Although its short-term funding remains uncertain, the 2-year-old Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program has so far delivered on its mission to pursue high-risk, high-payoff research. But even at this week's ARPA-E Summit, a conference to tout potential game-changers, there were reminders that even great technology doesn't guarantee commercial success, which could be crucial when questions over government R&D funding arise in the future. In interviews at the conference, entrep...
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Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are developing a solid composite material to help cool small, powerful microelectronics used in defense systems. The material, composed of silver and diamond, promises an exceptional degree of thermal conductivity compared to materials currently used for this application. The research is focused on producing a silver-diamond thermal shim of unprecedented thinness...
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iSmithers Rapra Publishing has announced the release of Practical Guide to Smoke and Combustion Products from Burning Polymers. This Practical Guide presents one of the most complete overviews of this important topic, covering smoke generation (including obscuration, toxicity, corrosivity), small and large scale smoke assessment, regulation of smoke, and methods of controlling smoke by plastics formulation. In particular this book focuses on the assessment of fire hazard and fire risks from comb...
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According to the news release, the current Mexican patent marks the tenth international patent for Cyclone. The company also currently holds eight patents for the engine and its components in the United States. Cyclone Power Technologies is the developer of the award-winning Cyclone Engine - an eco-friendly external combustion engine with the power and versatility to run everything from portable electric generators and garden equipment to cars, trucks and locomotives. For the record literally, a...
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The latest edition of Lithological and Mineral Resources, a journal of The Russian Academy of Sciences, has reported details of research directed by French sedimentologist Guy Berthault of the prestigious university, Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, showing that sedimentary rocks form very rapidly - two thousandths of the time attributed to them by the geological time scale! The experimental research spanning a period of thirty-five years was first performed in France at the Marseilles Institute of...
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An experiment to gain a basic understanding of this phenomena launched to the International Space Station on space shuttle Discovery Feb. 24. The Nucleate Pool Boiling Experiment, or NPBX, is one of two experiments in the new Boiling eXperiment Facility, or BXF. Nucleate boiling is bubble growth from a heated surface and the subsequent detachment of the bubble to a cooler surrounding liquid. As a result, these bubbles can efficiently transfer energy from the boiling surface into the surrounding ...
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As researchers develop third generation solar cells, much of their focus is on improving efficiency. New dyes, nanostructures, and quantum dots are helping new technology to achieve more. Dye-sensitized cells have advanced steadily over the last little while, and much of the research is focused on using new dyes to increase efficiency. For example, in "Porphyrin Dye Achieves 11% Efficiency in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells," researchers led by Michael Grätzel of the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne ...
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Dr. C. Stewart Slater, Rowan University professor of chemical engineering, has been appointed chair of the Publications Board of the esteemed Chemical Engineering Education (CEE) journal. Slater previously served as vice-chair and has been a board member for more than 10 years. CEE is published jointly by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) and is the leading journal in the field of chemical engineering pedagogy. Slater ta...
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SAN FRANCISCO — Just weeks after regulators approved the last of nine multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants to be built in the Southern California desert, a storm of lawsuits and the resurgence of an older solar technology are clouding the future of the nascent industry. The litigation, which seeks to block construction of five of the solar thermal projects, underscores the growing risks of building large-scale renewable energy plants in environmentally delicate areas. On Jan. 25, for...
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Pavlos Vlachos, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, working with two engineers from Utah State Univ., have won the Lewis F. Moody Award for an outstanding original paper useful to the practice of mechanical engineering. The Moody Award, established in 1958 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Fluids Engineering Division, will be presented to Vlachos, and his two colleagues, Benjamin Timmins and Barton Smith of the mechanical engineering department at Uta...
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