I Have The Power!

New Solar Cell Coating May Eliminate Sun Tracking

Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created a nano-engineered coating for photovoltaic (PV) cells that increases sunlight absorption to 96.21 percent. Reported in “New nano coating boosts solar efficiency” on CNN.com, this new technology may improve performance of PV by enabling greater energy capture. Importantly, this coating also improves energy absorption for non-direct angles between the sun and PV collector. 

Solar reflectivity is only one parameter among a complex array of variables impacting PV performance. Nonetheless, the CNN article suggests that efficient solar energy absorption at high angles may eliminate sun tracking systems, which have parasitic power draws.

Thermal Glider Extracts Ocean Energy to Achieve Nearly Unlimited Range

Here is a new take on harnessing ocean thermal energy: a submersible vehicle that propels itself for thousands of kilometers by extracting heat from the ocean to melt an onboard reservoir of expanding wax. The vehicle is called a thermal glider.

Reported in a recent ME Magazine article, “Running Silent”, this autonomous underwater vehicle resulted from research by Dave Fratantoni at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and Roy Watlington of the University of the Virgin Islands. The robot sub propels itself without a conventional power system by periodically melting and re-solidifying a special internal wax reservoir. Mechanical work is performed as the wax liquefies and expands and again as it cools and freezes, changing the bouncy of the glider. 

The thermal glider design, which has been successfully demonstrated in a trail run of several months, makes ingenious use of ocean temperature gradients with depth. Warm water at the ocean’s surface melts the reservoir of wax, sinking the vehicle. At depth, the vehicle cools, and the wax solidifies and shrinks, increasing the vehicle’s buoyancy and sending it back topside. The gliders’ wings generate lift. So instead of just bobbing up and down in place, diving and surfacing induces forward motion. Control surfaces reminiscent of an airplane provide steering and control. 

This mode of propulsion is so efficient that the robot vehicle’s operational life is limited by the longevity of the batteries that power its control and communications electronics. Webb Research, founded by Doug Webb, is collaborating on the project to reduce instrument power demand and extend the robot’s life. Fittingly, Doug Webb was the originator of the thermal glider concept in the 1980’s. Webb Research is also developing direct thermal energy conversion technologies to power onboard electronics indefinitely. 

A fleet of autonomous ocean-powered gliders will eventually be used to study the waters in the subtropical gyre of the North Atlantic. This region is thought to be a key for assessing the ocean’s response to climate change. 

More details on this technology are provided in the WHOI press release entitled, “Researchers Give New Hybrid Vehicle Its First Test-Drive in the Ocean.”

The New UC Merced Campus Represents Great Opportunities

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to visit the first American research university of the 21^st Century; the University of California – Merced.

This visit was poignant for me. I have felt personally connected to this newest University of California campus since I was an undergraduate at UC Irvine in the late 1990’s and the Merced building site was announced. UC Merced represents an opportunity for the University of California, unarguably best public university system in the world, to build a campus from scratch. So, Merced’s development is as free, creative, and innovative as the founders wish while backed by the prestige, reputation, and experience of the UC system. What and opportunity! And the founders are using it well. Even though my alma mater was a 5-hour, 313-mile southbound drive away, Merced felt like a UC campus. Although I had never been there before, UC Merced had a hallmark of familiarity for me, like visiting a childhood home in one’s adult years. 

 Starting new academic programs from scratch is a prospect dear to me as a founding faculty member of the mechanical and energy engineering department at the University of North Texas (UNT). The difference, of course, is that UNT has existed since 1890; so, we are merely adding a new college of engineering and several new engineering departments to an established campus. Those pioneers out in Merced have the much grander challenge of building their whole university (and the surrounding community) from scratch. 

UC Merced is also special to me because of the traditions and history I carry with me as a UCI alumnus. Before Merced, Irvine was among the youngest UC campuses, opening its doors to students in 1965. Pictures from that time period show that California’s Orange County, where Irvine is located, was not the sprawling suburban metropolis we know today. Instead, it was a rural landscape covered with orange groves. Early pictures of the UCI under construction show an isolated campus; Merced’s construction photos look identical, but only in color. I am not ashamed to say that is was an emotional experience to drive from Merced’s city center out to the fledgling UC. Forty years from now, that country lane will be a main metropolitan thoroughfare thanks to the university being born at the end of the road. I’m sure the founding Irvine faculty enjoyed a similar drive from Santa Ana to UCI along a rural lane that eventually became State Highway 55. 

UC Merced, is strategically important in California because it is a doctorate-granting research university located in the Central Valley, uniquely located at California’s nexus of agriculture, environmental stewardship, and renewable energy generation (solar, wind, and agricultural fuels all are potentially viable there). In addition, it is positioned to provide higher education access to the historically underserved population of the Central Valley, which had no local UC campus until Merced came on-line. 

UC Merced is worth keeping an eye on. It will surely follow its other UC cousins to become a top-tier public research university within the next 40 years.