Students invent solar vaccine storage system for Sub-Saharan locales

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MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. – A team of four SUNY Orange engineering sciences students is among a dozen teams announced as finalists Wednesday (April 27) for the 2022 Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC) organized by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The CCIC is a national competition where community college student teams use science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to innovate solutions to real-world problems.

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Source: The Photo News

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This solar-powered plane could stay in the air for months

In 2016, a bizarre-looking plane, covered with more than 17,000 solar panels, showed the world a glimpse of the future of flight. With the wingspan of a Boeing 747, but weighing only as much as an SUV, it circumnavigated the Earth without using a drop of fuel.
Called Solar Impulse 2, it was the brainchild of Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard and Swiss engineer Bertrand Borschberg, built to showcase the potential of renewable energy. After its record-breaking flight, it had accomplished its goal — but now it’s getting a new lease of life.
In 2019 it was bought by Skydweller Aero, a US-Spanish startup which aims to turn the plane into the world’s first commercially viable “pseudo-satellite,” capable of doing the work of an orbiting satellite, but with more flexibility and less environmental impact.

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Source: CNN

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New solar-powered system produces energy and drinking water

A new solar-powered system out of Saudi Arabia is capable of producing two vital resources: energy and clean water.

Peng Wang, an environmental scientist at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), was working alongside a team of biologists and engineers to improve solar panels’ efficiency when he thought of the idea for the system. Wang grew up in a Western China village without running water, requiring his family to fetch water from a communal well. If scalable, his team’s invention could supplement or fulfill similar communities’ water and energy needs.

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Source: Extreme Tech

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A Maine company has built the world’s 1st solar-powered electric boat

On a windy day last week, a Maine company made history when it launched a prototype of the first-ever completely solar-powered powerboat on a Waldo County lake.

“I’m pretty blown away by it,” Dan Miller, the owner of Belmont Boatworks, said Wednesday of the launch of Solar Sal 24 on Lake St. George in Liberty. “It was really fantastic. She did everything she was supposed to do, and did it perfectly.”

Solar Sal, which Miller describes as an open day boat, is different from other solar/plug-in hybrids that are currently on the market, including some pontoon boats. The only way to charge its batteries and the electric motor is with the solar panels on the boat’s canopy.

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Source: Bangor Daily News

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Tesco trials solar-powered refrigerated trailers

Retailer Tesco is trialing solar-powered refrigerated trailers in a collaboration with Marshall Fleet Solutions.

The solar-powered trailers fitted with Marshall’s Titan system are now on the road and servicing Tesco distribution centers across the country. Titan uses power produced from lightweight, high powered solar panels and stores the electrical energy in long life lightweight lithium batteries to provide power to the refrigeration unit.

“We’ve got 4,200 trailers in our distribution fleet transporting fresh goods such as fruit, vegetables, ready meals and sandwiches,” said Tesco’s fleet engineering manager Cliff Smith. “Around 3,000 of those are refrigerated and with a goal to bring carbon emissions to net zero by 2035 and the imminent removal of red diesel entitlements, we’ve had to look at the way our food gets to stores and customers.

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Source: Cooling Post

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AI method learns from experienced staff on perovskite solar production lines

Academics from MIT and Stanford who have posited a new production method for perovskite solar cells have also developed a machine learning system which benefits from the experience of seasoned workers – and they’ve posted it online for anyone to use.

There’s no substitute for experience and researchers in the US have acknowledged the fact by coming up with a machine learning method for producing perovskite solar cells which can incorporate the observations of seasoned production line staff.

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Source: PV Magazine

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MI universities may be developing the next big thing: clear solar panels

Silicon is king when it comes to solar panels, but the reign of that dark, opaque material could be near its end.

An unassuming stretch of windows on Michigan State University’s campus is poised to revolutionize solar energy, a fast-growing and increasingly prevalent source of power. The panes installed last year look like regular glass, but they harvest enough sunlight to power the lights in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences building’s atrium.

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Source: Detroit News

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Solar growth is spreading into new U.S. markets as developers tackle grid challenges and new demand pockets open up in central states.Panel The Planet

Solar nanowire-nanotube filter offers easy access to clean drinking water

Scientists at EPFL have developed a highly efficient water purification filter that uses only solar power. The prototype can supply clean drinking water even at remote places to small populations and can be easily scaled-up.

“In a close collaboration between chemists, physicists, and biologists, we have developed a very efficient water purification device, which does not need any energy source but sunlight,” says Forró. “Our prototype can supply clean drinking water even at remote places to small populations and could be easily scaled-up. It is a great achievement and an important “side-product” of this project is that it has attracted a large number of talented and motivated students who care for environmental issues, for sustainability”.

In their paper, published in the Nature partner journal npjClean Water, the researchers showcase a prototype of the filter and make suggestions for further improvements. “I am convinced that it will create a strong follow-up in versatile scientific communities and hopefully funding agencies,” says Endre Horváth, the lead scientist on the project.

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Source: Science Daily

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Solar energy can now be stored for up to 18 years, say scientists

Solar-powered electronics are one step closer to becoming an everyday part of our lives thanks to a “radical” new scientific breakthrough.

In 2017, scientists at a Swedish university created an energy system that makes it possible to capture and store solar energy for up to 18 years, releasing it as heat when needed.

Now the researchers have succeeded in getting the system to produce electricity by connecting it to a thermoelectric generator. Though still in its early stages, the concept developed at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenberg could pave the way for self-charging electronics that use stored solar energy on demand.

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Source: Euro News

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