element. Scandium is not particularly rare – its occurrence in crustal rocks is around 22 parts per million. It is generally more plentiful than lead, mercury, and precious metals. Yet scandium rarely concentrates in nature, so t...
As First Cobalt Corp. advances the only battery-grade cobalt sulfate refinery in North America toward a 2022 start, the company is beginning to investigate the potential of developing an integrated battery park in Ontario that refines and recycles cobalt and nickel, and then upgrades these metals into the anode materials for the lithium-ion batteries needed for the massive influx of electric vehicles expected in the coming years. First Cobalt envisions a battery park built...
With a boost from fiber optic cables laced with rare earths such as erbium and thulium, researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology were able to transmit 319 terabits of data per second over cables stretching 3,001 kilometers (1,865 miles), crushing any previous records in speed over such a long distance. This not only smashes the previous record of an already jaw-dropping 178 Tb/s, according to NCIT, the technology is also...
