EES Blog

Size matters with microbial fuel cells

14 Aug 2012

Scientists working at Oregon State University have made scaled up microbial fuel cells, which use microorganisms to generate electricity from wastewater, that show enhanced performance over those previously studied. The double cloth electrode assembly-based cells were over 10 times larger than those previously reported and showed good performance even after 9 weeks of continuous operation. The group’s results have been highlighted on the ScienceDaily website.

Read the full details of this exciting article today:

Improved performance of CEA microbial fuel cells with increased reactor size
Yanzhen Fan, Sun-Kee Han and Hong Liu
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8273-8280
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21964F

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Excellent thermoelectrics research from Energy & Environmental Science

08 Aug 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

We would like to share with you a selection of high impact articles, published in Energy & Environmental Science covering a wide range of thermoelectrics research.

On behalf of Editor-in-Chief Nate Lewis (Caltech), we invite you to submit your best research to Energy & Environmental Science.

With an Impact Factor of 9.61 and ranked #1 in its field, Energy & Environmental Science is the ideal place to publish your research.

Sign up to receive our free table-of-contents e-alert at www.rsc.org/alerts and be among the first to read our newest articles.

Read this high-impact thermoelectrics research today:

Reviews

Perspectives on thermoelectrics: from fundamentals to device applications
M. Zebarjadi, K. Esfarjani, M. S. Dresselhaus, Z. F. Ren and G. Chen
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE02497C

Resonant levels in bulk thermoelectric semiconductors
Joseph P. Heremans, Bartlomiej Wiendlocha and Audrey M. Chamoire
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE02612G

Prospects for polymer-based thermoelectrics: state of the art and theoretical analysis
Theodore O. Poehler and Howard E. Katz
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22124A

Original research

Low effective mass leading to high thermoelectric performance
Yanzhong Pei, Aaron D. LaLonde, Heng Wang and G. Jeffrey Snyder
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21536E

High thermoelectric figure of merit in nanostructured p-type PbTe–MTe (M = Ca, Ba)
Kanishka Biswas, Jiaqing He, Guoyu Wang, Shih-Han Lo, Ctirad Uher, Vinayak P. Dravid and Mercouri G. Kanatzidis
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE02297K

Flexible carbon nanotube papers with improved thermoelectric properties
Weiyun Zhao, Shufen Fan, Ni Xiao, Dayong Liu, Yee Yan Tay, Cui Yu, Daohao Sim, Huey Hoon Hng, Qichun Zhang, Freddy Boey, Jan Ma, Xinbing Zhao, Hua Zhang and Qingyu Yan
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01931G

Enhancement of thermoelectric figure-of-merit by resonant states of aluminium doping in lead selenide
Qinyong Zhang, Hui Wang, Weishu Liu, Hengzhi Wang, Bo Yu, Qian Zhang, Zhiting Tian, George Ni, Sangyeop Lee, Keivan Esfarjani, Gang Chen and Zhifeng Ren
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE02465E

High thermoelectric figure of merit zT>1 in Ba heavily doped BiCuSeO oxyselenides
Li-Dong Zhao, Jing Li, Jiehe Sui, Yanling Pei, Celine Barreteau, David Berardan, Nita Dragoe, Wei Cai and Jiaqing He
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22622G

Combining alloy scattering of phonons and resonant electronic levels to reach a high thermoelectric figure of merit in PbTeSe and PbTeS alloys
Christopher M. Jaworski, Bartlomiej Wiendlocha, Vladimir Jovovic and Joseph P. Heremans
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01895G

High thermoelectric figure of merit in heavy hole dominated PbTe
Yanzhong Pei, Aaron LaLonde, Shiho Iwanaga and G. Jeffrey Snyder
DOI: 10.1039/C0EE00456A

A novel high-performance photovoltaic–thermoelectric hybrid device
Ning Wang, Li Han, Hongcai He, Nam-Hee Park and Kunihito Koumoto
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01646F

Sb₂Te₃ and Bi₂Te₃ based thermopower wave sources
Sumeet Walia, Rodney Weber, Sharath Sriram, Madhu Bhaskaran, Kay Latham, Serge Zhuiykov and Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01370J

Recrystallization induced in situ nanostructures in bulk bismuth antimony tellurides: a simple top down route and improved thermoelectric properties
Jun-Jie Shen, Tie-Jun Zhu, Xin-Bing Zhao, Sheng-Nan Zhang, Sheng-Hui Yang and Zhen-Zhong Yin
DOI: 10.1039/C0EE00012D

You can find even more great thermoelectric research in our Energy & Environmental Science thermoelectrics web collection.

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New research on capacitive desalination

06 Aug 2012

By Jane Hordern, Deputy Editor.

Desalination is currently a very topical area of research; with the world’s ever increasing population and demand for fresh drinking water. As a result, research in this area is moving fast, with new technologies being developed all the time.

EES has just published papers from two separate groups on the latest developments in capacitive deonization/desalination. Capacitive desalination (CD) is a promising new desalination technique, relative to reverse osmosis (RO), as it can operate at low (sub-osmotic) pressures and has the potential to use less energy when desalinating brackish water (from estuaries and coastal marsland).

The first paper demonstrates an alternative architecture to traditional CD cells, where the feed flows directly through the electrodes along the direction of the primary electric field (flow-through electrode (FTE) capacitive desalination). This novel set-up has resulted in a significant reduction in desalination time and improved salt concentration reductions; with a mean sorption rate of nearly 1 mg NaCl per g aerogel per min, that’s up to 10 times higher than that demonstrated by the typical CD cell:

Capacitive desalination with flow-through electrodes
Matthew E. Suss , Theodore F. Baumann , William L. Bourcier , Christopher M. Spadaccini , Klint A. Rose , Juan G. Santiago and Michael Stadermann
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21498A

The second paper discusses membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI), which is based on applying a cell voltage between two oppositely placed porous electrodes, with a spacer channel that transports the water to be desalinated. Current MCDI devices operate at a constant cell voltage, resulting in an effluent stream of desalinated water of which the salt concentration varies with time. In this paper, van der Wal and colleagues propose a different operational mode for MCDI, whereby desalination is driven by a constant electrical current, which leads to a constant salt concentration in the desalinated stream over long periods of time. This is shown to significantly reduce energy consumption, which would be essential for the economic viability of membrane-based desalination techniques:

Energy consumption and constant current operation in membrane capacitive deionization
R. Zhao , P. M. Biesheuvel and A. van der Wal
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21737F

You can read more about desalination in the recent Chemistry World article: Keeping the tap on and other related articles.

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EES Issue 8 now online!

03 Aug 2012

By Aliya Anwar.

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 Introducing structural colour in DSCs by using photonic crystals: interplay between conversion efficiency and optical properties by Daniele Colonna, Silvia Colodrero, Henrik Lindström, Aldo Di Carlo and Hernán Míguez.

Modeling geminate pair dissociation in organic solar cells: high power conversion efficiencies achieved with moderate optical bandgaps is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Jonathan D. Servaites, Brett M. Savoie, Joseph B. Brink, Tobin J. Marks and Mark A. Ratner.

Issue 8 contains the following Review, Perspective and Minireview articles:

Review articles

Morphology characterization in organic and hybrid solar cells
Wei Chen, Maxim P. Nikiforov and Seth B. Darling
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8045-8074
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22056C
A review on nanomaterials for environmental remediation
Mya Mya Khin, A. Sreekumaran Nair, V. Jagadeesh Babu, Rajendiran Murugan and Seeram Ramakrishna
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8075-8109
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21818F

Perspectives

Prospects for polymer-based thermoelectrics: state of the art and theoretical analysis
Theodore O. Poehler and Howard E. Katz
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8110-8115
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22124A
Future carbon dioxide removal via biomass energy constrained by agricultural efficiency and dietary trends
Thomas W. R. Powell and Timothy M. Lenton
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8116-8133
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21592F
Catalytic water oxidation at single metal sites
Rui Cao, Wenzhen Lai and Pingwu Du
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8134-8157
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21494F
Overcoming efficiency challenges in organic solar cells: rational development of conjugated polymers
Hae Jung Son, Bridget Carsten, In Hwan Jung and Luping Yu
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8158-8170
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21608F

Minireviews

Formic acid as a hydrogen source – recent developments and future trends
Martin Grasemann and Gábor Laurenczy
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8171-8181
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21928J
Graphene as a counter electrode material for dye-sensitized solar cells
Hui Wang and Yun Hang Hu
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 8182-8188
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE21905K

Fancy submitting an article to Energy & Environmental Science? Then why not submit to us today!

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Nanogenerators show sensitive wind-speed detection

27 Jul 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

Researchers working in the US and China have reported a composite zinc oxide–poly(vinylidene fluoride) nanogenerator (NG) which can convert energy from an air flow into electricity with no need for additional battery power. The system shows improved power density and sensitivity compared to previously reported NGs, with a lower limit of flow detection of 0.6m s^-1 and is environmentally friendly. The system has potential applications in gas pipeline monitoring.

Nanogenerator as an active sensor for vortex capture and ambient wind-velocity detection
Rui Zhang, Long Lin, Qingshen Jing, Wenzhuo Wu, Yan Zhang, Zongxia Jiao, Liang Yan, Ray P. S. Han and Zhong Lin Wang
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22354F

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A twist on dye-sensitised solar cells

23 Jul 2012

By Jane Hordern, Deputy Editor.

Dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs) have been attracted increasing interest recently as an alternative to conventional silicon-based solar cells, owing to their relatively high conversion efficiencies and low manufacturing costs.

In DSSC devices, dye aggregation on the TiO₂ electrode is one of the most serious problems, which leads to a reduced device performance. Conventional solutions involve cumbersome optimisation processes and increased production costs, so a simple solution for the problem is required.

Scientists in Japan and China have reported an aggregation-free branch-type organic dye with a twisting pi-conjugate architecture. They compare it with an analogue dye possessing a planar molecular structure. The influences of deoxycholic acid co-adsorption are investigated, and it is found that the twisting dye has excellent potential as an aggregation-free dye.

Read the ‘HOT’ EES article hot off the press:

Aggregation-free branch-type organic dye with a twisted molecular architecture for dye-sensitized solar cells
Youhei Numata, Ashraful Islam, Han Chen and Liyuan Han
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22506A

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New oxyselenide material to convert wasted heat into electricity

23 Jul 2012

By Jane Hordern, Deputy Editor.

Scientists in China and the US have demonstrated a thermoelectric material with excellent thermal and chemical stability up to high temperatures; it’s a promising material for converting wasted heat into electricity, they say.

The material is an oxyselenide – BiCuSeO. A high ZT ~1.1 at 923K in BiCuSeO system is achieved via Ba heavily doping and refining grain sizes (200~400 nm), which is higher than any thermoelectric oxides. Excellent thermal and chemical stability up to 923 K and high thermoelectric performance confirm that BiCuSeO system is promising for thermoelectric power generation applications.

Read the ‘HOT’ EES Communication:

High thermoelectric figure of merit ZT>1 in Ba heavily doped BiCuSeO oxyselenides
Li-Dong Zhao, Jing Li, Jiehe Sui, yanling pei, celine barreteau, David Berardan, Nita Dragoe, Wei Cai and Jiaqing He
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22622G

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How the Fukushima nuclear disaster affected health across the world

18 Jul 2012

By Heather Montgomery, Deputy Editor.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station was badly damaged in the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami which occurred off the east coast of Japan in March last year. The resulting meltdown of nuclear fuel rods and explosions at the plant caused the leakage of nuclear material.

In this fascinating Energy & Environmental Science article John E. Ten Hoeve and Mark Z. Jacobson working at Stanford University report a detailed analysis of the effects of this accident on the health of the population worldwide. They estimate that the accident resulted in 130 cancer-related mortalities (with a lower confidence limit of 15 and upper limit of 1100) and 180 (24–1800) cancer-related morbidities worldwide.

The authors also modelled a hypothetical accident at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, USA, predicting that such an event could result in a ~25% higher morality level due to the meteorological conditions found there.

In his Opinion article commenting on the results, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Burton Richter comments that “My rough analysis finds that health effects, including mortality, would have been much worse with fossil fuel used to generate the same amount of electricity as was nuclear generated.” A surprising conclusion perhaps and something policy makers will no doubt be thinking hard about in the months and years to come.

Read this Energy & Environmental Science article in full today along with the accompanying Opinion and response:

Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident
John E. Ten Hoeve and Mark Z. Jacobson
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22019A

Opinion on “Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident” by J. E. Ten Hoeve and M. Z. Jacobson, Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, DOI: 10.1039/c2ee22019a
Burton Richter
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22658H

Reply to the ‘Opinion on “Worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident”’ by B. Richter, Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, DOI:10.1039/c2ee22658h
John E. Ten Hoeve and Mark Z. Jacobson
DOI: 10.1039/C2EE22659F

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At the cutting edge of naval research

13 Jul 2012

By Aliya Anwar.

Jeffrey W. Long is a research chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC, US

Jeffrey W. Long

What does your role entail?

I do experimental work as part of a group. Our group primarily focuses on materials discovery for power/energy applications, particularly electrochemical systems – batteries, electrochemical capacitors (ECs, also known as supercapacitors) and to a lesser extent, fuel cells.

What are latest developments in your field?

The electrochemical capacitor field is becoming much more popular. These are devices that charge and discharge much more quickly than batteries, typically on the order of a few seconds. They don’t have quite as much energy, but you don’t always need high energy density for particular applications. Sometimes, you need that rapid switching between charge and discharge states. Over the past 10 years, this has become a much more popular technology and we’ve been contributing to that by developing new materials that enable that kind of process.

Visit Chemistry World to read the full interview.

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Size matters with microbial fuel cells

Top 10 most-read EES articles in June

Excellent thermoelectrics research from Energy & Environmental Science

New research on capacitive desalination

EES Issue 8 now online!

Nanogenerators show sensitive wind-speed detection

A twist on dye-sensitised solar cells

New oxyselenide material to convert wasted heat into electricity

How the Fukushima nuclear disaster affected health across the world

At the cutting edge of naval research

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