Research

New Zealand and Germany have partnered up to provide NZ$2 million (AU$1.8m) each to three green hydrogen research projects, including one to develop more efficient anion exchange membrane electrolysers which promise to be cheaper and more sustainable to manufacture.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have examined one of the fastest-charging anode materials by using a low-cost, lab-based optical microscopy technique. Their findings showed that particle fracture, which can reduce the storage capacity of a battery, is more common with higher rates of delithiation and in longer particles.

Researchers in China have reported a colourisation strategy for solar based on photonic glass. They created solar panels that took on blue, green, and purple hues, while only dropping the efficiency of power generation from 22.6% to 21.5%.

As community opposition to overhead transmission line grows, the Victoria-based Energy Grid Alliance has released a report imploring the energy industry to better understand why the phenomenon is gaining momentum – positing the ‘talk to them early and pay them more’ approach will only further decay the situation. Instead, the group says real attention needs to be paid to social license and ensuring environmental and socioeconomic impacts of chosen transmission corridors are considered from the get-go.

Researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) have developed a broadly applicable and versatile post-electrode-engineering process. It can be applied to a range of conventional anodes to improve their stability.

A study into exporting green hydrogen from the 8 GW HyEnergy hydrogen Project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region without an onshore port has found it to be both commercially and technically feasible.

In a bit more bad news for everyone already struggling with the current energy crisis, modelling from Cornwall Insight Australia forecasts that prices will remain at increasingly high levels for the next three years, after which they will flatten but are not likely to lose their volatility in the longer term.

An international team of scientists developed a nanoparticle structure which, when added to a solar cell, was shown to scatter light and potentially reflect it many times within the cell, contributing to a noticeable jump in current.

New research from Stanford University researcher Mark Jacobson outlines how 145 countries could meet 100% of their business-as-usual energy needs with wind, water, solar and energy storage. The study finds that in all the countries considered, lower-cost energy and other benefits mean the required investment for transition is paid off within six years. The study also estimates that worldwide, such a transition would create 28 million more jobs than it lost.

Scientists in Japan have developed a novel metal-organic, framework-based magnesium ion conductor with superionic conductivity, even at room temperature.