Innovation Pipeline

There are a lot of big ideas in the field of alternative power, from massive solar arrays to fields of wind turbines stretching toward the horizon. And then there are microbes.
Scientists are hoping that some sophisticated bioengineering on their part can leverage billions of years of bacterial evolution to combat our growing energy crisis.
Single-celled bacteria [...]

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Harvesting and storing energy is a big challenge for a supercharged tech society on the run. From cellphones and laptops to a growing number of portable music and camera devices, electricity and battery life has become essential for much of today’s business activities.
The trouble is that batteries still cannot deliver the kind of longevity needed [...]

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When listing nature’s wonders, you’d have to put spiderwebs somewhere near the top. Strands of biomaterial with the tensile strength of steel formed into complex shapes that withstand wind, heat and sunlight. They’re so impressive that scientists still don’t entirely understand them.
But recently researchers at the University of Wyoming have deciphered the glue that cements [...]

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The efficiency and elegance of materials occurring in nature have always been an inspiration to researchers. Trying to achieve similar results via nanoengineering, scientists are now working on nanoscale particles that automatically orient themselves into unique materials with powerful properties.
It makes sense, this self-assembly approach, because it’s simply too difficult to manipulate nanoparticles with lab [...]

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New thinking about how to design and build batteries is generating some novel research well outside the box of mainstream electronics. A group of scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Yale University recently revealed in a research paper in Advanced Materials how certain real cells generate electric voltages and hence act [...]

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For all the unpleasant characteristics green algae possesses, it is beloved in cleantech circles because it can manufacture biofuels.
Now, scientists at the Angstrom Laboratory at Uppsala University in Sweden have discovered green algae’s distinctive cellulose nanostructure can also provide an effective coating substrate for batteries. It provides two advantages: it’s lighter in weight and much [...]

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The U.S. stimulus package had a clear message and mandate for renewable energy. There was far less stimulus devoted to the water industry and people wondered how that would impact the business.
As it turns out, a recent water industry survey of businesses and technologists indicates there’s a rebound in water-project spending expected over the next [...]

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Sensor networks are now commonly used for jobs like monitoring and managing heat and light in buildings. Now they’re being deployed underwater, to gain insights about environmental conditions beneath the oceans.
But lots of problems make underwater sensor networks difficult. Wireless signal propagation, short bandwidth, limited battery life and also a highly corrosive environment where fouling [...]

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Looking back on the historic computer collaboration demonstration in 1968, it was as if a time traveler from the future had returned to San Francisco to share a glimpse of the future. There were other major technology milestones achieved that year with the first man walking on the moon.
The assassinations of Martin [...]

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Research teams at Clemson, UCLA and the University of Southampton are pioneering novel nanoscale sensors for detecting environmental toxins and other harmful airborne chemical and biological agents.
At Clemson, researchers have developed nanoscale cantilevers that potentially could be placed in a handheld device and used for real-time chemical alerts in detecting harmful gases on the battlefield, [...]

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