Technology Updates

tahanson43206 · 2021-09-07 14:59:07

The monthly tech newsletter arrived ...

This item stood out:

Watch this motorless robot arm bend, stretch and twist
Engineers have developed an omnidirectional octopus-like robot arm that can stretch, bend and twist without a motor. The robotic arm, which features embedded magnetic particles, moves in response to changes in the surrounding magnetic field.
More videos…

Details available upon request ...

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tahanson43206 · 2021-09-22 17:22:52

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/flit … 43802.html

Flite Material Sciences uses lasers, not chemical coatings, to keep ice and rust off surfaces
Kirsten Korosec
Wed, September 22, 2021, 3:33 PM
Dan Cohen was on the hunt for a coating that could keep ice, snow and frost off of solar panels when he discovered a technology that could cut costs and reduce the environmental footprint of a broad section of products from aircrafts and drones to medical devices, pipelines and even sailboats.
And it would prompt Cohen to found his own startup, Flite Material Sciences, which debuted virtually at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield.
Cohen never found the perfect coating for those panels, one of the projects he had undertaken as CTO of the solar company. The coating would change the color of the panel, need to be applied every year or contain toxic materials. The answer came from a professor at the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics, who claimed he could keep ice and rain and snow and frost off the panels and off the structures with no coating at all.
"We thought, okay, that's a little counterintuitive, but let's go see what he has," Cohen said. The professor introduced Cohen to the field of laser surface functionalization. Instead of a coating, which gives the glass, plastic or metal the ability to repel water, he used a laser to retexture the material allowing it repels water by itself. The process also works to prevent rust, ice and repel oil on a variety of surfaces, including semiconductors and even human bone and teeth.

This technology is a natural fit for Earth.

It derives from study of how Nature (on Earth) repels water from surfaces, such as the leaves of certain plants.

** I ** am intrigued by the possibility it might work to keep Mars dust particles from adhering to surfaces of solar panels.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-09-23 09:42:28

For SpaceNut ... this item applies to any topic with a focus on batteries, as well as Business Opportunities. The company is (apparently) looking for partners to recycle battery materials after batteries have exceeded their useful life. The method of extracting metals should apply to Mars as well. Apparently (or at least the article claims) the method is more efficient and takes less up front investment than traditional methods.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/nth- … 25778.html

Nth Cycle wants to revolutionize metals processing for recyclers and mine operators
Aria Alamalhodaei
Wed, September 22, 2021 4:10 PM
There’s a lot of value in waste; just ask metals processing company Nth Cycle, which has developed a technology to help mining and recycling companies recover every bit of critical minerals from their operations.
The company calls its technology “electro-extraction,” and Nth Cycle’s founder and CEO Megan O’Connor likened it to a water filter in a recent interview with TechCrunch. “We found a way to electrify that,” she explained. “We push an electrical current across that filter, and that electricity that we push across is how we can selectively remove the metals of interest.”
Currently, all signs suggest that metal recovery and recycling will be key to electrifying the economy, especially as so many zero-emission technologies rely on critical minerals: lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese, which exist in varying but ultimately finite amounts in the natural environment.

Nth Cycle’s modular unit can also process tailings, or waste from mining operations, and can collect up to 30% of metals that were not extracted in the original mining process.
Once commercialized, Nth Cycle plans to own and operate the units, with its customers owning any of the product that’s recovered.
O’Connor said she sees companies like battery recyclers Redwood Materials and Li-Cycle as partners rather than competitors, because Nth Cycle isn’t in the business of collecting batteries, as well as processing them.

tahanson43206 · 2021-10-01 22:06:08

https://www.yahoo.com/news/protecting-h … 57305.html

California-based Firezat, which is currently the only company in the U.S. that sells this aluminum wrap to public and private entities at scale, has sold thousands of square feet of the material for the express purpose of structural protection against wildfires—including the piece lovingly wrapped around General Sherman. Firezat’s sales increased 30% each of the last two years as fires become increasingly prominent threats to large swathes of both public and private land, with higher temperature, higher wind speeds and longer fire seasons straining firefighting capabilities, says Firezat CEO and founder Daniel Hirning. Five years ago, about 95% of the company’s business was in sales to forest service and Bureau of Land Management customers to protect things like historic buildings; that has expanded to include private homeowners. Hirning says about “several thousand” homes would be able to deploy Firezat by now, based on cumulative sales. Now, other businesses in the space are beginning to see the potential, too. But the buy-in for aluminum wraps, which block 96% of radiant heat, is just in the nascent stages, suggests Hirning. “You think all this coverage and all this advertising exposure [would increase sales even more], but it kind of has the opposite effect,” he says. “There’s an apathy. I think people just get overwhelmed.”

This can definitely go into Business Opportunity, as well as Technology Updates and California Wildfires

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tahanson43206 · 2021-10-04 10:34:00

Update for earlier posts about book recommended by Calliban ...

Thanks tahanson43206,
Your latest customer review is live on Amazon. We and millions of shoppers on Amazon appreciate the time you took to share your experience with this item.
Plentiful Energy: The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor: The complex history of a simple reactor technology, with emphasis on its scientific bases for non-specialists 5-*
from tahanson43206 on October 3, 2021
Nuclear Fission Power Research
This book was recommended by a Scottish engineer. It provides a thorough grounding in the technology needed to set up a business to make Ethanol using CO2 from the atmosphere and water. This book covers design of a nuclear fission plant that makes (breeds) fuel...
See your full review
If you have past items that you would like to rate, please click here.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

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SpaceNut · 2021-10-09 18:30:17

With the power issues and fires along with the lasting drought some have taken to buying units to make water.

In dry California, some buy units that make water from air

ted-bowman-770x433.jpeg?impolicy=website&width=770&height=431

The machine Ted Bowman helped design can make water out of the air, and in parched California, some homeowners are already buying the pricey devices.
The air-to-water systems work like air conditioners by using coils to chill air, then collect water drops in a basin.
The technology works especially well in foggy areas and depending on the size can produce between 200 and 1,900 gallons (900 and 8,600 liters) of water a day.
But they're not cheap, with prices ranging from $30,000 to $200,000.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-04 10:18:44

https://www.kurzweilai.net/next-gen-opt … y-lifespan

The article at the link above is about what appears to be a dramatic improvement in optical disk storage

Scientists from RMIT University in Australia and Wuhan Institute of Technology in China have developed a radical new high-capacity optical disc called “nano-optical long-data memory” that they say can record and store 10 TB (terabytes, or trillions of bytes) of data per disc securely for more than 600 years. That’s a four-times increase of storage density and 300 times increase in data lifespan over current storage technology.
Preparing for zettabytes of data in 2025

Obviously, this advance is of direct importance to the Mars venture, because the venture will depend heavily on a Google-like data lookup capability, and existing data storage systems are inadequate to the requirements.

***
Update a few minutes later:
Sony 5.5TB Optical Disc Archive Gen 3 Cartridge
BH #SODC5500RUS • MFR #ODC5500R/US
1 Question, 1 Answer

Key Features
5.5TB Storage Capacity
Up to 375 MB/s Read Speed
Up to 187.5 MB/s Write Speed
Universal Disc Format (UDF) File System
Show More
Preserve critical assets with the 5.5TB Optical Disc Archive Gen 3 Cartridge from Sony. Designed for long-term storage up to 100 years, the Optical Disc Archive provides 5.5TB of space for your historically-important files. With read and write speeds up to 375 and 187.5 MB/s, respectively, this cartridge uses the Universal Disc Format (UDF) file system for open,

I had no idea that storage technology had advanced this far this soon.

The item described in the quote above appears to be a storage cassette.

I assume there must be a read-write device in the picture.

Posting now in case someone is interested and has the time to follow up.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-11-04 17:42:57

Google's Doodle for 2021/11/04

Invention/development of fiber optic cable...

Today's Doodle
doodlebox_data.title
Charles K. Kao’s 88th BirthdayToday’s Doodle celebrates Chinese-born, British-American physicist and educator Charles K. Kao, considered the father of fiber optics whose innovations laid the groundwork for today’s high-speed internet, revolutionizing global communication.
Charles K. Kao - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Charles_K
Sir Charles Kuen Kao GBM KBE FRS FREng (November 4, 1933 – September 23, 2018) was an electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the development and ...
Citizenship: United Kingdom; United States
Awards: Stuart Ballantine Medal (1977); IEEE ...
Born: Charles Kuen Kao; November 4, 1933; S...
Died: September 23, 2018 (aged 84); Sha Tin, ...
Early life and education · Academic career · Later work · Namesakes
About
Sir Charles Kuen Kao GBM KBE FRS FREng was an electrical engineer and physicist who pioneered the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications. Wikipedia
Born: November 4, 1933, Shanghai, China
Died: September 23, 2018, Sha Tin, Hong Kong
Known for: Fibre optics; Fibre-optic communication
Spouse: May-Wan Kao (m. 1959–2018)
Awards: Nobel Prize in Physics, Grand Bauhinia Medal, MORE
Education: University of Greenwich (1957), St. Joseph's College (1952), University College London
Parents: Kao Chun-Hsiang, King Tsing Fong

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SpaceNut · 2021-11-04 18:44:39

It was 1986 when I worked in the CDrom disk development labs but we are now at the blue ray level of optical disks that contain 25 GB per layer, with dual-layer discs (50 GB) being the industry standard for feature-length video discs.

Sony cranks up optical disc storage to 3.3TB

The first CDs came out in 1982 with a capacity of 650MB, and DVDs came out in 1996 with a capacity of 4.7GB. Today’s Blu-ray media can store up to 100GB of data, and earlier this year, Sony and Panasonic said they will ship 300GB media for optical archival systems in data centers. Sony says the media will have a 100-year shelf life, longer than other storage technology.

tahanson43206 · 2021-11-05 09:18:05

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/u-ze … 00817.html

Apparent support for fusion ...

U.S. zero-carbon fusion energy startup Helion raises $500 mln
Jane Lanhee Lee
Fri, November 5, 2021, 7:00 AM
By Jane Lanhee Lee
Nov 5 (Reuters) - Helion Energy, a fusion energy tech startup, on Friday said it raised $500 million to build a net positive electrical generator, one that creates more power than it uses.
The latest round values the company at $3 billion. Helion said $1.7 billion in follow on investments were committed if it can prove its technology works, which would be a major step toward making fusion technology a practical solution for generating power while emitting no carbon.
Fusion is the process that fires the sun as the nuclei of two atoms fuse under extreme heat. It creates enormous amounts of energy.
Helion’s newest prototype named Polaris will add a so-called regenerative energy technology to its fusion technology already developed to generate electricity, said Helion founder and CEO David Kirtley. The target date for demonstration is 2024.
The company broke ground in Everett, Washington in July to build the generator which will be the size of two shipping containers and create enough electricity to power 40,000 homes, said Kirtley. If it works, the $1.7 billion follow-on investments will be used to develop a commercial system, he said.
“There's a real future for fusion to be part of this climate change and clean energy discussion,” said Kirtley, adding that other fusion energy companies were also pushing the timeline forward. He said there were over 40 private fusion companies today.
Fusion has advantages over fission as the fuel is derived from water, not radioactive uranium or plutonium and doesn’t generate long-term radioactive waste.
Sam Altman, a well-known investor and artificial intelligence researcher in Silicon Valley who led the round, said the long-term goal of Helion is not just to create clean energy but electricity that costs just one cent a kilowatt hour.
“I hope we have the best idea, but what I really care about is that someone gets fusion built and globally deployed as quickly as possible,” said Altman. (Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by David Gregorio)

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tahanson43206 · 2021-11-12 15:22:12

This is a report about laboratory research and prototype demonstration using a phase change cooling method.

I can't tell from the article how practical it might be, but apparently Ford is sufficiently impressed to provide some funding.

In case Calliban happens to catch this, I thought of you because of your focus on heat as an ever present challenge for any technology that shows up on the forum.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/purdue-unive … 27760.html

Purdue University engineers develop a new method of charging electric vehicles
Noe Padilla, Lafayette Journal & Courier
Fri, November 12, 2021, 8:58 AM
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The idea of an electric vehicle may be a neat concept, but may seem a bit impractical for those facing wait times as their vehicles charge.
Depending on the type of charging station an individual uses, charging times could range from 30 minutes at a Level 3 public charging station to hours at a home charging station.
Earlier this month, Purdue University announced that its engineers may have invented a solution to this specific problem, with their new, patent-pending charging station cable that could fully recharge certain electric vehicles in under five minutes. Although it should be noted that the prototype has yet to be tested on an EV as of Purdue’s announcement.
In collaboration with Ford Motor Co., Ford funded the research and development of the project.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
“Ford is committed to making the transition to electrification easy,” said Matt Stover, director of charging, energy services and business development at Ford, in a release.
“We are glad to support Purdue’s research, which has the potential to make electric vehicle and commercial fleet ownership more appealing and accessible.”
How fast can it charge?
Issam Mudawar, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, and his students, V.S. Devahdhanush and Seunghyun Lee, were able to create a prototype charging cable that was able to address one of the main hurdles to quick EV charging — overheating.
In essence, overheating occurs when there is too much energy being delivered through a cable. The more energy that’s being delivered, the hotter the cable gets, and if it gets too hot it could lead to some dangerous repercussions.
Now, overheating isn’t a new concept, EV charging stations and other types of electronics usually rely on liquid cooling systems to remove heat from within their wires. By removing the heat, allows stations to increase the current through a charging cable, but there’s only so much this method can do.
Mudawar and his students have tried to address this issue by using an alternative cooling method, liquid-to-vapor cooling.
“For the past 37 years, Mudawar has been developing ways to more efficiently cool electronics by taking advantage of how liquid captures heat when boiled into a vapor. By capturing heat in both liquid and vapor forms, a liquid-to-vapor cooling system can remove at least 10 times more heat than pure liquid cooling,” stated the press release.
Currently, most advanced chargers in the industry are able to deliver currents up to 520 amperes, which could charge an EV in 30 minutes, but most chargers available to consumers support currents of less than 150 amperes, which would take hours to charge an EV.
In a lab demonstration, Mudawar’s prototype was able to accommodate a current of over 2,400 amperes, which is far beyond the 1,400-ampere minimum that would be needed to reduce charging times for large commercial EVs to five minutes
“The industry doesn’t really need EVs to charge faster than five minutes, but we think we can increase the current even more by modifying both the state of the incoming liquid and the design of the cooling space around the conductor wires in the charging cable,” Mudawar said.
The prototype was not tested on an EV but, it mimic all the traits of a real-world charging station: It included a pump, a tube with the same diameter as an actual charging cable, the same controls and instrumentation and it had the same flow rates and temperatures, stated the press release.
Mudawar’s lab intends to work with EV or charging cable manufacturers to test the prototype on EVs within the next two years.
What's next?
For Mudawar, the resolution of this prototype came as no surprise, but despite decades of research on liquid-to-vapor cooling, no industry has begun using these systems yet. One of the main reasons for the lack of interest is due to a lack of studies that demonstrates the use and explore the use of this new technology.
“The industry has a gap in knowledge and expertise needed to switch from pure liquid cooling to liquid phase-change cooling. How do you design the system? What type of equations do you use to optimize it? But we do have this knowledge through our extensive research,” said Mudawar.
“Similar to the EV charging cable prototype, the systems that Mudawar’s lab has designed for aircraft allow avionics to dissipate great amounts of heat, increasing their performance. Mudawar also has projects funded by NASA to boost the cooling capabilities of rocket engines and spacecraft,” stated the press release.
Researchers have filed a patent application for their charging cable invention through the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization and are seeking additional industry partners to continue the technology’s development.
Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter at 1NoePadilla.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue University engineers develop a new method of charging electric vehicles

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tahanson43206 · 2021-12-01 13:23:55

The article at the link below is about (apparent) progress in harnessing DNA as a data storage medium for dense storage and 1000+ year reliability.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-c … 34147.html

"It only costs much money to write the DNA once at the beginning and then to read the DNA at the end. If we can get the cost of this technology competitive with the cost of writing data magnetically, the cost of storing and maintaining information in DNA over many years should be lower."
Another disadvantage of storing data in DNA is a higher error rate - considerably higher than what computer engineers would tolerate with conventional hard drive storage.
In collaboration with the University of Washington, GTRI researchers have come up with a way of identifying and correcting those errors to protect the data..
The work has been backed by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which supports science that overcomes challenges relevant to the US intelligence community.
Follow Paul on Twitter.

Long term reliable storage of the data from Earth is very much in the interest of the prospect for success of the Mars venture.

I note that (at present) DNA data storage has (or rather, is reported to have) a higher error rate than magnetic tape.

However, since the data is stored in such a compact format, it seems reasonable (to me at least) to suppose that engineers will build in duplicate tracks with error check numbers for each block, and still come in at better data density than other media.

Another note: the claim of long term storage is temperature dependent. That should not be a problem at Mars.

Mars ** could ** conceivably become a backup location for Earth originated data. Per the optimism of Louis about revenue for Mars residents, that could become a steady source of revenue, albeit it on the low side.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-12-16 12:01:15

The snippet below is about LIDAR ... I am posting it here for any engineers who might be thinking about robotic systems for on-orbit assembly of Large Ships (or small ones for that matter) ...

Industry Experts Discuss LiDAR Design Obstacles and
How to Overcome Them
Are you an engineer about to embark on your next LiDAR design? Are you worried about the best way to improve your precision? Do you have concerns on how to best meet the latest requirements? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then read this eBook (co-sponsored by Mouser Electronics) and learn from industry professionals on how to solve your next LiDAR design challenge.
LiDAR systems use pulsed lasers to determine the distance of objects, giving products both depth perception and accurate positioning. Its applications today rely on a wide field of vision, high speed, and precise accuracy to collect, process, and respond to 3D data at lightning speeds. Designing LiDAR systems also require trade-offs among power, size, speed, safety, and precision.
This eBook will help you discover how to mitigate issues from how to increase speed, fine-tune precision, and meet stringent safety specifications.
Read eBook

I read recently that Elon Musk insisted his Tesla automation design team work ** only ** with visible light, because humans use visible light to operate cars (and other vehicles). The article show above appears to meet Elon's requirements (assuming they are reported accurately).

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tahanson43206 · 2021-12-21 21:01:35

The Large Ship topic recently added a non-rotating companion navigation subsystem to it's vision.

The text below is from a tech newsletter that shows up here each month ... if anyone is interested in pursuing the topic just let me know.

Transmission of power and signal from stationary to rotating structures
Hermetic Solutions Group
Making the best technology choice for reliable power and signal transmission across a defined angle rotation interface is a challenge faced by many engineers designing highly sophisticated electronic systems in military and civilian aerospace products. To make the engineering challenge tougher, many of these systems service components that need to move relative to each other.
Download our white paper to learn why Twist Capsules from Cristek Interconnects, a Hermetic Solutions Group company, are the best choice in these situations.

The text describes the environment that would be in play in the Large Ship scenario.

It is possible that a rotation of only 20 seconds per cycle would be of no significance to RF travelling between the rotating vessel and the non-rotation companion. However, it appears that there are folks thinking about the issue.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-12-22 18:38:23

The new performance target for Ethernet reported in this tech newsletter snippet is news to me. Perhaps others in the forum will find it worth noting:

Improving Pluggable Optical Module Performance through Novel, Durable Thermal Management Solution
To manage the greater data bandwidth needs inherent with 4k rich media streaming, machine learning, data mining and analytics, next-generation hyper-scale and cloud-scale datacenters are transitioning to the 400 gigabit Ethernet standard.

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RobertDyck · 2021-12-23 00:21:07

tahanson43206,
A star-sight telescope could have small solar panels of it's own, and batteries. It doesn't need to transfer power. Use reaction wheels for orientation, which consume electric power, no propellant. Some propellant will be required for manoeuvring, and if the tiny space telescope is out for long it will have to desaturate reaction wheels. Transfer propellant from the main ship? That requires periodic docking.

tahanson43206 · 2021-12-23 09:48:52

For SpaceNut .... this item could go into multiple topics ...

The key material appears to be Vanadium, which I do not recall seeing in the forum before.
I probably just missed a post, because this project must have been in development for a number of years.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/h2- … 00105.html

PR Newswire
H2, Inc. launches 20MWh flow battery project in California
Wed, December 22, 2021, 9:00 AM
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- H2, Inc. launches 20MWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) energy storage project in the northern part of California starting December 2021. The project with 5MW rated power, is expected to be the largest VRFB ever built in the US at the time of completion. Currently, the largest installations in the states are 8MWh systems in San Diego and Washington state. Furthermore, H2, Inc's 20MWh system is going to be the world's largest VRFB project implemented by modular approach which utilizes 100% pre-built VRFB modules designed and manufactured by H2, Inc.
The project consortium is led by H2, Inc. with participating entities including one of the largest state-run generation companies in Korea and a national research institute. The deployment is to be completed by the end of 2023 in one of the existing gas peaker plants in California. Once the pilot phase of the project is successfully run, H2, Inc is planning to begin commercial operation in California power grid. Upon commissioning, it will be the largest operating VRFB energy storage in the US.
As soon as a successful track-record is established in California, H2, Inc is planning to expand its operations nationwide in the US market. Aside from lithium-ion batteries, there are very few emerging technologies with large-scale deployment records. H2, Inc's 20MWh California project is expected to become a pivotal point for VRFB playing the role of a leading technology in utility-scale storages, resulting in a promising wide expansion in North American market.
The project is financially backed by Korean government which has high national interest in VRFB to mitigate intermittency of rapidly increasing domestic renewable energies. VRFB technology has been strategically important for the government in order to fulfill 2050 carbon neutrality in Korea which is the 14th country in the world with strong climate legislation. Alongside the national policy, VRFB is attracting great market expectations due to its competitive long-duration capabilities and high safety. Korea is currently the most concerned nation in fire safety of energy storages due to over 30 fires and explosions of lithium-ion battery storages happened for the last four years. The raised concerns about lithium-ion's fire are making a lot of companies try to find safe utility-scale energy storages among which VRFB is one of viable options now.
Founded in 2010, H2, Inc has grown into a vertically integrated flow battery company under original management of its founders. H2, Inc is one of the few flow battery companies in the world having extensive in-house capabilities including electro-chemistry, mechanical and electrical engineering, and software development for various energy storage applications. By virtue of its vertical integration, H2, Inc has been capable of introducing highly market-friendly VRFB products named EnerFLOWTM more quickly than any other players in the industry.
"California is a perfect testbed for large-scale VRFB to replace traditional gas peakers taking great majority of power generation in the state. Since California is a frontrunner in carbon neutrality movements to overcome global climate change, 20MWh VRFB project is going to be a significant milestone for many states in the US and other following regions with similar targets. This monumental project will show how VRFB is able to substitute for fossil-fueled power plants and optimize power grid crowded with increasing renewable energy", H2, Inc's founder and CEO, Dr. Shin Han said.

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tahanson43206 · 2021-12-29 21:59:52

For SpaceNut ... here's another item that could go into multiple topics ...

It is about energy storage in general, and hydrogen storage in particular, but the recent discussion of thermal energy storage might be a good fit as well, because hydrogen is released from storage by heating.

So now we have a combination of Calliban's suggestion of a cold store to go with the hot store, ** and ** we have energy storage in a compact form, ** and ** we have a possible solution to the portable power source problem, although the cost of fuel cells is still an obstacle.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … d=msedgntp

While it takes more energy to get hydrogen than is released by consuming it, it has an attractively high energy content per unit of weight — three times that of petrol.
And unlike conventional fuels, its use in a fuel cell (through combination with oxygen) produces only water — a perfectly harmless by-product.
The problem with hydrogen, however, is that it is a highly volatile gas. This means that storing it is as challenging as it is expensive.
To contain it, you either need a tank pressurised to around 700 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level, or one chilled down to around -423°F (-253°C).
Both of these solutions require additional energy to maintain.
Experts led from the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) may have a better solution, one that sees the gas trapped on the surface of tiny palladium particles.
Each so-called 'nanocluster' is only 1.2 nanometres in diameter — just a few atoms across — and can store hydrogen at ambient conditions.
They can be made to release their hydrogen via heating, at which point they can be cooled and reused.

What is ** not ** revealed is the mass of the palladium.

And (I'm asking before SpaceNut is sure to do) what is the availability of palladium?

oh oh!

Palladium Outlook 2021: Supply Constraints a Tailwind for ...
https://investingnews.com/.../palladium-outlook
Jan 13, 2021 · “Palladium has been in tight supply,” said Aldis, who went on to explain that production woes in Russia, another top PGMs producer, could add to …
Reviews: 4
Estimated Reading Time: 8 mins
Palladium Investment Fundamentals | Supply Demand | KITCO ...
https://online.kitco.com/fundamentals/p … investment
Palladium Supply. Today close to 80% of the fresh world’s palladium supply is dug up from just two nation states, South Africa and Russia. About 40% of all new mined palladium supplies come from South Africa while another 40% of the world’s …
People also ask
Where does the world's Palladium come from?
Are palladium supplies being disrupted?
What drives palladium prices?
How much Palladium will be produced in 2021?
Feedback
Palladium Hits Record as Supply Shortage Deepens on Auto ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-21/...
Apr 21, 2021 · Spot palladium surged to a record high on bets that rebounding economies will fuel automaker demand, deepening supply shortfalls of the precious metal. Palladium, used in catalytic converters to ...
Palladium
https://thepalladiumgroup.com/capabilit … management
Palladium also managed the procurement and deployment of CPAP ventilator supplies, laboratory supplies, and testing and personal protective equipment. Palladium was responsible for the facilitation of Australian and international fre

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SpaceNut · 2021-12-29 22:28:18

One place where you will find it is a catalytic converter as it contains precious metals (as active components) such as palladium, platinum, and rhodium (referred to as PGMs) in order to convert harmful gases emitted from vehicle engines to relatively harmless ones by both the reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) into nitrogen N2 and the oxidation of hydrocarbons and CO to CO2.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-12-30 09:40:14

3-D printing a base on Mars
https://www.designboom.com/architecture … 2-27-2021/

NASA was recruiting participants for a year-long simulated mars mission inside the 3D-printed habitat

Robot Startup project to Clear Snow...but can it also Clear Mars Dust?
'A Cybertruck-Inspired Remote-Controlled EV Could Help You Clear Snow'
https://interestingengineering.com/a-cy … clear-snow

helps you clear snow during heavy winters.

The number of vegetable vertical farms or “factories” in Japan has grown from 93 in 2011 to 390 in February 2021.
http://www.fruitnet.com/asiafruit/artic … h-in-japan

Tech powers vertical farming growth in Japan

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2021-12-30 09:42:20)

tahanson43206 · 2022-01-06 10:52:12

We have at least three (and possibly four) members actively thinking about systems that will operate in space...

The article from which the snippet below came is available upon request:

Ultra-High Density, Space Qualified Connector
Equipped with the <protected> contact technology the <name> system can withstand data rate application up to 10 Gbps (per channel) requirements, including extreme levels of vibration, shock and climatic testing above 2100 G. The <name> Series is designed in a robust construction with 4 or 12 high speed, dual-twinax modules.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-01-14 14:30:23

For SpaceNut ... this post could go into multiple locations ... I'll start it off here...

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/finance … 01284.html

Zeva’s flying saucer is an electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft, or eVTOL, that’s powered by four pairs of rotors. It’s designed to lift off vertically with a single pilot, and then transition to a horizontal orientation to fly at speeds of up to 160 mph with a range of up to 50 miles.
“This is a huge inflection point for Zeva as we join an exclusive set of proven flying eVTOL platforms, and a testament to the relentless hard work and ingenuity of our entire team over the past two and a half years,” Stephen Tibbitts, Zeva’s CEO and chairman, said today in a news release.

The article at the link above includes a video showing a test flight of this (to me surprising) design.

I'll be interested in any comments that NewMars members may make about this particular fuselage configuration.

I'll add that if I were to invest in one of these, I'd like to be sure a parachute is included.

That would be true of any of the eVtol designs I have seen, but the fuselage design for this vehicle seems well suited for one.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-01-31 13:43:40

For SpaceNut (when you've cleared all that snow!)....

This could go multiple places ... I'll start it here;

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/koenigseggs … 00255.html

Koenigsegg's Tiny Electric Motor Makes 335 HP and 443 Lb-Ft of Torque
Chris Perkins
Mon, January 31, 2022 12:09 PM
Swedish hypercar maker Koenigsegg has long been a home for novel engineering, and that's evident in its new electric motor. Developed for the Gemera four-seater, this electric motor, dubbed the Quark, is a tiny powerhouse. In a package that weighs just 63 pounds, the Quark develops 335 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque. For scale, that's a 330-mL energy drink in the pictures seen throughout.

Koenigsegg is also marketing an EV drive unit made up of two Quark motors, plus its small-but-powerful inverter, and small low-ratio planetary gearsets at each output shaft. The unit is called the Terrier, and serves up 670 hp and 811 lb-ft in a package that weighs just 187 pounds, and which offers torque vectoring across an axle. A Terrier can be bolted directly to a car's monocoque as well.
More information on the Terrier unit is forthcoming, and presumably, it will be featured on future Koenigsegg products. As ever, the numbers are deeply impressive and entirely unsurprising from the innovative Swedish firm.

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tahanson43206 · 2022-02-01 12:31:40

For SpaceNut ....

Here are a couple of items that showed up today ...

From a tech newsletter:

Watch the conversion of captured CO2 to solid carbon
An efficient route for capturing carbon dioxide and converting it to solid carbon has been devised by researchers in Australia to accelerate the decarbonization of cement, steel and other heavy industries.

And from the Yahoo feed:

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/lifesty … 32049.html

This appears to be an (interesting to me for sure!) attempt by the Chinese to compete directly with Elon Musk...

Their design includes a Space Shuttle like lander launched by a rocket powered flying wing?

Chinese aerospace firm Space Transportation said it’s developing a combination aircraft and winged rocket that will eventually be used for space tourism. The aircraft will also be used as a supersonic business jet that can link any two points on Earth, reports Space.com. The company said that a flight from Beijing to New York would only take an hour.
A CGI presentation on Space Transportation’s website shows passengers boarding a plane that is attached to a glider wing with two rocket boosters. The airplane then detaches from the wing after takeoff and flies through suborbital space. The wing and boosters then land back on the launch pad, while the aircraft proceeds to its destination, landing vertically.
More from Robb Report

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SpaceNut · 2022-02-01 19:57:44

Saw the electric motor and took a look at the power numbers as compared to the battery that it would take and its huge. Of course if used with an engine as the hybrid are done then its not as bad but its still quite heavy. Its also liquid cooled due the heat that would occur with in the coils.

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