Science - Maglev on existing tracks with no heavy magnets

eggwhites to dissolve microplastics..cool

and it may even be a much cheaper method of desalination to help generate freshwater

Scientists have invented a wild way to remove plastic pollution from our oceans with egg whites: ‘99% efficiency’ (msn.com)

Researchers at Princeton Engineering have found a way to turn your breakfast food into a new material that can cheaply remove microplastics from our oceans.

Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that result from both commercial product development and the breakdown of larger plastics. They can find their way into our food and water, causing a variety of health problems. They’re also everywhere — it’s estimated that there are more than 24 trillion pieces in our oceans.

Using regular, store-bought egg whites, the team at Princeton created an aerogel, which is a lightweight material that can be used for water filtration, energy storage, and thermal insulation. The idea for this process came during lunch, as Craig Arnold, the vice dean of innovation at Princeton, was eating a sandwich.
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In a paper published in Materials Today, Arnold and his co-authors showed that the resulting material can remove both salt and microplastics from seawater — with 98% and 99% efficiency, respectively. The resulting egg white material is inexpensive to produce, energy efficient, and highly effective. As Sehmus Ozden, one of the paper’s authors, stated: “Activated carbon is one of the cheapest materials used for water purification. We compared our results with activated carbon, and it’s much better.”

 

another solar breakthrough..not long before windows will be solar cells and all the glass in the building will be one large solar cell

Scientists break world record for solar power window material (msn.com)

Scientists have achieved a new world record for a next-generation solar cell, which holds the promise for novel applications like building-integrated and window solar panels. The breakthrough follows two years of research from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University into organic solar cells (OSCs), which until now have been too inefficient and costly to be used widely in practical applications.

The research team invented a new technique to boost the stability of OSCs, achieving a power-conversion efficiency of 19.3 per cent. “The new finding will make OSC research an exciting field, and this will likely create tremendous opportunities in applications like portable electronics and building-integrated photovoltaics,” said Li Gang, a professor of energy conversion technology at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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OSCs are more lightweight and flexible than traditional silicon-based solar panels, as they consist of thin layers of organic semiconducting materials.
The materials used are more environmentally friendly and 1,000-times thinner than silicon solar cells, meaning they have the potential to be vastly cheaper. They are also semi-transparent, allowing them to be used not just within building materials, but also on windows.
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California-based Ubiquitous Energy raised more than $30 million last year to push forward its vision of turning skyscrapers into “vertical solar farms” through the development of windows capable of converting sunlight into electricity. The firm aims to begin production at some point next year following further research and development.

 

Guess this will only work in humid environments. Wonder how long it will take to turn a thumbnail size unit into a refrigerator size unit and how does removing energy from the air impact the environment? It would seem that extracting energy would result in cooling.

 

this would work great as battery storage, use excess electricity to create hydrogen that can then be burned when the sun isn't shing or the wind isn't blowing.

just wonder how long it is going to take for all these new inventions to be scaled up and incorporated into our economy.