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Out of disorder comes electricity
A scrambled-up material has broken the record for converting heat into electricity. Findings published today in Nature suggest that disorder may be the key to creating a new generation of energy-harvesting technologies1.
Laptop owners and car mechanics alike know that heat is a major by-product of any kind of work. In power stations, for example, only one-third of the energy that goes into the generator comes out as electricity — the rest radiates away as 'waste heat' before it can turn a turbine.
For decades, physicists have toyed with ways to convert heat into electricity directly. Materials known as thermoelectrics use temperature differences to drive electrons from one end to another. The displaced electrons create a voltage that can in turn be used to power other things, much like a battery. Such materials have found niche applications: the Curiosity rover trundling about on the surface of Mars, for example, uses thermoelectrics to turn heat from its plutonium power source into electricity.
Thermoelectrics are not, however, efficient enough to be used everywhere. Existing technologies can turn only 5–7% of heat energy into electricity, much less than the conversion efficiency of technologies such as solar panels.
Building a better thermoelectric depends on finding materials that conduct electricity, but not heat. According to Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemist atNorthwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, the way to do that may be to introduce disorder into the materials' structure.
Piece by Piece
Kanatzidis and his team began with one of the most well-known thermoelectrics: lead telluride (PbTe), which usually has an ordered lattice structure. The researchers scattered in a few sodium atoms to boost the material's electrical conductivity, then shoved in some nanocrystals of strontium telluride (SrTe), another thermoelectric material. The crystals allowed electrons to pass, but disrupted the flow of heat at short scales, preserving the temperature gradient.
The final step was to stop heat flow over longer scales. To do this, the team created a fractured version of their pretty thermoelectric crystal. The fracturing did the trick: the cracks allowed electrons to move but reflected heat vibrations in the crystal. The material had a conversion efficiency of about 15% — double that of normal PbTe thermoelectrics.
"This is a significant advance," says Jeff Snyder, a materials scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In recent years, other teams have made nanostructured materials with efficiencies close to the latest work, but the Kanatzidis group's effort is the highest yet. Snyder says that the group's approach of introducing disorder is clearly the way to increase efficiency. "What they're describing is what we modern thermoelectricians believe is the perfect thermoelectric," he says.
That doesn't mean that the material is ready to be used on the next Mars rover, Snyder adds. The sodium introduced to make electrons move is highly reactive, and can degrade the material, particularly if it accumulates along the fractures designed to stop heat flow. NASA has been looking at similar approaches for future space missions, but the agency is not yet convinced that the approach is ready for launch, he says.
Kanatzidis is more optimistic. "I think the materials that we have today are good enough for applications," he says. "My belief is that in about two to three years we will have something."
Source: http://www.nature.com/news/out-of-disorder-comes-electricity-1.11445
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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