University of Central Florida

The US Naval Research Laboratory has funded a groundbreaking project to develop a new hypersonic engine capable of morphing its shape during flight to optimize power, thrust and efficiency. It's now entering experimental testing in Florida.

Methane has a greenhouse effect 80 times worse than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, and emissions are skyrocketing even as we start reducing CO2. That makes UCF's new hydrocarbon-capturing, sunlight-powered catalyst a very compelling idea.

Traditional paint gets it color from synthetic pigments, which fade over time and aren't very eco-friendly. There may soon be a better alternative, though, in the form of a paint which incorporates color-producing nanostructures.

In an exciting example of what so-called structural batteries could look like, scientists have developed a "power suit" for electric vehicles that could not only extend their range, but give them a handy boost in acceleration at the same time.

UCF researchers say they've trapped a sustained explosive detonation, fixed in place, for the first time, channeling its enormous power into thrust in a new detonation engine that could propel a hypersonic aircraft up to 17 times the speed of sound.

A team at the University of Central Florida has put forward a seawater-based battery design that ticks some key boxes, by using seawater in place of flammable and toxic electrolytes and a new anode to improve durability.

Scientists at the University of Central Florida studying alternative lithium battery designs have come up with a modification to one they say could lead to great performance gains, thanks to a new protective coating for one of its electrodes.

A Florida team working with the US Air Force says that it's built and tested an experimental model of a rotating detonation rocket engine, which uses a spinning series of chaotic explosions inside a ring channel to create super-efficient thrust.

The 2D wonder material, graphene, has a long list of superpowers, but one thing it hasn’t been great at is absorbing light. Now, a study from the University of Central Florida (UCF) has found a way to boost graphene’s light absorption, allowing it to make better use of that energy.

Scientists at the University of Central Florida have developed a way to effectively shrink pixels down to a third of their size, using different voltages to tune the color of individual subpixels to red, green or blue. The result could be screens with much higher resolution and improved brightness.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida have created a supercapcitor that can not only be fully-charged in mere seconds, but can go on to be recharged more than 30,000 times without affecting performance or capacity.

A human mechanical surrogate is part of a program by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to create robots, avatars, and animatronic surrogates for military training.