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Post by swamprat on Aug 9, 2020 23:39:56 GMT
Some children are smarter than others.....Rickards High senior, changes world through a bottle cap Sabrina Hu and her Crown Cap(WCTV)
By Sophia Hernandez
Published: Aug. 9, 2020
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) -
One rising Rickards High senior, Sabrina Hu, is changing the world, but not in the way you might think. She created an invention that has not only gotten her recognized internationally, but has sparked her to want to spread a positive impact right in her own backyard.
“It feels exciting,” shares Hu, “I didn’t really think I could do something like this.”
Sabrina Hu is a soon to be senior this fall, and she spent the past two years working hard to create an invention that would benefit her community. That invention, is a solar powered water purifier. It was after she learned about a flashlight that could be powered by the human hand, invented by a 15 year old, that Hu thought she could do something too, which sparked her solar powered bottle cap.
Her biology teacher, Dr. Paula Hall shares, Hu had been extensively researching since the beginning of school year, “This was just something she had an interest in.”
Hu’s invention is called a ‘Crown Cap', or at least that is the name she hopes to give it. Right now it is a sustainable, simple solution to bring portable clean water and technology to anyone around the world.
Dr. Hall expresses that when Hu approached her with the idea, she was not sure if it would come to fruition, “I was like alright, let’s see what you can do with it.”
Sabrina used her own experiences to create the device, specifically thinking of Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms. “I noticed that my own family and other families are just stocking up on cases of bottled water, and I also knew that natural disasters bring on contaminated water.”
So with the click of a button, the UVC LED powers on, and draws power from it’s solar panels, to filter any water, whether it is in a cup or aluminum can. It also has charging ports to bring power to any device.
Hu shares it is 99.46% effective at the moment, something she hopes to tweak with more trials. But the almost near perfect success rate, and bright idea, was not always crystal clear, “There were issues every step of the way, and it took me months to complete,” says Hu, “and there were times that I was like man I can’t get this to work!”
But that did not stop her from becoming a finalist in an international competition called the Spellman High Voltage Electronics Clean Tech Competition. And now she is working on her next big invention, her patent for the ‘Crown Cap’ is pending, and she awaiting to hear back from ‘Shark Tank'.
“So we shall see where that goes,” says Hu.
In the meantime, Sabrina hopes to filter change into her own community, one cap at a time, “Dive head first into it,” shares the 17 year old, “don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of mentors that are willing to help young people and that is kind of how I got my start.”
Sabrina says she did not always grow up wanting to be in the STEM field, but now hopes to create an impact through her inventions.
www.wctv.tv/2020/08/09/rickards-high-senior-changes-world-through-a-bottle-cap/
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Post by swamprat on Aug 13, 2020 23:11:13 GMT
Charging ahead: The Future of Electric Cars 11 Aug 2020 Susan Curtis
Taken from the August 2020 issue of Physics World.
With electric cars set to enter the mainstream over the next few years, Susan Curtis investigates the new charging solutions that will be needed to power what are effectively large batteries on wheels.
Ever since Henry Ford launched the Model T in 1908 as the first truly mass-market car, the internal combustion engine has ruled the roads. The problem is that cars, vans and lorries powered by petrol and diesel have simply become too successful. Transport now accounts for almost a third of all greenhouse-gas emissions across Europe, some 90% of which is spewed out by road traffic. And the health risks posed by the particulates emitted by fossil-fuel engines have prompted many cities to ban or restrict the worst offenders from central districts.
It’s no surprise, then, that the future looks electric. Prices are falling, batteries are improving, and more people are opting to buy plug-in hybrid or fully electric vehicles for the first time. The International Energy Association (IEA) reported a 63% increase in the global fleet of electric cars in 2018, while in the UK battery-powered models accounted for a record-breaking 13% of all new car sales in March this year – even though the overall market for new cars shrunk due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Indeed, current projections suggest that savvy buyers will make a large-scale shift to electric vehicles within the next five years. The initial outlay may still be higher, but more affordable models are now reaching the market and government incentives can often bring down the price differential. Electric cars are also significantly cheaper to run: the cost of electricity is about a third that of fossil fuels to travel the same distance, while fewer moving parts in all-electric models can reduce maintenance bills by up to 60%. Throw in the reduced resale value for gas guzzlers, more than a dozen countries having already set dates for when they will ban the sales of new petrol and diesel cars, and the smart money will go electric.
Some countries are already ahead of the curve. Norway, for example, offers generous tax breaks that have boosted adoption rates to 60% of new car sales, with a further 15% for plug-in hybrids. China, which has also made electric transport a national priority, now accounts for half of the world’s sales of battery-powered vehicles. Meanwhile, 13 major economies, including the UK, Japan and Germany, have pledged to increase the market share for plug-in models to 30% of all new registrations by 2030. If that happens, the IEA predicts that more than 250 million electric cars will be on the road by 2030, around 15% of the global fleet, with sales reaching 44 million vehicles per year.
Charging anxiety
But consumers convinced by the economics may still be worried about the practicalities of owning an electric car – specifically whether they will be able to charge their vehicle when and where they need to. While the latest models promise driving distances of up to 400 km on a single charge, numerous surveys by motoring organizations and policy advisers cite this “charging anxiety” as one of the biggest barriers for drivers thinking of switching. “Charging anxiety is a realistic concern for many drivers,” admits Olly Frankland of Regen, an independent energy consultancy based in the UK. “But the charging solutions are out there, and the anxiety quickly dissipates when consumers become familiar with owning and driving an electric car.”
Most early adopters plug their car into a home charging point when they return from work in the early evening, which is easier than going to a petrol station. But this isn’t a sustainable approach for long-term mass-market adoption, since the energy network would become overloaded if everyone charged their cars at the same time. Home-based charging is also not viable for drivers without a dedicated parking space, and public charging points do not yet provide a convenient and reliable alternative to filling up at the pump.
The good news is that many of those problems are now being addressed. The UK’s National Grid, for example, has already drawn up plans for meeting the increased electricity demand as part of its Future Energy Scenarios programme, which has developed four different models of energy usage until 2050. Two of these projections assume the ambitious targets mapped out in the UK’s Road to Zero strategy, which says that 50−70% of new car sales will be plug-in hybrid or fully electric by 2030, with zero-emission vehicles becoming the norm by 2050. Although the overall energy consumed by road traffic would fall by as much as 70% in that scenario, the transport sector’s demand for electricity would rise from almost nothing today to around 90 TWh by 2050.
That extra demand on its own is not a huge problem: total electricity usage in the UK currently runs at around 1000 TWh per year, and the National Grid predicts a decline in overall energy demand over the next 30 years. More tricky will be managing the fluctuations in usage, with one of the models suggesting that widespread adoption of electric vehicles could boost peak demand from less than 60 GW at the moment to more than 80 GW in 2050.
A particular pressure point will be the local substations that supply low-voltage power to residential districts: one analysis by Regen suggests that households with an electric vehicle could use 40−50% more energy than the current average. The latest generation of domestic chargers delivers 7 kW of power – about the same as an electric shower – but could potentially be connected to the mains for several hours. “These are large batteries on wheels, and they need lots of electricity,” says Myriam Neaimeh of Newcastle University and the Alan Turing Institute – the UK’s national centre for data science and artificial intelligence – in London. “That demand needs to be managed to minimize how much we spend on upgrading our electricity networks.”
Various strategies can flatten the fluctuations, such as tiered tariffs that incentivize drivers to charge up when electricity is cheap and plentiful. Smart chargers are already available to allow drivers to decide when to top up their battery, with more intelligent systems making it possible to automate charging to use cheaper electricity or more intermittent sources of renewable energy. “Just as consumers look at the price of petrol, people choose to charge their car when electricity is the cheapest,” says Frankland.
That view was backed up by a large-scale trial of smart-charging solutions that ran from 2016 to 2019 in part of the UK. The Electric Nation project, hosted by Western Power Distribution and led by EA Technology, recorded the charging behaviour of 700 drivers split into three groups. Two groups were able to charge whenever they wanted but had no information about the cost of electricity to guide them – resulting in them tending to charge their cars when they got home in the early evening. The third group, however, had access to costing information and smart chargers. “Even though there was a priority option for anyone who needed a full charge for the next day, most people in this group were happy to use smart chargers to manage when and how much they recharged their batteries,” comments Frankland. That modified charging behaviour led to a more gradual rise in energy demand, which at all times remained within the capacity of the local electricity network.
Some capacity problems may still emerge in areas where lots of people choose to buy an electric vehicle, but the data from these smart chargers would enable network companies to pinpoint the precise areas that need network reinforcement. “Any upgrades of the electricity network will ultimately be paid for by customers in their energy bills, so the best approach is to manage the demand and target the investment in the right places,” says Neaimeh.
Vehicle to grid
Further in the future, there is even potential for electric-vehicle batteries to provide a distributed energy-storage system that would help electricity providers to manage periods of high demand or surplus supply. This so-called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology exploits bi-directional chargers and automated control systems to store energy in car batteries when power is plentiful, and then release it back into the electricity network at times of peak demand.
Such flexible grid services could benefit businesses that operate fleets of electric vehicles, allowing them to cut their energy bills or even make extra income by providing grid services. For individual drivers, meanwhile, an electric car plugged into the mains supply could be used to store energy when electricity is cheap, and then provide power to the home when prices are higher. “V2G should help customers to reduce their energy bills,” comments Neaimeh. “We want the technology to support the grid while reducing the total cost of ownership of the car.”
One of the largest initiatives to test the viability of this V2G approach is the e4Future project, led by Nissan, in which up to 300 V2G chargers are being deployed with commercial fleet operators. “For the first time, this project is bringing together two big players – the energy companies and the automotive industry – who will need to work together if we are to decarbonize our power and transport sector,” says Neaimeh, one of the lead academics involved in the project.
According to the National Grid, the energy that could be provided by such V2G technologies will be part of a more general trend towards more localized energy sources, such as small wind turbines and solar-panel installations, which it believes will account for around 22% of the overall energy mix by 2050. Indeed, local authorities and commercial operators are already installing renewable-energy sources in car parks to generate energy for local buildings and provide power to electric vehicles. In Exeter, for example, solar canopies have been built on the top deck of two multistorey car parks in the city centre, a successful trial that has paved the way for a £1.3m project to install charge points powered by renewable energy across Devon’s towns and cities.
Fast charging
Major energy companies and specialist charge-point operators are rushing to install public charging stations on garage forecourts, motorway service stations and other public places. The UK already has 16 major charging networks and many more smaller or regional operators, which together provide more than 31,000 connection points. Most of these provide fast (generally accepted to be 7–22 kW) or rapid (25–99 kW) charging, with a few offering ultra-rapid services that can provide a full charge within about 20 minutes. “It is a very competitive market and lots of operators have installed as many charge points as they could in the best locations,” says Frankland.
But these rapid charge points are not necessarily the best solution for consumers. The electricity they provide is expensive, while reliability has been poor compared with other major infrastructure – at least in the UK. Each operator also runs different payment and membership schemes, which has made it difficult for drivers to access different networks and charging stations. “The public charging infrastructure should not be locked into a specific equipment or network provider, either commercially or technically,” a spokesperson for the Brussels-based trade association ChargeUp Europe told Physics World. “Open protocols should become the norm so that any operator and hardware meeting these minimum standards can compete on the market.”
More regulation is helping: operators must now offer the option of pay-as-you-go charging with a standard card payment, while roaming agreements are emerging in mainland Europe and the UK that exploit open protocols to enable seamless access and billing between providers. “Bringing together all the different apps and systems is quite challenging, but some of the larger charge-point operators are now starting to be a bit more consistent,” says Frankland.
Slow and smart charging
Given the current confusion around the plethora of public networks, it’s little wonder that most drivers prefer to charge their car at home. Slow charging at up to 7 kW benefits power-system management, and helps to maintain the long-term performance of the battery. “Superfast chargers are useful along travel corridors and in urban filling stations to allow drivers to quickly top up their batteries when they need to,” says Neaimeh. “But most charging demand should be met by installing low-power smart chargers where electric cars are parked routinely for long periods of time – at home and at work – to spread the demand for electricity and to make the most of renewable energy.”
Still, slow charging at home remains a challenge for drivers who do not have their own drive or garage – most notably the millions of city dwellers who stand to benefit most from switching to electric. According to Chris Pateman-Jones, chief executive of London-based charge-point operator Connected Kerb, around 34% of UK drivers park their car on the street while a further 28% have a parking space with no connection to a domestic power supply. “Our research indicates that most drivers want to top up in a regular, habitual way,” he says, “but that’s just not possible for the vast majority of people who don’t have easy access to a residential charging point.”
Some operators have addressed this problem by installing charging points in street lamps, which are already connected to the electricity network. With a power rating of just 1–2 kW, however, it can take an hour to get enough power to drive 30 km, while trailing cables across the pavement is a clear trip hazard that many local authorities are keen to avoid.
Connected Kerb has therefore instead designed a series of dedicated on-street solutions that deliver slow charging at 7 kW. “Our approach is to separate the socket from the charger,” explains Pateman-Jones. “The socket sits above the ground, and is really small and discreet. The charger itself is installed below ground, which improves reliability because it is secure and protected.”
The beauty of this solution, says Pateman-Jones, is that it can be deployed at scale. “Rather than just installing two or three charging points in a neighbourhood, our technology can connect a whole street to the electricity network,” he says. “We exploit existing street furniture, such as parking posts and street bollards, which allows large numbers to be installed without ruining the visual look of the street. And wherever possible we put our kit in the ground when telecoms and utility companies are already digging up the roads.”
All the underground nodes are connected to the fibre network, making it possible to support smart-charging technologies as well as ancillary services, such as WiFi, environmental monitoring and potentially 5G. The modular design also ensures that the installed infrastructure is future-proof, with the underground chargers able to support the widely anticipated transition to wireless charging (see box below).
However, Pateman-Jones concedes that it will be a huge challenge to provide enough charging points in all residential areas. “Our estimates suggest that 62% of the driving population can’t charge their car at home,” he says. “Providing a charging point for one in four of those people would need 10,000 charging points to be installed every month for the next 15 years. The numbers are massive.”
For that reason Frankland believes that more diverse charging solutions will be needed in dense urban districts. “There could well be a move towards local charging hubs that would offer low-cost charging at 7–22 kW for a specific neighbourhood,” he says. “That approach could be easier to deploy in some localities, and would still allow residents to drip-charge their car for a few hours or overnight.”
But he is convinced that slow and smart charging will be the preferred option for many years to come. “You don’t need ultra-rapid chargers everywhere, and you don’t want them everywhere, because the cost of the electricity is higher and they put more strain on the local electricity network,” he says.
Instead, Frankland believes our charging behaviour will evolve to fit around our lifestyles. Fast forward to 2030, and we could well see lots of charging points in the workplace complemented by low-cost charging in supermarkets, hotels and other regularly visited leisure and retail sites. “You will be able to integrate your charging into your daily life,” Frankland predicts. “Rather than going to a petrol station every so often to fill up the tank, it will become second nature to charge while you park.”
Electric Roads?
Trailing cables are one of the less attractive aspects of owning an electric car, but wireless charging technologies change all that. The most promising for urban drivers is induction charging, which transfers energy from a charging pad on the road to a receiver inside the car. “Induction charging is a fantastic technology that provides neater, cleaner charging for all users,” says Nick Dobie, one of the founders of London-based Connected Kerb. “It’s currently an expensive option, and not many vehicles are fitted with the right receivers, but it will change the face of charging over the next decade.”
Connected Kerb has already started to trial induction charging in specific use cases, in particular for drivers with disabilities that make it difficult for them to grapple with bulky cables. The company is also targeting taxi ranks – since taxi drivers would no longer need to take time out of their working day to top up at a rapid charging point – and shared vehicle schemes that typically have a dedicated parking bay.
Meanwhile, some companies are investing in technology that can exploit wireless charging to top up a car battery while it is being driven. Qualcomm, for example, has teamed up with Renault to demonstrate this dynamic charging technology along a 100 m test track in France, showing that an electric van can charge at up to 20 kW while travelling at speeds of 110 km/h. The Swedish eRoadArlanda project has built 2 km of electric road that provides on-the-go charging at 200 kW – enough to power the battery of an 18-tonne truck.
The team behind eRoadArlanda believes that just 26,000 km of Sweden’s main roads would need to be electrified to provide an effective en route charging solution, which could be reduced by a factor of five if the power could be increased to 800 kW. “Electric roads can reduce the emissions and noise from existing road transport,” says project manager Sofia Lundberg. “The more traffic there is on the road, the greater the social and economic benefit.”
physicsworld.com/a/charging-ahead/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=iop&utm_term=&utm_campaign=14290-46995&utm_content=Susan%20Curtis%20reports&Campaign+Owner=
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Post by plutronus on Aug 18, 2020 2:23:07 GMT
By: Elizabeth Montalbano | Aug 11, 2020
Design News
Smart Fabrics Monitor Vital Signs Using Bioactive Ink
Biomaterial-based ink allows for screenprinting of garments that can detect the health of individuals and even possible virus infection.
Researchers have developed biomaterial-based inks that can be used to create textiles that are reactive to both internal and external stimuli to provide various types of health monitoring and even potentially detect virus infection on clothing.
A team of scientists at Tufts University developed the inks, which respond to chemicals released from the body in fluids like sweat as well as other environmental elements by changing color.
The inks can be used in screen-printing processes to fabricate various textiles, such as clothing, shoes, or even face masks to provide wearable sensing devices, said Giusy Matzeu, a research assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts School of Engineering and one of the researchers on the project.
“The screen-printing approach provides the equivalent of having a large, multiplexed arrangement of sensors covering extensive areas of the body if worn as a garment, or even on large surfaces, such as room interiors,” she said in a press statement.
Researchers can use the sensing textiles together with image analysis, to “obtain a high-resolution map of color reactions over a large area and gain more insight on overall physiological or environmental state,” Matzeu said.
The team believes that the technology could be extended to track environmental factors as well, such as air quality, or support environmental monitoring for epidemiology, including in situations such as a pandemic.
Indeed, the printed garments could be used to detect a wide range of biological conditions, molecules, and, possibly even pathogens over the surface of the body using conventional garments and uniforms, researchers said.
Reactive Materials
The active ingredients in the new solution are silk-based inks that are biologically activated, researchers said. They created the inks by embedding what is called “reporter” molecules—such as pH-sensitive indicators, or enzymes like lactate oxidase, which indicate levels of lactate in sweat. These materials can be used to indicate skin health or dehydration, or levels of fatigue of the wearer, respectively, they said.
In addition to these bio-inks for health monitoring, researchers said they also can create other inks by modifying their silk-fibroin protein with active molecules such as chemically sensitive dyes, enzymes, antibodies, and more. When the reporter molecules are embedded within the silk fibroin, they can become shelf-stable, while on their own they can be unstable.
To create the inks for screen-printing, researchers combined them with sodium alginate, which is a thickener, as well as glycerol, which plasticizes the ink for printing. In this way, the inks can be used just like any other that is compatible with the screen-printing process, extending their application beyond garments to wood, plastics, and paper, researchers said.
The textiles or other objects designed using the inks are most effective when used in tandem with camera-image analysis that could scan garments or other materials to collect more precise information on both quantity and high resolution, sub-millimeter mapping than merely the color visual cues, they added.
Researchers published a paper on their work in the journal Advanced Materials.
Aside from medical applications, researchers believe their work can also apply to more creative endeavors, something that architect Laia Mogas-Soldevila—a recent Ph.D. graduate at Tufts in the lab of Professor Fiorenzo Omenetto, the leader of the research—explored.
Mogas-Soldevila and a team fabricated tapestries that they put on display in interactive exhibitions in various galleries and museums. The work allowed visitors to spray different, non-toxic chemicals onto the fabric and watch the patterns transform in real-time, she said.
“The engineered inks open up a new dimension in responsive, interactive tapestries and surfaces, while the 1,000-year-old art of screen printing has provided a foundation well suited to the need for a modern high resolution, wearable sensing surface,” Mogas-Soldevila said in a press statement.
Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer who has written about technology and culture for more than 20 years. She has lived and worked as a professional journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City. In her free time she enjoys surfing, traveling, music, yoga, and cooking. She currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal.
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Post by swamprat on Aug 19, 2020 15:42:23 GMT
Transparent solar panels for windows hit record 8 percent efficiency
Date: August 18, 2020
Source: University of Michigan
Summary:
In a step closer to skyscrapers that serve as power sources, researchers have set a new efficiency record for color-neutral, transparent solar cells. In a step closer to skyscrapers that serve as power sources, a team led by University of Michigan researchers has set a new efficiency record for color-neutral, transparent solar cells.
The team achieved 8.1% efficiency and 43.3% transparency with an organic, or carbon-based, design rather than conventional silicon. While the cells have a slight green tint, they are much more like the gray of sunglasses and automobile windows.
"Windows, which are on the face of every building, are an ideal location for organic solar cells because they offer something silicon can't, which is a combination of very high efficiency and very high visible transparency," said Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and Paul G. Goebel Professor of Engineering, who led the research.
Buildings with glass facades typically have a coating on them that reflects and absorbs some of the light, both in the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum, to reduce the brightness and heating inside the building. Rather than throwing that energy away, transparent solar panels could use it to take a bite out of the building's electricity needs. The transparency of some existing windows is similar to the transparency of the solar cells Forrest's group reports in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The new material we developed, and the structure of the device we built, had to balance multiple trade-offs to provide good sunlight absorption, high voltage, high current, low resistance and color-neutral transparency all at the same time," said Yongxi Li, an assistant research scientist in electrical engineering and computer science.
The new material is a combination of organic molecules engineered to be transparent in the visible and absorbing in the near infrared, an invisible part of the spectrum that accounts for much of the energy in sunlight. In addition, the researchers developed optical coatings to boost both power generated from infrared light and transparency in the visible range -- two qualities that are usually in competition with one another.
The color-neutral version of the device was made with an indium tin oxide electrode. A silver electrode improved the efficiency to 10.8%, with 45.8% transparency. However, that version's slightly greenish tint may not be acceptable in some window applications.
Transparent solar cells are measured by their light utilization efficiency, which describes how much energy from the light hitting the window is available either as electricity or as transmitted light on the interior side. Previous transparent solar cells have light utilization efficiencies of roughly 2-3%, but the indium tin oxide cell is rated at 3.5% and the silver version has a light utilization efficiency of 5%.
Both versions can be manufactured at large scale, using materials that are less toxic than other transparent solar cells. The transparent organic solar cells can also be customized for local latitudes, taking advantage of the fact that they are most efficient when the sun's rays are hitting them at a perpendicular angle. They can be placed in between the panes of double-glazed windows..
Forrest and his team are working on several improvements to the technology, with the next goal being to reach a light utilization efficiency of 7% and extending the cell lifetime to about 10 years. They are also investigating the economics of installing transparent solar cell windows into new and existing buildings.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the article, "Color-Neutral, Semitransparent Organic Photovoltaics," by Forrest, Li and colleagues Xia Guo, Zhengxing Peng, Boning Qu, Hongping Yan, Harald Ade and Maojie Zhang. The team includes researchers at North Carolina State University, Soochow University in China, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office as well as the Office of Naval Research and Universal Display Corporation.
Forrest is also a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, material science and engineering, and physics.
________________________________________
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Michigan. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
________________________________________
Journal Reference:
1. Yongxi Li, Xia Guo, Zhengxing Peng, Boning Qu, Hongping Yan, Harald Ade, Maojie Zhang, Stephen R. Forrest. Color-neutral, semitransparent organic photovoltaics for power window applications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020; 202007799 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2007799117
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Post by GhostofEd on Oct 31, 2020 0:01:50 GMT
Kudos. Ample info. Best Essay writing humanists and sociologists Stupid Bot Laurie.
Why does this forum allow posting by guests? Just enables this type spam.
Disable postings by guests. That's my free suggestion to improve things.
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Post by ZETAR on Oct 31, 2020 0:36:06 GMT
Kudos. Ample info. Best Essay writing humanists and sociologists Stupid Bot Laurie.
Why does this forum allow posting by guests? Just enables this type spam.
Disable postings by guests. That's my free suggestion to improve things. SHALOM...Z
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Post by swamprat on Feb 16, 2021 17:27:29 GMT
I'm getting another headache...... Quantum gate teleportation connects atomic qubits in two labs 16 Feb 2021
Quantum distributor: Severin Daiss adjusts one part of the team’s distributed quantum computer. (Courtesy: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics)
Researchers in Germany have performed a quantum gate operation between two quantum bits (qubits) in different laboratories. This marks a step towards distributed quantum logic, whereby system designers could build modular quantum computers, spreading qubits between different devices while allowing them to behave as one computer. Distributed systems would avoid crosstalk between qubits, which degrades quantum computations.
Adding qubits to a quantum computer is far trickier than adding bits to a classical one, as each qubit (which may be a trapped ion, a superconducting circuit, a diamond nitrogen–vacancy centre or many other physical manifestations of a quantum state) must be able to undergo the necessary logical interactions while also being protected from noise – which can destroy quantum information.
A significant noise source is interference between multiple qubits: “Let’s say there are three or four qubits in one device and you want to do a gate between just two of them,” explains Severin Daiss of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching; “As they are all in one device you can still have crosstalk of those two qubits with the other qubits that should not participate in the calculation.” The more qubits are added to a single device, the more severe the crosstalk problem becomes. Other factors that cause problems in specific platforms are the difficulty of addressing specific qubits in large registers, restricted space, and problems with heat removal from large cryogenic samples.
Multiple devices
One possible way to scale up a quantum computer without scaling up the attendant problems would be to spread the qubits between multiple devices. However, this would require integrating the quantum logical operations performed on each device: “If you just calculate one result with one module and send the state to another module, you’re still not increasing the computational space that you have,” explains Daiss. “Quantum gate teleportation” – the construction of quantum gates whose output is conditional on the state of an input gate elsewhere – has therefore become an active field of research. Such gates have been demonstrated between ions in the same trap and superconducting circuits in a single cryostat, and one with photonic qubits, albeit with a tiny success rate.
In the new research, Daiss and colleagues led by Gerhard Rempe unveil a radically different, conceptually-simpler gate that is based on the interaction of a single photon with modules in two different laboratories. In each laboratory, they set up an optical cavity containing a single rubidium atom and they link the two systems using a 60::m optical fibre. To implement the gate, they send a photon as a “flying qubit” along the fibre and reflect it successively from the two cavities, thereby entangling its polarization with the rubidium energy levels. A measurement of the photon is then combined with a conditional feedback on the qubit to realize a CNOT gate – one of the key components of quantum logic.
Heralded quantum gate
The protocol produces a “heralded” quantum gate in which the detection of the photon signals a successful gate operation. In future, this could prove crucial to producing a reliable quantum computer as such a confirmation that each successive gate has worked is important if multiple gates are connected in sequence. Other platforms could theoretically produce quantum gates using the researchers’ protocol, says Daiss, if the qubit could be coupled sufficiently strongly to a cavity or resonator. For instance, this has already been achieved with trapped ions or superconducting qubits.
In future, says Daiss, a next step would be to connect together modules comprising more than one qubit and producing computers with more than one module: “We could go in either direction, and both directions will benefit from the work we’re doing at the moment,” he concludes.
Ronald Hanson of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands believes the paper marks an important step forward: “They just have this one photon scattering off one side, going to the other side and then you measure it. Conceptually it’s super simple, and they show that it works.” he says. “So it’s the fact that it’s heralded, and its efficiency – I think that’s the real novelty of the work.”
The research is described in Science.
physicsworld.com/a/quantum-gate-teleportation-connects-atomic-qubits-in-two-labs/
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Post by swamprat on Jun 29, 2021 17:38:35 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Jul 2, 2021 14:40:05 GMT
USAF’s First Electric Ultra-Short Takeoff Plane Blows eVTOLs Out of the Water23 Jun 2021, by Otilia Drăgan
The U.S. Air Force is serious about introducing innovative air mobility vehicles into its future operations. Electra was just selected by USAF to develop ultra-short takeoff aircraft, as part of the Agility Prime program. In only a few years, we will be seeing Air Force-operated electric aircraft like nothing we’ve seen before.
Electra's ultra-short takeoff plane is equipped with a powerful electric propulsion system
According to USAF, there are now more than 200 companies that are developing cutting-edge vertical flight aircraft based on electric vertical takeoff and landing technologies (eVTOLs), all over the world. By launching Agility Prime, described by the Air Force as a “non-traditional” program, USAF intends to bring together industry partners, government representatives and investors, in order to speed up the process of making these types of vehicles commercially viable.
This recent contract with Electra is an important step in that direction. Officially unveiled earlier this month, the company’s electric ultra-short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft is now closer to becoming a U.S. military asset. What makes aircraft like these essential for future military use is their great energy efficiency, due to the hybrid-electric propulsion systems.
Electra eSTOL’s system is comprised of a small gas turbine and additional custom components, and it can generate 150 kW (200 HP) of electrical power. Its hybrid-electric turbo-generator powers the 8 electrical motors and charges the battery system during flight – which means there’s no need to return to the ground for recharging, and no special infrastructure has to be built.
Unlike traditional airplanes, this one can take off and land in just 100 feet, by using distributed electric propulsion and blown lift. This advanced aerodynamic technique, combined with the electric propulsion, allows the plane to take off at a fraction of the power required by eVTOL alternatives, using the same amount of ground space. Basically, it’s more effective and sustainable than eVTOLs, with half of their operating costs.
Ground testing for Electra’s eSTOL will begin this year, and the demonstrator aircraft for the U.S. Air Force is expected to conduct its first flight test in 2022.
www.autoevolution.com/news/usafs-first-electric-ultra-short-takeoff-plane-blows-evtols-out-of-the-water-163816.html
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Post by swamprat on May 10, 2022 16:04:16 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Apr 11, 2023 17:37:44 GMT
Received this Interesting read re electric cars vs gas powered cars, etc. from a Canadian friend.
Japan's Toyota -- is currently the world's largest automaker. Toyota and Volkswagen vie for that title each year -- each taking the crown from the other -- as the market moves.
GM -- America's largest automaker -- is about half Toyota's size --thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring.
Actually -- Toyota is a major car manufacturer in the U.S. In 2016 about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. came off American assembly lines.
Toyota was among the first to introduce gas/electric hybrid cars with the Prius twenty years ago. The company hasn't been afraid to change the car game.
All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports the car market.
Probably understands better than any other manufacturer on the planet.
Toyota hasn't grown through acquisitions as Volkswagen has, and it hasn't undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has.
Toyota has grown by building reliable cars and trucks for decades.
When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market it's probably worth listening to.
This week Toyota reiterated -- “The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.”
Toyota's Robert Wimmer (head of energy & environmental research) said this week in testimony before the U.S. Senate,
"If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification it will require overcoming tremendous challenges - challenges including : refueling infrastructure/battery availability /consumer acceptance / and affordability.”
Wimmer's remarks come on the heels of GM's announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035.
Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world's largest engine manufacturer (when you include: boats / motorcycles / lawnmowers / etc.) Honda competes with Briggs & Stratton in those markets amid increased electrification of [traditionally gas powered] lawnmowers / weed trimmers /etc.
While manufacturers have announced ambitious goals just 2% of the world's cars are electric at this point.
Buyers continue to choose ICE over electric because of: price /range / infrastructure /affordability / etc. Only a small percentage of people would choose an electric car unless forced to buy.
There are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered.
Toyota's RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the 2019 U.S market -- Honda's CR-V is second and GM's top seller (Equinox) comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. GM only has one entry in the U.S. top 15. Toyota and Honda dominate - each with a handful in the top 15.
Toyota warns: the US electrical grid and infrastructure simply aren't there to support the electrification of the private car fleet.
A 2017 U.S. government study found we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charging stations to support a fleet of
just 7 million electric cars.
That's about six times the current number of electric cars.
But no one should be talking about supporting just 7 million cars.
We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.
We are gonna need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids - a WHOLE LOT bigger boat.
But instead of building a bigger boat we may be shrinking our boat. Power outages in California and Texas have exposed issues with power supplies even at current usage levels.
Increasing usage of wind and solar, both of which prove unreliable -- has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline.
We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we're all going to be forced to drive electric cars, and we will be charging them frequently. Every roadside gas station must be wired to charge electric cars and charging speeds must increase greatly.
Current technology allows charges in "as little as 30 minutes" - but that best-case fast charging cannot be done on home power.
Charging at home (on alternating current) takes a few hours to overnight and will increase the home power bill. That power, like =
all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using: natural gas /petroleum/coal/nuclear/wind/solar/or hydroelectric sources. Even half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend charging. It's about 5 to 10 times longer than a gas pump takes.
Imagine big rigs with much larger tanks. Imagine the charging lines that would form every day if charge time isn't reduced by 70 to 80 percent. We can expect improvements but those won't come without cost. Electrifying the auto fleet requires massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation.
Toyota has publicly warned about this twice while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be trying to win favor with those in power in California/ Washington and in the media.
Toyota is addressing reality, and they know what they are talking about.
Toyota isn't saying none of this can be done. They are saying that present conversations are not anywhere near serious and will not produce meaningful results.
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Post by thelmadonna on Apr 12, 2023 8:17:06 GMT
Someday, you may hear, "We're gonna replace the Brooklyn Bridge; and we're gonna make it out of GLASS! Artificial intelligence accelerates discovery of metallic glass Machine learning algorithms pinpoint new materials 200 times faster than previously possible
Date: April 13, 2018
Source: Northwestern University
Summary: Combining artificial intelligence with experimentation sped up the discovery of metallic glass by 200 times. The new material's glassy nature makes it stronger, lighter and more corrosion-resistant than today's best steel.
With new, artificial intelligence approach, scientists discovered metallic glass 200 times faster than with an Edisonian approach. Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
If you combine two or three metals together, you will get an alloy that usually looks and acts like a metal, with its atoms arranged in rigid geometric patterns.
But once in a while, under just the right conditions, you get something entirely new: a futuristic alloy called metallic glass. The amorphous material's atoms are arranged every which way, much like the atoms of the glass in a window. Its glassy nature makes it stronger and lighter than today's best steel, and it stands up better to corrosion and wear.
Although metallic glass shows a lot of promise as a protective coating and alternative to steel, only a few thousand of the millions of possible combinations of ingredients have been evaluated over the past 50 years, and only a handful developed to the point that they may become useful.
Now a group led by scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Northwestern University has reported a shortcut for discovering and improving metallic glass -- and, by extension, other elusive materials -- at a fraction of the time and cost.
The research group took advantage of a system at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) that combines machine learning -- a form of artificial intelligence where computer algorithms glean knowledge from enormous amounts of data -- with experiments that quickly make and screen hundreds of sample materials at a time. This allowed the team to discover three new blends of ingredients that form metallic glass, and to do it 200 times faster than it could be done before.
The study was published today, April 13, in Science Advances.
"It typically takes a decade or two to get a material from discovery to commercial use," said Chris Wolverton, the Jerome B. Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, who is an early pioneer in using computation and AI to predict new materials. "This is a big step in trying to squeeze that time down. You could start out with nothing more than a list of properties you want in a material and, using AI, quickly narrow the huge field of potential materials to a few good candidates."
The ultimate goal, said Wolverton, who led the paper's machine learning work, is to get to the point where a scientist can scan hundreds of sample materials, get almost immediate feedback from machine learning models and have another set of samples ready to test the next day -- or even within the hour.
Over the past half century, scientists have investigated about 6,000 combinations of ingredients that form metallic glass. Added paper co-author Apurva Mehta, a staff scientist at SSRL: "We were able to make and screen 20,000 in a single year."
Just getting started
While other groups have used machine learning to come up with predictions about where different kinds of metallic glass can be found, Mehta said, "The unique thing we have done is to rapidly verify our predictions with experimental measurements and then repeatedly cycle the results back into the next round of machine learning and experiments."
There's plenty of room to make the process even speedier, he added, and eventually automate it to take people out of the loop altogether so scientists can concentrate on other aspects of their work that require human intuition and creativity. "This will have an impact not just on synchrotron users, but on the whole materials science and chemistry community," Mehta said.
The team said the method will be useful in all kinds of experiments, especially in searches for materials like metallic glass and catalysts whose performance is strongly influenced by the way they're manufactured, and those where scientists don't have theories to guide their search. With machine learning, no previous understanding is needed. The algorithms make connections and draw conclusions on their own, which can steer research in unexpected directions.
"One of the more exciting aspects of this is that we can make predictions so quickly and turn experiments around so rapidly that we can afford to investigate materials that don't follow our normal rules of thumb about whether a material will form a glass or not," said paper co-author Jason Hattrick-Simpers, a materials research engineer at NIST. "AI is going to shift the landscape of how materials science is done, and this is the first step."
Experimenting with data
In the metallic glass study, the research team investigated thousands of alloys that each contain three cheap, nontoxic metals.
They started with a trove of materials data dating back more than 50 years, including the results of 6,000 experiments that searched for metallic glass. The team combed through the data with advanced machine learning algorithms developed by Wolverton and Logan Ward, a graduate student in Wolverton's laboratory who served as co-first author of the paper.
Based on what the algorithms learned in this first round, the scientists crafted two sets of sample alloys using two different methods, allowing them to test how manufacturing methods affect whether an alloy morphs into a glass. An SSRL x-ray beam scanned both sets of alloys, then researchers fed the results into a database to generate new machine learning results, which were used to prepare new samples that underwent another round of scanning and machine learning.
By the experiment's third and final round, Mehta said, the group's success rate for finding metallic glass had increased from one out of 300 or 400 samples tested to one out of two or three samples tested. The metallic glass samples they identified represented three different combinations of ingredients, two of which had never been used to make metallic glass before.
The study was funded by the US Department of Energy (award number FWP-100250), the Center for Hierarchical Materials Design and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (award number 70NANB14H012).
Story Source:
Materials provided by Northwestern University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
1. Fang Ren, Logan Ward, Travis Williams, Kevin J. Laws, Christopher Wolverton, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Apurva Mehta. Accelerated discovery of metallic glasses through iteration of machine learning and high-throughput experiments. Science Advances, 2018; 4 (4): eaaq1566 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaq1566
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Post by thelmadonna on Apr 12, 2023 11:15:06 GMT
Received this Interesting read re electric cars vs gas powered cars, etc. from a Canadian friend.
Japan's Toyota -- is currently the world's largest automaker. Toyota and Volkswagen vie for that title each year -- each taking the crown from the other -- as the market moves.
GM -- America's largest automaker -- is about half Toyota's size --thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring.
Actually -- Toyota is a major car manufacturer in the U.S. In 2016 about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. came off American assembly lines.
Toyota was among the first to introduce gas/electric hybrid cars with the Prius twenty years ago. The company hasn't been afraid to change the car game.
All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports the car market.
Probably understands better than any other manufacturer on the planet.
Toyota hasn't grown through acquisitions as Volkswagen has, and it hasn't undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has.
Toyota has grown by building reliable cars and trucks for decades.
When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market it's probably worth listening to.
This week Toyota reiterated -- “The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.”
Toyota's Robert Wimmer (head of energy & environmental research) said this week in testimony before the U.S. Senate,
"If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification it will require overcoming tremendous challenges - challenges including : refueling infrastructure/battery availability /consumer acceptance / and affordability.”
Wimmer's remarks come on the heels of GM's announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035.
Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world's largest engine manufacturer (when you include: boats / motorcycles / lawnmowers / etc.) Honda competes with Briggs & Stratton in those markets amid increased electrification of [traditionally gas powered] lawnmowers / weed trimmers /etc.
While manufacturers have announced ambitious goals just 2% of the world's cars are electric at this point.
Buyers continue to choose ICE over electric because of: price /range / infrastructure /affordability / etc. Only a small percentage of people would choose an electric car unless forced to buy.
There are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered.
Toyota's RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the 2019 U.S market -- Honda's CR-V is second and GM's top seller (Equinox) comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. GM only has one entry in the U.S. top 15. Toyota and Honda dominate - each with a handful in the top 15.
Toyota warns: the US electrical grid and infrastructure simply aren't there to support the electrification of the private car fleet.
A 2017 U.S. government study found we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charging stations to support a fleet of
just 7 million electric cars.
That's about six times the current number of electric cars.
But no one should be talking about supporting just 7 million cars.
We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.
We are gonna need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids - a WHOLE LOT bigger boat.
But instead of building a bigger boat we may be shrinking our boat. Power outages in California and Texas have exposed issues with power supplies even at current usage levels.
Increasing usage of wind and solar, both of which prove unreliable -- has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline.
We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we're all going to be forced to drive electric cars, and we will be charging them frequently. Every roadside gas station must be wired to charge electric cars and charging speeds must increase greatly.
Current technology allows charges in "as little as 30 minutes" - but that best-case fast charging cannot be done on home power.
Charging at home (on alternating current) takes a few hours to overnight and will increase the home power bill. That power, like =
all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using: natural gas /petroleum/coal/nuclear/wind/solar/or hydroelectric sources. Even half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend charging. It's about 5 to 10 times longer than a gas pump takes.
Imagine big rigs with much larger tanks. Imagine the charging lines that would form every day if charge time isn't reduced by 70 to 80 percent. We can expect improvements but those won't come without cost. Electrifying the auto fleet requires massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation.
Toyota has publicly warned about this twice while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be trying to win favor with those in power in California/ Washington and in the media.
Toyota is addressing reality, and they know what they are talking about.
Toyota isn't saying none of this can be done. They are saying that present conversations are not anywhere near serious and will not produce meaningful results. I will add these vlogs from the The MacMaster Eye opening www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjG15K6BU5o&list=PLx8OGVRh_bQjsBfnASqJROxSkYcVBqBcX
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Post by swamprat on Sept 11, 2023 15:02:49 GMT
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Post by HAL on Sept 11, 2023 16:15:22 GMT
I still uphold that they are addressing the wrong problem.
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