Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have created new ceramic materials that could be used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. The researchers have created for the first time compounds made from mixtures of calcium hexaboride, strontium, and barium hexaboride. They also have demonstrated that the compounds could be manufactured using a simple, […]
Power Electronic Tips
Photovoltaic Solar-Panel Windows Could Be Next for Your House
A house window that doubles as a solar panel could be on the horizon, thanks to recent quantum-dot work by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers in collaboration with scientists from University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy. Their project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of quantum dots can be applied in solar energy by helping more efficiently […]
Couple Gets $1.3M Wind Turbine Settlement
A Vermont couple whose Northeast Kingdom farm became a focal point in the fight against construction of a 21-turbine industrial wind project on Lowell Mountain said Monday that they were selling their 540-acre farm to Green Mountain Power for $1.3 million. In announcing they had agreed to settle a lawsuit over a boundary dispute filed […]
High-voltage power module addresses 12V, 24V, 36V, and 48V input rail applications
Intersil Corporation (Milpitas, CA) announced the ISL8216M 80 Volt, 4 Amp non-isolated DC/DC step-down power module. The ISL8216M power module provides a complete power supply in a package that can be used across multiple applications from telecom and network infrastructure to factory test equipment with minimal design effort, speeding time to market. Features include: […]
Engineering Update: A Guide to Charging Your Phone in 30 Seconds
In this week’s episode of the Engineering Update: A guide to charging your phone in 30 secondsIsraeli startup StoreDot is taking the lead on shortening the amount of time it takes to charge your phone from a few hours to about 30 seconds by creating chemically synthesized bioorganic peptide molecules—called nano dots—that—as the name suggests—are […]
Surge protective device protects from currents in excess of 10,000 amperes on an 8/20 µS waveform
[[{“fid”:”39311″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:””,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:””},”type”:”media”,”attributes”:{“height”:299,”width”:315,”style”:”float: right; margin: 5px;”,”title”:”MSP Multi-Stage Protector”,”class”:”media-element file-default”}}]]Bourns (Riverside, CA) announced it has added a new surge protective device (SPD) for signal and data line applications to its industry-leading portfolio. Designated Bourns Model 1840, the new device is a heavy-duty, MSP Multi-Stage Protector designed to safeguard sensitive electronic circuits and components from damaging surge voltages and […]
Energy Department Seeks Methane Hydrate Proposals
The U.S. Department of Energy is soliciting for another round of research into methane hydrates, the potentially huge energy source of “frozen gas” that could step in for shortages of other fossil fuels. The department is looking for research projects on the North Slope of Alaska that could explore how to economically extract the gas […]
DC/DC converter series provides 36 W of output power at 12 VDC
[[{“fid”:”39286″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:””,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:””},”type”:”media”,”attributes”:{“height”:217,”width”:300,”style”:”margin: 5px; float: right;”,”alt”:”open frame DC\/DC converters”,”title”:”open frame DC\/DC converters”,”class”:”media-element file-default”}}]]Semiconductor Circuits, Inc. (Atkinson, NH) introduced the new Cool Power Technologies 36-W wide input range 32nd brick DC/DC converter series. These open frame modules provide 36 W of output power at 12 VDC – appropriate for distributed power architecture applications or as a fully regulated […]
Photos of the Day: A device that charges your phone in 30 seconds
An Israeli startup called StoreDot has created a prototype for a device capable of fully charging a smartphone in 30 seconds. See: Engineering Update #53: A guide to charging your phone in 30 seconds StoreDot demonstrated the tech at Microsoft’s Think Next Conference, and the finished product will hit the market sometime in 2016. The […]
Artificial Cooling A Tricky Topic for Climate Panel
It’s Plan B in the fight against climate change: cooling the planet by sucking heat-trapping CO2 from the air or reflecting sunlight back into space. Called geoengineering, it’s considered mad science by opponents. Supporters say it would be foolish to ignore it, since plan A — slashing carbon emissions from fossil fuels — is moving […]