Materials For Energy

Welcome

Welcome to the Materials Research Society’s (MRS) “MATERIALS FOR ENERGY” blog. I am your host Russell R. Chianelli, MRS president in 1990 and career researcher in energy materials: batteries, catalysts, hydrogen storage and solar cells.

We all recognize the importance of energy in the coming years for global economic growth and security. We also recognize that energy production in any form has environmental consequences that must be considered. Materials research is key to the development and maintenance of reliable and safe energy sources which are affordable and environmentally acceptable.

It is the purpose of the “MATERIALS FOR ENERGY” blog to discuss the scientific issues surrounding all areas of materials for energy: basic research, scale-up and commercialization, deployment, environmental impact including raw materials acquisition and finally disposal technologies. In order to effectively discuss these issues we have invited a series of experts as co-hosts to assist in guiding the discussions and to present current articles and resources for discussion. We encourage all interested parties in engaging in the discussions and suggest the April 2008 issue of the MRS Bulletin – Harnessing Materials for Energy.

 

 

Welcome and Blog On!!    

 

Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge

The July 5 issue of the New York Times has an article on a new generation of incandescent bulbs. Most discussions and reports on this topic focus on LEDs and compact fluorescents. This article points out that incandescents are far from dead; in fact, newer technologies are allowing them to already meet the tough new efficiency standards that will come into effect in the US in 2012.

Incandescent Bulbs Return to the Cutting Edge

Excerpts:

"Researchers across the country have been racing to breathe new life into Thomas Edison’s light bulb, a pursuit that accelerated with the new legislation. Amid that footrace, one company is already marketing limited quantities of incandescent bulbs that meet the 2012 standard, and researchers are promising a wave of innovative products in the next few years.

Indeed, the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation."

"..... have been looking into the work of Chunlei Guo, an associate professor of optics at Rochester University, who announced in May that he had used lasers to pit the surface of a tungsten filament. “Our measurements show that the treated filament becomes twice as bright with the same power consumption,” Mr. Guo said.

And a physics professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Shawn-Yu Lin, is also seeing improved incandescent performance by using a high-tech, iridium-coated filament that recycles wasted heat. “The technology can get up to six to seven times more efficient,” Mr. Lin said."
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Dr. Gopal Rao
Web Science Editor
Editor, Materials360^®
Editor, Meeting Scene
Materials Research Society (MRS)

Green Promise Seen in Switch to LED Lighting

(The New York Times)

Jeffrey Sauger for The New York Times

....
LED lighting was once relegated to basketball scoreboards, cellphone consoles, traffic lights and colored Christmas lights. But as a result of rapid developments in the technology, it is now poised to become common on streets and in buildings, as well as in homes and offices. Some American cities, including Ann Arbor, Mich., and Raleigh, N.C., are using the lights to illuminate streets and parking garages, and dozens more are exploring the technology. And the lighting now adorns the conference rooms and bars of some Renaissance hotels, a corridor in the Pentagon and a new green building at Stanford.

LEDs are more than twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs, currently the standard for greener lighting. Unlike compact fluorescents, LEDs turn on quickly and are compatible with dimmer switches. And while fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which requires special disposal, LED bulbs contain no toxic elements, and last so long that disposal is not much of an issue.

“It is fit-and-forget-lighting that is essentially there for as long as you live,” said Colin Humphreys, a researcher at Cambridge University who works on gallium nitride LED lights, which now adorn structures in Britain. ....

More

Dr. Gopal Rao
Web Science Editor
Editor, Materials360^®
Editor, Meeting Scene
Materials Research Society (MRS)

New organic LED more efficient than fluorescent lamps

Researchers in Germany have created the first LED from organic materials that is more efficient than traditional lighting. A team from the University of Dresden report a power efficiency of 90 lm/W, with a potential maximum of 124 lm/W.

Standard LEDs made from inorganic materials have already found widespread application in screens and commercial lighting because of their high efficiency.  In recent years, researchers have also started to develop a new wave of LEDs using organic materials such as polymers. As well as being eco-friendly to dispose of, these LEDs also have the advantage of generating photons across a range of colors resulting in white light. Now, a team of physicists has redesigned the internal structure of organic LEDs to produce significantly brighter white light.

One promising way of creating white light is to coat an LED with phosphor, which converts monochromatic light into red, green and blue light. The drawback until now has been a lack of efficiency; 80% of the photons generated remain trapped in the LED emission substrate and the surrounding phosphor. The research team overcame this problem by optimizing the coupling between these phosphor and polymer layers. By integrating blue, green and red phosphor into the heart of the emission layer, they have created a system that allows significantly more photons to escape.

Standard fluorescent tubes generate light with a power efficiency of 60–70 lm/W, but until now most organic LEDs had an efficiency of just 44 lm/W. The new device exhibits an efficiency of 90 lm/W.

View article on the Optics.org website.

Original paper: White organic light-emitting diodes with fluorescent tube efficiency, Nature 459, 234-238 (14 May 2009) | doi: 0.1038/nature08003

Dr. Gopal Rao
Web Science Editor
Editor, Materials360^®
Editor, Meeting Scene
Materials Research Society (MRS)

Building a Community Dialogue on the Global Energy Landscape and Materials Innovation

It has been more than a month since the preliminary release of the MRS Bulletin issue, Harnessing Materials for Energy. From anecdotal evidence, the issue has been well received, with positive comments, requests for bulk quantities, and healthy single copy sales. It has been and will continue to be distributed far and wide to scientists, policymakers, energy leaders, educators, and students in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere.

But our goal is not to have it “liked.” Our goal is to have it used.

It is time to look beyond the cover, and to build a dialogue in the community. By placing together the full spectrum of energy technologies from source through transformation to use and efficiency (shown in the Preface, illustration of the energy landscape, and Introduction), it is possible to see challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. We can beyond worrying about the future to joining the many researchers, entrepreneurs, and corporations looking for and building robust solutions. What important challenges have emerged? What scientific approaches might speed progress? What can we learn from experiments around the world, such as sugarcane ethanol in Brazil, hydrogen in Iceland, nuclear power in France, coal liquefaction in South Africa, wind energy in Germany, electric cars in Israel, and solar in California? Will immediate implementation trump stronger developments of tomorrow? What is needed for widespread use of cellulosic ethanol, white LEDs for general lighting, nuclear breeder reactors, carbon sequestration, methane hydrates, organic solar cells, or plug-in hybrids? I ask the readers of this blog to give thoughtful input to the unanswered questions and unquestioned answers related to materials and energy. Start with a look at the introductory content in the MRS Bulletin issue, Harnessing Materials for Energy. Where should materials research go next?

Please add your comments here. In future posts, we will examine other articles in the issue. We also welcome suggestions for future blog coverage, which can be e-mailed to materialsforenergy@mrs.org.

Dr. Elizabeth L. Fleischer
Editor, MRS Bulletin
Materials Research Society

MRS Bulletin Special Issue "Harnessing Materials for Energy"

The Materials Research Society and the MRS Bulletin are pleased to announce the availability of the April special issue of the MRS Bulletin "Harnessing Materials for Energy" on the web.

The MRS Bulletin special expanded issue, “Harnessing Materials for Energy,” focuses on the most important materials research challenges that need to be addressed to move toward secure, affordable, and environmentally sustainable energy to meet the world’s accelerating energy needs. The issue follows the full energy chain including production, storage, distribution, use, and efficiency. The articles are designed to present an objective and global view of the energy challenges within each energy sector and the promising transformational materials research directions for meeting these challenges as far into the future as is scientifically feasible to consider (targeting 10-, 25-, and 50-year outlooks).

A related Energy Forum is slated for Monday, March 24, at the 2008 MRS Spring Meeting.

 

Dr. Gopal Rao
Web Science Editor
Materials Research Society (MRS)

Welcome to the Materials for Energy Blog!

This blog is brought to you by the Materials Research Society (MRS), an organization of materials researchers from academia, industry, and government that promotes communication for the advancement of interdisciplinary materials research to improve the quality of life.

The MRS Bulletin is one of the most widely recognized and highly respected publications in advanced materials research. Published monthly, it features technical theme topics that capture a snapshot of the state-of-the-art of material research. In addition, the Bulletin delivers timely commentary, news, trends and event listings to keep the materials community apprised of information important to their research and their profession.

This blog complements the MRS Bulletin special Energy issue, Harnessing Materials for Energy, to be published in April 2008, and will build on MRS’s growing programming on energy. The focus will be on building ongoing dialogue and community related to addressing the most important materials research challenges that need to be addressed to move toward secure, affordable, and environmentally sustainable energy to meet the world’s accelerating energy needs.

In the coming days and months, we will be posting news, links, reports and commentary relevant to the broad spectrum of issues covered by the articles in the MRS Bulletin special issue on Energy. We look forward to a healthy dialog and discussions by readers, and we encourage posting of comments and feedback.

 

 

Dr. Gopal Rao
Web Science Editor
Materials Research Society (MRS)