Compressed Air

While battery-electric ferry boats may be more eco-friendly and require less maintenance than their diesel-burning counterparts, they're still not perfect. That's why scientists are now looking into powering small ferries using nothing but compressed air.

Israeli company BaroMar is preparing to test a clever new angle on grid-level energy storage, which it says will be the cheapest way to stabilize renewable grids over longer time scales. This innovative system lets water do the work.

Rockets are expensive, so a number of kinetic launch startups are working on ways to simply yeet payloads into orbit and bring costs down. This one's very fun – a six-mile-long concrete cannon that'll squeeze launch vehicles to Mach 30 in one second.

The less energy that a robot uses to perform its assigned duties, the better. A new soft robotic gripper was created with this fact in mind, as it grasps and releases objects without using any electricity at all.

The world's largest and, more importantly, most efficient clean compressed air energy storage system is up and running, connected to a city power grid in northern China. It'll store up to 400 MWh of energy and release enough power for 40-60,000 homes.

Bicycle tire pressure is a compromise – high pressure is best on smooth roads, while low pressure is better on rough terrain. The Scope Atmoz system allows cyclists to incrementally switch back and forth between the two, while the bike is in motion.

It's a sad fact that people with severe respiratory illnesses are often confined to hospitals, where they must breathe through ventilators. A new portable device that harvests oxygen from the air, however, may someday allow them to stay at home.

Maltese startup Magtor is starting to gain worldwide attention for a new linear compressor design that pumps in both directions. The Magtorpressor's radical efficiency over today's tech could make it a key weapon in the fight against climate change.

Robotic hands do show a lot of promise for various applications, but their mechanical complexity still limits their possible uses. A new air-powered hand is much simpler, but still dextrous enough to be utilized to play a video game.

California is set to be home to two new compressed-air energy storage facilities – each claiming the crown for world’s largest non-hydro energy storage system. Developed by Hydrostor, the facilities will have an output of 500 MW and capacity of 4 GWh.

Soft robots are gaining a lot of attention in research circles, and from an engineering lab at the University of California, San Diego comes an interesting new example of this technology in the form of a robot that can move without any electronics.

When it comes to portable bicycle tire-inflating devices, hand pumps require a lot of effort, while CO2 cartridges are single-use only. The aluminum Choka bike frame offers an alternative, by doubling as a compressed air tank.