Archive for the ‘News’ Category

7th International Green Energy Conference

Conference Announcement:

7th International Green Energy Conference
&
The 1st DNL Conference on Clean Energy
(IGEC-DCCE)

28-30 May, 2012, Dalian, China

EES is proud to sponsor this meeting and we will be awarding an ‘EES Poster Prize’ during the conference.

Registration now open. Submit your abstract for this conference – Abstract Submission Deadline: 18 January 2012

For more information see conference website

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The most efficient dye sensitised solar cells so far

The highest conversion efficiency reported for dye sensitised solar cells – 11.4% – has been achieved by scientists from Japan. The previous efficiency, reached in 2006 by the same team, was 11.1%.

Dye sensitised solar cells made cheaply are the most promising photovoltaic devices, say the researchers. But, so far, the overall efficiency of I/I3- based dye sensitised solar cells has been limited because light harvesting is not fully achieved and the photo-excited electrons recombine with the acceptor species before the electrode collects them.

Now, the team has made a small donor–acceptor type co-adsorbent that effectively increases short circuit current by offsetting the competitive light absorption by I/I3- . They have improved open circuit potential by introducing butyloxyl chains into the molecule to avoid dye aggregation and reduce the charge recombination. The work could lead to highly efficient dye sensitised solar cells for practical applications, they say.

Read the EES ‘HOT’ article today:

High-Efficiency Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell with a Novel Co-Adsorbent
Liyuan Han, Ashraful Islam, Han Chen, Chandrasekharam Malapaka, Shufang Zhang, Xudong Yang and Masatoshi Yanagida
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012
DOI: 10.1039/c2ee03418b

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EES Issue 1 of 2012 out now!

The first issue of Energy & Environmental Science for 2012 is now online! You can read the full issue for free here.

Jane Hordern (Deputy Editor for Energy & Environmental Science) highlights some of the many achievements of the journal in 2011 and look forwards to 2012 in her New Year Editorial. 

The outside front cover features an article on Plasmonic solar water splitting by Scott C. Warren and Elijah Thimsen. 

Issue 1 contains the following Analysis, Review and Perspective articles:

Fancy submitting an article to EES? Then why not submit to us today!

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EES Issue 12 out now!

EES Issue 2 OFCThe latest issue of Energy & Environmental Science is now online. You can read the full issue here:

The outside front cover features an Perspective article on Hematite-based solar water splitting: challenges and opportunities by Yongjing Lin, Guangbi Yuan, Stafford Sheehan, Sa Zhou and Dunwei Wang.

Issue 12 contains the following Review and Perspective articles:

In-depth Reviews:

Perspetives:

Fancy submitting an article to EES? Then why not submit to us today!

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UK-Singapore Symposium: New Approaches to Emerging Energy Systems

UK-Singapore Symposium: New Approaches to Emerging Energy Systems
12 – 13 January 2012
Singapore

Deadline for poster abstract: 4th January 2012
Registration deadline: 9th January 2012

Register today for free

International Speakers:

The UK invited speakers:

  • Professor James Barber (Imperial College London)
  • Professor Shanwen Tao (University of Strathclyde)
  • Dr Adrian Fisher (University of Cambridge)
  • Dr Alison Parkin (University of Oxford)
  • Dr John Varcoe (University of Surrey)
  • Dr Eileen Yu (Newcastle University)             

The Singapore invited speakers:

  • Professor Li Chang Ming (Nanyang Technological University)
  • Professor Chan Siew Hwa (Energy Research Institute at NTU) 
  • Professor Lin Jianyi (A*STAR Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences) 
  • Assistant Professor Chen Xiaodong (Nanyang Technological University)
  • Assistant Professor Fan Hongjin (Nanyang Technological University)
  • Assistant Professor Ng How Yong (National University of Singapore)             

In addition, Philip Earis, Editor of Energy and Environmental Science will be giving a short talk during this symposium.

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Markus Antonietti joins EES Advisory Board

Markus AntoniettiEnergy & Environmental Science is delighted to announce that Professor Markus Antonietti of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, has joined our Advisory Board.

Markus’ interests include the synthesis of novel polymers and sol-gel materials, green chemistry and carbon negative chemistry cycles as well as energy materials and artificial photosynthesis.

Professor Antonietti’s recent EES communication has been attracting lots of interest! Read it today:

Sulfur-mediated synthesis of carbon nitride: Band-gap engineering and improved functions for photocatalysis
Jinshui Zhang, Jianhua Sun, Kazuhiko Maeda, Kazunari Domen, Ping Liu, Markus Antonietti, Xianzhi Fu and Xinchen Wang
DOI: 10.1039/C0EE00418A

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Giving fuel cells a vitamin boost

With the increasing energy demands of the 21st century creating a pressing interest in alternative power sources, the demand for high performing, state-of-the-art fuel cells has never been greater. However, these fuel cells require the precious metal platinum to generate their high power output, and this drawback has led scientists in Taiwan to develop a competitive replacement by combining carbon, and curiously, vitamin B12.

‘The limited abundance of platinum and other noble metals on Earth restricts the development of fuel cells. Searching for a non-noble-metal catalyst is a major issue,’ explains Kuei-Hsien Chen, from the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Science, Taipei, who, along with other colleagues, has developed this peculiar solution.

A light bulb and vitamin B12 bottle

In order to generate electricity, most modern fuel cell devices require an oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode of the cell, whilst simultaneously, another chemical (often hydrogen) is oxidised at the anode. This redox reaction for power generation has been limited by the slow ORR process, which in nature requires complex enzymes to proceed at any meaningful rate.

Although scientists have been investigating methods for speeding up the ORR, it has been notoriously difficult to produce a cathode that can achieve this and so they have had to resort to loading high amounts of expensive platinum onto the cathode to generate the required ORR rate. 

However, Chen and co-workers have dispensed with the need for platinum altogether, by using cheap carbon that has vitamin B12 dispersed throughout, to form the cathode of their polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC). The performance of this cathode doesn’t quite match that of platinum based cathodes, but at a fraction of the cost, this cathode could open up real opportunities for the practical application of these fuel cells. 

Fuel cell expert John Varcoe, from the University of Surrey, UK, thinks that Chen’s advance clearly shows ‘promise for use as a fuel cell catalyst’, however, he urges caution by noting that the fuel cell’s performance over ‘many thousands of hours will need to be demonstrated before it will rival current (more expensive) fuel cell catalysts’.

Chen hopes to continue to develop his PEFC to make the cathode more effective, but in the meantime, this research may make fuel cells more accessible as a power source for the world’s future energy needs.

Ross McLaren



Read the paper from Energy & Environmental Science:

Vitalizing fuel cells with vitamins: pyrolyzed vitamin B12 as a non-precious catalyst for enhanced oxygen reduction reaction of polymer electrolyte fuel cells
Sun-Tang Chang, Chen-Hao Wang, He-Yun Du, Hsin-Cheng Hsu, Chih-Ming Kang, Chia-Chun Chen, Jeffrey C. S. Wu, Shi-Chern Yen, Wen-Fei Huang, Li-Chyong Chen, M. C. Lin and Kuei-Hsien Chen
Energy Environ. Sci., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1ee01962g

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EES Issue 11 out now!

The latest issue of Energy & Environmental Science is now online. You can read the full issue here:



The outside front cover features an article on High and selective CO2 uptake, H2 storage and methanol sensing on the amine-decorated 12-connected MOF CAU-1 by Xiaoliang Si, Chengli Jiao, Fen Li, Jian Zhang, Shuang Wang, Shuang Liu, Zhibao Li, Lixian Sun, Fen Xu, Zelimir Gabelica and Christoph Schick.





Metabolite-based mutualism between Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 and Enterobacter aerogenes enhances current generation in bioelectrochemical systems is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Arvind Venkataraman, Miriam A. Rosenbaum, Sarah D. Perkins, Jeffrey J. Werner and Largus T. Angenent.

Issue 11 contains the following Perspective and Review articles – take a look at these exciting feature articles:

Fancy submitting an article to EES? Then why not submit to us today!

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New technique to study charge recombination in solar cells

HOT EES communication

The recombination of charges before they reach the electrode in a solar cell has been identified as one of the key reasons for a loss of efficiency in these systems. Tracey Clarke and coworkers have developed a new switch-based time resolved technique for studying the recombination process. This allowed the researchers to overcome the resistance-dependence limitations of typical time-of-flight experiments.

Read the full HOT EES communication:

Non-Langevin bimolecular recombination in a silole-based polymer:PCBM solar cell measured by time-resolved charge extraction and resistance-dependent time-of-flight techniques
Tracey M. Clarke, Jeff Peet, Patrick Denk, Gilles Dennler, Christoph Lungenschmied and Attila J. Mozer
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE02434E

graph

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International Symposium on Advanced Complex Inorganic Nanomaterials Poster Prizes

EES was delighted to sponsor three poster prize awards at the International Symposium on Advanced Complex Inorganic Nanomaterials which was held in Namur, Belgium on 11-14 September 2011.

The meeting was a great success with around 270 participants from 37 different countries. The three EES poster prizes were awarded to:

1) Experimental and theoretical study of TiO2 anatase nanoparticles surfaces properties

Olivier Durupthy, Fabien Dufour, Asmae Bouzoubaa, Yuheng Wang, Sophie Cassaignon and Corinne Chaneac, Université P. M. Curie, Paris, France

2) Synthesis and formation process of e-Fe2O3 magnetic nanowire

Marie Yoshikiyo, Shunsuke Sakurai, Kotaro Tomita, Asuka Namai, Shin-ichi Ohkoshi, University of Tokyo, Japan

3) Optimization and characterization of synthesis of Ce doped Tatanium oxide nanotubes

Shunta Sakai, Takashi Oba, Cao Wai, Hani E. Elsayed-Ali and Takuya Suzuk, University of Kitakyushu, Japan


Submit your lastest research to EES today!

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