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Study finds the wettability of porous electrode surfaces is key to making efficient water-splitting or carbon-capturing systems

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As water-splitting technologies improve, often using porous electrode materials to provide greater surface areas for electrochemical reactions, their efficiency is often limited by the formation of bubbles that can block or clog the reactive surfaces. As a result, there were substantial changes of the transport overpotential.

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MIT researchers propose mechanism for overcoming bottleneck in electroreduction of CO2

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Researchers at MIT have identified , quantified, and modeled a major reason for the poor performance of electroreduction processes to convert CO 2 to fuel or other useful chemicals. The research was supported by Shell, through the MIT Energy Initiative. A paper on their work is published in the ACS journal Langmuir.

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Directly-cooled lighter-weight EV motor made with polymer housing

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Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT are working together with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT to develop a new cooling concept that will enable polymers to be used as EV electric motor housing materials, thereby reducing the weight of the motor and thus, the EV itself.

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MIT Energy Initiative announces 2014 seed grant awards

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The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) announced its latest round of seed grants to support early-stage innovative energy projects. Past themes have included topics as diverse as the role of big data and the energy-water nexus. A total of more than $1.6 million was awarded to 11 projects, each lasting up to two years.

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ARPA-E Selects 37 Projects for $106M in Funding in Second Round; Electrofuels, Better Batteries and Carbon Capture

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Today’s technologies for making biofuels all rely on photosynthesis—either indirectly by converting plants to fuels or directly by harnessing photosynthetic organisms such as algae. This process is less than 1% efficient at converting sunlight to stored chemical energy. Water will be the primary byproduct. Engineering E.

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MIT and Moscow State collaborating on advanced batteries, metal-air batteries and reversible fuel/electrolysis cells

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Researchers at the Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage (CEES), a partnership between the MIT Materials Processing Center and Lomonosov Moscow State University, are focusing on the development of higher capacity batteries. Chiang, MIT colleague W. Advanced Li-ion and multivalent ion batteries. earlier post ).

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MIT team develops lower cost method to synthesize gamma-valerolactone for biofuels and chemicals

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The new MIT proces converts furfural into GVL via a series of cascading (domino-like) reactions catalyzed by zeolites with Lewis and Brønsted acid sites. GVL could also be useful as a “green” solvent or a building block for creating renewable polymers from sustainable materials. Credit: Bui et al. Click to enlarge.

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