Renewable Energy

Hand-held water harvester powered by sunlight could combat water scarcity

July 6, 2023

Omar Yaghi

Omar Yaghi, the inventor of MOFs, led the study on MOF-powered water harvesters that was published July 6 in Nature Water. (Photo courtesy of Omar Yaghi)

UC Berkeley researchers have designed an extreme-weather proven, hand-held device that can extract and convert water molecules from the air into drinkable water using only ambient sunlight as its energy source, a...

Paving the way for more efficient hydrogen cars

December 7, 2018

New hydrogen-powered vehicle research

Hydrogen-powered vehicles emit only water vapor from their tailpipes, offering a cleaner alternative to fossil-fuel-based transportation. But for hydrogen cars to become mainstream, scientists need to develop more efficient hydrogen-storage systems. Now, a group of scientists reporting in ACS' Chemistry of Materials have used metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) to set a new record for hydrogen storage capacity under normal operating conditions.

New Battery Startup Promises Safe Lithium Batteries

February 9, 2015

Two of Blue Current’s three co-founders, Nitash Balsara (left) and Alex Teran. (Photo courtesy Blue Current)Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) battery scientist Nitash Balsara has worked for many years trying to find a way to improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries. Now he believes he...

New hybrid electrolyte for solid-state lithium batteries

December 21, 2015

Electric car. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, LBNL.Nitash Balsarsa and collaborator Joseph DeSimone discovery may enable next-generation cathodes. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt.

Read the article.