Professor Patrik Johansson is the new director of the flagship project Battery 2030+. He has led many large international research projects and was most recently director of the EU research programme the Graphene Flagship.
Uppsala University is the new world record holder for electrical energy generation from CIGS solar cells. The new world record is 23.64 per cent efficiency. The measurement was made by an independent institute and the results are published in the journal Nature Energy.
The nuclear accident in Chernobyl in 1986 led to the spread of radioactivity across Sweden and Europe. In a long-term study now published in Environmental Epidemiology, researchers have used new, more specific calculation methods to show the connection between radiation dose and certain types of cancer.
In the quest for fossil-free fuels for aircraft, a new study shows that isoprene could be part of a future solution. Isoprene can be produced by blue-green algae from sunlight, water and ordinary carbon dioxide. The productivity of the cyanobacteria increases if they are exposed to violet light or higher temperatures, and isoprene is ideally suited for photochemical processing into aviation fuels.
Researchers from several universities have, by studying helical molecules in the body such as DNA, received clues as to how energy production in fuel cells can be made more efficient without admixture of carbon dioxide and heavy metals. The new research shows how the helical molecules, found naturally in all oxygen-dependent life, catalyses energy production in the cells.
Hydrogen for energy use can be extracted in an environmentally friendly way from water and sunlight, using photocatalytic composite polymer nanoparticles developed by researchers at Uppsala University. In laboratory tests, these “polymer dots” showed promising performance and stability alike. The study has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
In a new article a research group at Uppsala University show, using computer simulations, that ions do not always behave as expected. In their research on molten salts, they were able to see that, in some cases, the ions in the salt mixture they were studying affect one another so much that they may even move in the “wrong” direction – that is, towards an electrode with the same charge.
Hydrogen gas and methanol for fuel cells or as raw materials for the chemicals industry, for example, could be produced more sustainably using sunlight, a new Uppsala University study shows. In this study, researchers have developed a new coating material for semiconductors that may create new opportunities to produce fuels in processes that combine direct sunlight with electricity.
The European research initiative BATTERY 2030+ is now getting going. The ambition is to make Europe a world-leader in the development and production of the batteries of the future. These batteries need to store more energy, have a longer life, and be safer and more environmentally friendly than today’s batteries in order to facilitate the transition to a more climate-neutral society.
In a new study, a research group at Uppsala University explain their outstanding success in harvesting “hot electron holes”. The results of their work can be used to improve solar cells, photochemical reactions and photosensors. The scientific article is published in Nature Materials.
A new mathematical model for predicting variations in solar irradiance has been developed at Uppsala University. It may help to promote more efficient use of electricity from solar energy. In tests of various data models, the model proved capable of making highly reliable forecasts, and emerged as the best for this purpose in some respects.
Sustainable energy storage is in great demand. Researchers at Uppsala University have therefore developed an all-organic proton battery that can be charged in a matter of seconds. The battery can be charged and discharged over 500 times without any significant loss of capacity. Their work has been published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie.
The European large-scale research initiative BATTERY 2030+ presents the long-term research roadmap that outlines the actions needed to invent the sustainable batteries of the future.
Soon we will be able to replace fossil fuels with a carbon-neutral product created from solar energy, carbon dioxide and water. Researchers at Uppsala University have successfully produced microorganisms that can efficiently produce the alcohol butanol using carbon dioxide and solar energy, without needing to use solar cells. The results have been published in Energy & Environmental Science.
A research project led by Uppsala University has been awarded a EUR 3.2 million grant by the European Commission. The aim is to create renewable solar fuel using soap foam, carbon dioxide and sunlight.
In a new scientific article, researchers at Uppsala University describe how, using a completely new method, they have synthesised an artificial enzyme that functions in the metabolism of living cells. These enzymes can utilise the cell’s own energy, and thereby enable hydrogen gas to be produced from solar energy.
In an article in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, scientists at Uppsala University present a type of low-cost and environmental-friendly organic polymer nano-material as photocatalysts for hydrogen generation, and propose the working mechanism of the photocatalytic reactive site.
Hydrogen gas has long been proposed as a promising energy carrier for future energy applications, but generating the gas from water has proved inefficient. In an article in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, scientists at Uppsala University now present an alternative, interdisciplinary method based on principles from nature.
Household electricity use falls by more than 30% when residents are obliged to pay for their own personal consumption. This is shown in a new study by researchers at Uppsala University’s and the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).
In a new study, an international team of researchers made significant progress in visualizing the process how plants split water to produce oxygen. The results are published in Nature.