Environmental News, Eco-Friendly Gadgets - FreshAirTimes.eu

While tons of research is being conducted by hundreds of companies and institutes to produce a viable device running on alternate fuel, their efforts at best have yielded conceptual solutions which are not very user friendly or market friendly. Things are about to change with the ‘UltraCell Portable Fuel Cell’.
Like all fuel cells, water is the primary source of fuel. It also uses methanol which is combined with water to deliver up to 25 watts of power from a 12 ounce mixture. All this from just a 2.7 pound device!
This new fuel cell technology is being developed by Dan Kramer, a senior research scientist at the University of Dayton Research Institute. Should these cells pass all field trials, the range of applications could be limitless. It is bound to displace conventional batteries as the primary source of portable power, as it can be recharged with just water and methanol, which are relatively easy to find when compared to a plug point.

Source : Next Energy News

Whether it is the big or the small, important or rrelevant; irrespective of what product or aspect of life it is, the world seems to be moving forward trying to replace the hazardous with the eco friendly. From simple stuff as the cups we drink coffee from to the most advanced research facilities in the world; all the sectors of industry are trying to revamp themselves to suit the eco conscious customer. Whether it is an act to attract potential investors or a real effort to save the planet; one can safely say that all those efforts help the planet go greener.

Now the aviation industry is trying to make sure that it goes eco friendly. The aviation sector has been always blamed for creating pollution in various forms. They have been blamed for making land area unfit for residence and for polluting the air. But now all that might just change with the world’s first eco friendly jet taking flight yesterday. The jet was powered by Hydrogen Fuel cell which means that there is zero exhaust. Ok, there is exhaust, but since when did water vapor hurt anyone?

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To perk up the cruising range of FCHV per charge to 500km, which is on par with that of the gasoline vehicles, Toyota Motor Corp held a lecture titled ‘Development of Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle-Cruising Range’ at EVS23. The company focused on enhancing the fuel tank pressure and improving its fuel efficiency. The pressure in the fuel tank was increased from 35 to 70MPa so that the tank can store about 6kg of fuel, which is 1.9 times that in the existing tank.

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Scientists in Pennsylvania are reporting development of a fuel cell that uses pollution from coal and metal mines to generate electricity, solving a serious environmental problem while providing a new source of energy. A new type of fuel cell that is based on microbialfuel cells, which are capable of generating electricity from wastewater. Using a solution similar to AMD, they showed that the device efficiently removed dissolved iron from the solution while also generating electricity at power levels similar to conventional microbial fuel cells.

In the new study, Bruce E. Logan and colleagues point out that so-called acid-mine drainage (AMD) is a serious environmental problem that threatens the health of plants and animals as well as the safety of drinking-water supplies, due mainly to the high acidity of contaminated waters and its high content of metals, particularly iron. AMD poses difficult and costly environmental clean-up problems.

Via: Science Daily