Science and Enterprise

Tag: cleantech

  • Case Western Reserve Builds Utility Scale Wind Turbine

    Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and its industrial partners have built their largest research wind turbine, with two other turbines already erected and one in operation providing power. The new turbine resides on property owned by industrial grinder manufacturer William Sopko & Sons in nearby Euclid, the site of another university turbine. The…

  • Nissan, College Establish U.K. Electric Vehicle R&D Center

    Nissan Motors and Gateshead College have unveiled plans for an academic center for research on electric vehicle technologies on the college’s campus in northeast England. Nissan is the maker of the plug-in electric Leaf to be produced at a plant in nearby Sunderland. The Zero Emission Centre of Excellence (ZECE), as the joint project is…

  • Grant to Fund Electric Power Market Optimization Research

    Iowa State University in Ames says three of its engineering faculty will receive $1.7 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to study new ways of scheduling and pricing electric power. ISU is the lead institution in a $3 million project involving Sandia National Laboratories, University of California at Davis, power grid systems company Alstom…

  • Unilever Launches Open Innovation Initiative

    The consumer goods manufacturer Unilever unveiled today its open innovation program seeking ideas for new products and technologies from the public at large. The initiative is managed by the online intellectual property marketplace yet2.com. Unilever’s program is structured around a set of issues or problems for which it seeks collaborators to find solutions. The opening…

  • Graphene Electrodes Developed for Supercapacitors

    Researchers at University of California in Los Angeles have developed electrodes for supercapacitors, energy storage devices that charge and discharge faster than batteries, using a one-atom-thick layer of carbon called graphene. Their findings appear in his week’s issue of the journal Science (paid subscription required). In addition to faster charging and discharging, supercapacitors store substantially…

  • Solar Developer, Lab Build Power Transport Technology

    New Energy Technologies Inc. in Columbia, Maryland and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado have collected and transported electricity with a conductive wiring system built for the company’s product that generates solar power through window glass. NREL is a division of the U.S. Department of Energy. The company’s main product is a type of…

  • Hydrogen Power Utility Vehicle Practical, Not Cost-Effective

    A pilot test in Switzerland of a street cleaning truck powered by a hydrogen fuel cell shows the vehicle saves energy and is environmentally friendly, but the high costs of the vehicle do not yet make it financially feasible. The test was carried out by the Swiss materials science and technology research institute Empa, with…

  • Challenge Seeks Molecular Composition Tool for Electronics

    A new challenge from InnoCentive calls for a technology to determine the chemical composition of everyday electronic devices. This “ideation” challenge — one looking for a breakthrough idea —  has a total prize fund of $8,000 and a deadline of 20 March 2012 for submissions. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts is a company the conducts open-innovation,…

  • University Research Spinoff To Build Manufacturing Plant

    Aquion Energy Inc. in Pittsburgh, a developer of sodium ion batteries and energy storage systems, says it will build its first large-scale manufacturing plant in southwestern Pennsylvania. Aquion Energy that makes energy storage systems for electrical power grids expects to create over 400 high-tech manufacturing jobs by the end of 2015. The company’s systems are…

  • Energy Efficient, Low CO2, Lower Cost Cement Developed

    Engineers at Drexel University in Philadelphia have developed a new cement that reduces energy use and carbon dioxide output by 97 percent compared to standard Portland cement. The research behind the new cement is described in the March 2012 issue of the journal Cement and Concrete Composites (paid subscription required). The new type of cement…