New Atlas

Space Audio available

MOF-based alternative could make for safer, cleaner rocket fuel

Loz Blain April 7, 2019

Hydrazine rocket fuel is highly toxic, carcinogenic and unstable, making it incredibly dangerous to work with. Scientists at McGill believe their new alternative, based on metal-organic frameworks, will lead to cleaner, safer, more controllable rockets.

Researchers have proposed a metal-organic framework-based alternative to the hypergolic rocket fuels used today

Environment Audio available

Chemical conversion process gives plastic waste new life as fuel

Nick Lavars February 10, 2019

Millions of metric tons of plastic are produced each year and in reality, very little of it is recycled. But what if there were more ways of turning this waste into something valuable, be it new plastics, hydrocarbons or different types of fuel?

Chemical engineer Linda Wang led a research team at Purdue University in coming up with a ...

Automotive

Water-stabilized hydrogen fuel promises twice the range of gasoline at half the price, with zero tailpipe emissions

Loz Blain December 2, 2018

Israeli-Australian company Electriq Global's new technology stabilizes hydrogen in a recyclable liquid that can be pumped and transported just like gasoline. That's huge, because it enables long-range electric driving with fast refueling – and it plugs right into the existing fuel logistics model.

Electriq-Global, an Israeli-Australian company, claims it's invented a new fuel that combines the best aspects of ...

Automotive

Porsche does away with diesel

Nick Lavars September 24, 2018

Porsche has announced that it is turning its back on diesel-powered vehicles, instead choosing to shift its focus toward a cleaner energy future. The news comes three years after parent company Volkswagen admitting to using a defeat device to cheat emissions testing.

Porsche's Stefan Weckbach pictured alongside the car he is in charge of developing, the forthcoming electric ...

Environment

Pilot plant demonstrates low-cost conversion of CO2 into fuel

Michael Irving June 7, 2018

Direct air capture (DAC) systems have been discussed as a possibility for removing CO2 from the air, but until recently seemed too expensive. After running a pilot plant for three years, Carbon Engineering (CE) has broken down the costs of a DAC system and found how it can work.

Rendering of Carbon Engineering's air contactor design. This unit would be one of several that would ...

Physics

"Impossible" EMDrive thruster may stall after latest experiments

Michael Irving May 24, 2018

Several experiments have shown that the EMDrive can generate thrust from basically nothing – in apparent violation of Newton’s Laws of Motion. Unfortunately, a German team has now built and tested their own EMDrive, and found that environmental factors may have been responsible for false positives.

A prototype of the EMDrive, which can apparently produce thrust without fuel

Energy

MIT membrane produces fuel from CO2 emissions

Rich Haridy November 27, 2017

Researchers at MIT have developed a new membrane-based system that can convert carbon dioxide emissions into useful alternate fuels. The process has been effectively demonstrated on a small-scale and the researchers hope to ultimately adapt the system to conventional fossil fuel-based power plants.

A membrane developed by MIT researchers can isolate carbon monoxide from carbon dioxide, allowing polluting greenhouse ...

Energy

Superclean: Light and quantum dots turn plants into hydrogen

Michael Franco March 14, 2017

Finding a way to produce hydrogen simply and cleanly would go a long way toward eventual use of the gas as a fuel source. And that's exactly what researchers at the University of Cambridge (UC) have done, adding to a host of other green possibilities that have been proposed for creating the gas.

Scientists have been sprouting new ways to cleanly produce hydrogen as a fuel source

Energy

Solar-powered molecule converts CO2 into carbon-neutral fuel source

Michael Irving March 13, 2017

The humble leaf, which collects sunlight and uses that energy to turn carbon dioxide into fuel for the plant, has inspired scientists. Researchers have developed a molecule that uses sunlight to convert the problematic carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can then be stored as a fuel source.

Inspired by the leaf, researchers have developed a molecule that uses sunlight to convert CO2 into ...

Energy

Reactor that produces liquid fuel from CO2 in the air to be tested in portable pilot plant

Eric Mack November 9, 2016

A transportable chemical reactor developed at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and spinoff company Ineratec that uses solar power to convert CO2 from the air and regenerative hydrogen from electrolysis into liquid fuels will be tested in a pilot plant.

The chemical reactor at the heart of the Ineratec system designed to convert CO2 from the ...