The technology that charges batteries for electronic devices could provide fresh water from salty seas, says a new study by University of Illinois engineers. Electricity running through a salt water-filled battery draws the salt ions out of the water. Illinois mechanical science and engineering professor Kyle Smith and graduate student Rylan Dmello published their work […]
Export Of Wood Pellets From US to EU More Environmentally Friendly Than Coal
As the export of wood pellets from the U.S. to the European Union has increased six-fold since 2008, questions have been raised about the environmental impact of the practice. According to a new paper from a University of Illinois expert in environmental economics, even after accounting for factors ranging from harvesting to transportation across the […]
Biomedical Breakthrough: Carbon Nanoparticles You Can Make at Home
Researchers have found an easy way to produce carbon nanoparticles that are small enough to evade the body’s immune system, reflect light in the near-infrared range for easy detection, and carry payloads of pharmaceutical drugs to targeted tissues. Unlike other methods of making carbon nanoparticles – which require expensive equipment and purification processes that can […]
Drones give farmers an eye in the sky to check on crop progress
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — This growing season, crop researchers at the University of Illinois are experimenting with the use of drones – unmanned aerial vehicles – on the university’s South Farms. Dennis Bowman, a crop sciences educator with U. of I. Extension, is using two drones to take aerial pictures of crops growing in research plots […]
Researchers Improve Nanowire Performance on Solar Cells
Imagine a field of small wires—standing at attention like a tiny field of wheat—gathering the Sun’s rays as the first step in solar energy conversion. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have achieved new levels of performance for seed-free and substrate-free arrays of nanowires from class of materials called III-V (three-five) directly on […]
Team uses forest waste to develop cheaper, greener supercapacitors
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report that wood-biochar supercapacitors can produce as much power as today’s activated-carbon supercapacitors at a fraction of the cost – and with environmentally friendly byproducts. The report appears in the journal Electrochimica Acta. “Supercapacitors are power devices very similar to our batteries,” said study leader Junhua Jiang, a senior research engineer […]
Small in size, big on power: New microbatteries a boost for electronics
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Though they be but little, they are fierce. The most powerful batteries on the planet are only a few millimeters in size, yet they pack such a punch that a driver could use a cellphone powered by these batteries to jump-start a dead car battery – and then recharge the phone in […]