Stanford University scientists have built the first solar cell made entirely of carbon.
It may present a promising alternative to the expensive materials used in photovoltaic devices today.
Tag Archives: carbon
Vanished Brazilian Atlantic Forest still has negative carbon balance
Not so long ago Brazil was home to not one, but two of the Earth´s largest tropical rainforest biomes, the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest. Including true rainforest, dry tropical forest and mangroves the Atlantic Forest used to span an … Continue reading
Today´s paradox: more vegetation means more CO2 – in tundra that is
Birches can’t hurt the climate. They’re made of carbon and – just to be sure – they’re even painted white! Well, at least on the Swedish tundra that’s no guarantee…
Zeolites can reduce carbon capture energy costs by 30 per cent
In this zeolite structure, the arrangement of oxygen atoms (red) and silicon atoms (tan) influences the regions in the pores (colored surface) where CO2 can be captured.
A detailed analysis of more than 4 million absorbent minerals has determined that new materials could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the “parasitic energy” costs associated with removing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.
The research by scientists at Rice University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was published online this week in the journal Nature Materials (“In silico screening of carbon-capture materials”).
Flatulent dinosaurs may have been a larger methane source than current human activities
The long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs known as sauropods that lived about 150 million years ago appear to have been rather flatulent. New calculations put the combined methane production of the hulking beasts at 520 million tonnes (Tg). As a comparison the … Continue reading
Stopping economic growth for the sake of the climate
A United States and Spanish research team has conducted a study into the most likely causes of climate change and came to a rather surprising conclusion. The most feasible manner of stopping climate change is halting economic growth. Or changing … Continue reading
New carbon capture technique is highly energy efficient
Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) (Credit: Texas A&M University)
Ask Texas A&M University chemist Hong-Cai “Joe” Zhou to describe his research in simple terms, and more often than not, he’ll draw on a favorite analogy from childhood: playing with LEGOs.
Natural and human-made CO2 differentiation possible thanks to new monitoring technique
A large diversity of gasses in the atmosphere influence air quality, climate change and the recovery of the ozone layer. Measuring the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere is quite straightforward. But pinpointing wether the gasses are a natural … Continue reading