​A research group from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has made great, rapid strides towards the development of a specially designed molecule which can store solar energy for later use. These advances have been presented in four scientific articles this year, with the most recent being published in the highly ranked journal Energy & Environmental Science. 

Growing and harvesting bioenergy crops—corn for ethanol or trees to fuel power plants, for example—is a poor use of land, which is a precious resource in the fight against climate change, says a University of Michigan researcher.

Pyrolysis – a process of biomass decomposition – can be organized automatically. That is, it is sufficient to heat biomass to a certain temperature and then the process proceeds in the autothermal mode due to its own heat release. This technology was studied by the scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University in the article published in Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (IF 2.209; Q2). The development of research in this domain will make energy generation out of biofuel more resource efficient and feasible.

Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a nanoparticle type for novel use in artificial photosynthesis by adding zinc sulfide on the surface of indium-based quantum dots. These quantum dots produce clean hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight – a sustainable source of energy. They introduce new eco-friendly and powerful materials to solar photocatalysis.

Columbia Engineers make white paint whiter—and cooler—by removing white pigment and invent a polymer coating.

A small tract of land in the southwest corner of the former Horace Williams Airport property is slated to house the University’s latest renewable energy project, this one powered by the sun.

Stanford researchers have mapped local susceptibility to man-made earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Bioscience engineers at KU Leuven already knew how to make gasoline in the laboratory from plant waste such as sawdust. Now the researchers have developed a roadmap, as it were, for industrial cellulose gasoline.

A century ago, natural gas was not the hot commodity it is today. A byproduct of oil production, or fracking, natural gas is now abundant and low-cost, resulting in its high demand for energy production.

Data acquired by the U.S. Geological Survey on the U.S. Atlantic Margin in August 2018 reveal new information about the distribution of gas hydrates in the sector stretching from the upper continental slope to deep water areas offshore New Jersey to North Carolina.