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Rare earth metal extraction from ash
Background
Rare earth elements (REEs), such as lanthanides, yttrium, and scandium, are critical components in numerous advanced technologies, including electronics, energy storage systems, and medicine. Currently, the majority of REEs are sourced from a limited number of mining operations, which poses substantial risks to geopolitical tensions, supply...
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Plastic-degrading enzymes
Able to break down PET plastics in as little as 24 hours
Overview
Plastic waste poses an ecological challenge. There have been 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics produced—6 billion tons are waste. What do we do with this waste?
The long-term, sustainable solution is to find effective ways to break down the plastic into smaller parts and then...
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Atmospheric water irrigation enabled by super moisture absorbent gels
Overview
The global population is projected to reach 9.6 billion people by 2025, requiring food production to increase by 70% to meet the demand of the huge population. Water is most limiting natural resource for agricultural production due to the freshwater shortage and enormous need for irrigation. Dry cropland accounts for 84% of the cultivated...
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Fabrication of metal-insulator-semiconductor photoelectrodes
Background Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising technology for converting solar energy into clean and storable chemical energy. In PEC cells, semiconductors play a key role in absorbing photons from the light source to create mobile charge carriers. Various semiconductor materials have been studied for the high-performance PEC cells,...
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Electrochemical production of solar-grade silicon films from SiO2
Background Silicon thin films are an important limitation for solar photovoltaic cells. Currently, manufacturing of these films are from single crystal silicon and a large amount of raw material is wasted. Single crystal silicon is not a cheap commodity. Thus, the sawing process used on single crystal silicon is costly not only from a manufacturing...
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Generating water from air
Background Air water generation (AWG) is a technology that extracts water molecules from the relative humidity in the atmosphere, passes the condensed water vapor through a filter to produce a drinkable source of water. This type of technology is most beneficial in environments that do not produce large amounts of drinkable water such as arid climates...
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Next-gen smart windows
Electrochromic transition metal oxide nanocrystals for inexpensive, efficient, and responsive windows
Technology description
Researchers in the group of Professor Milliron have developed low-cost glass coatings made from nanocrystal inks that control daylight and solar heat gain in buildings on demand. These smart windows can be integrated with building...
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Low-cost photothermal composites for solar-assisted desalinization and oil-spill cleanup
Problem
Current methods for water decontamination and desalination of ocean water to provide clean drinking water are time consuming and expensive. The materials that have previously been reported for these functions are difficult and expensive to synthesize. Additionally, these materials usually have drastic limitations such as being mechanically...
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A new way to extract lithium chloride from liquid and solid solutions
Lithium chloride (LiCl) is a critical lithium containing material involved in producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide (LiOH). LiOH is required as a precursor material for many of the high-performance Li+-ion battery cathode chemistries in use today for portable electronic applications from laptops to electric vehicles. However, current battery production...
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Accurate monitoring of leaks in CCS sites
Problem statement Increasing global concern over climate change has brought with it an opportunity for sustainable technological advancement. Tax incentives and the geopolitical will is further driving this trend towards carbon neutral technologies. Carbon capture and storage provides a safe and impactful way of achieving this goal. However, the process...
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