HONG KONg: One major obstacle to harnessing the true potentials of the sun’s energy is that there is no efficient means of harvesting and storing it. A breakthrough made by University of Copenhagen student Anders Bo Skov, however, could pave way for scientists to harvest solar energy and save it for use later on.
Anders and his team were working on “Dihydroazulene-Vinylheptafulvene”, a system that attempts to develop molecules that can harvest and hold substantial amounts of solar energy for a significant amount of time and release it when needed.
For these molecules to store energy, they were made to change shape. Unfortunately, the technique isn’t void of challenges. One problem is that once the capability of the molecule to store energy improves, the time for which this energy could be stored is reduced and vice versa.
The researchers were likewise able to double the energy density of the molecule so that it will be able to stay in the same shape for 100 years but the molecule did not return to its original shape so it failed to release the energy that it stored.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
