Night vision - wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Humans have lower affinity to night vision than many animals and in many cases it is not sufficient. Therefore, scientists have developed many types of night vision devices that helped creating the night vision concept. The traditional night vision goggles are too expensive and inconvenient. Therefore, the scientist are inventing new concepts, such as  night vision drops and night vision contact lenses.

Night vision eye drops 

Night vision eye drops might sound like a futuristic concept, but the first experiments have already been performed on a volunteer. He was able to retain the night vision and there were no side effects. Night vision eye drops are based on chlorine e6 that is present in marine organisms. 

Night vision contact lenses 

Using contact lenses instead of goggles would be a convenient solution for application in night vision. Scientist are developing night vision contact lenses that are based on graphene technology and their application will be wide in the future. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_vision

The future trends in wind power harvesting

Wind power still encounters many difficulties and it is necessary to research the new methods for harvesting of wind power. The main future trends in wind turbines are related to new designs and completely new concepts that will help to increase the overall efficiency. 

Bladeless wind turbines

Wind turbines kill birds and that is a fact. In order to solve this problem, it would be wise to use bladeless wind turbines. The main problem with bladeless designs is the fact that they are still too small and have low efficiency. In the future, the scientists should find the more effective bladeless design concepts that will involve closed turbines, low and high pressure turbines and artificial wind trees. 

Airborne wind turbines

If you want to get higher yields of wind power, you should launch the turbines high into the air. Scientists are already experimenting with balloons, kytoons, kites, tethered airplanes and other flying objects that will lift the turbines into the air. The effectiveness of airborne wind turbines is much higher than the land wind turbines. Therefore, we could expect many developments in this field. 

Offshore wind farms

Making offshore wind farms is a difficult task, but there are many advances in this field. Offshore wind turbines can be more independent and have larger efficiency. 

Microscopic wind turbines

Tiny wind turbines could be installed in gadgets and used to recharge the battery. You could put your phone near a window and the slow breeze will fill its batteries. You could also gently move it and create wind that will recharge the battery. This is especially useful when you are not able to charge your phone when you go camping or outdoors. 

Balloon wind turbines, kytoon wind turbines and other airborne wind turbines will soon fill our sky

Building wind turbines can be a difficult task. They need to be very tall and with a big diameter. The investment costs are very high and it is difficult to efficiently harvest wind energy. It is well known that in order to harvest wind power, you need to go up high in the sky. The winds are stronger and faster in upper layers of the atmosphere. Therefore, instead of building tall towers, we could easily put balloons, kites, kytoons, tethered airplanes and other devices with wind turbines into the air. Although there are still many difficulties that need to be solved, but scientists are developing suitable airborne structures that will withstand high speed winds and convert wind energy into electricity. Therefore,a kytoon, that is representing a hybrid between a kite and a balloon has been invented to overcome the difficulties that airborne wind turbines have. Kytoons  are relatively stable on high altitudes and they can be used to harvest wind power. Balloon wind turbines will soon be available everywhere and people could even tie them to their houses and harvest the high value wind energy from the high layers of the atmosphere. 

Perovskites open new horizons and bring hope for efficient and economic solar power solutions

Silicon has been used in solar photovoltaic cells for a long time. But silicon is not perfect. Production costs are high, the cell lifetime is not long, degrading efficiency is notable during years. Therefore it is definitely necessary to propose new solutions and new materials that will give the necessary boost to solar energy production. Recently, perovskite solar cells came into focus of attention in many research circles. Perovskites are efficiently absorbing solar energy and they are very durable and can be used for a long period of time without signs of degradation. Scientists are now developing new methods to include perovskite solar cells in mass production. However, there are still many elements that must be considered before these cell find their application in practice. We could surely hope that highly efficient perovskite solar cells will replace the currently used silicon photovoltaic cells. 

The future trends in solar cells technology

Solar cells technology requires innovations in order to meet the increasing demands of the market for renewable energy. The traditional photovoltaic cells have many disadvantages, such as high price, low efficiency, decreasing of efficiency with time, fragility and inconvenient installation. Therefore it is necessary to make new innovations in solar technology that will bring higher efficiency and easier usage of solar power. 

Some of the most important innovations in solar technology include perovskite solar cells, plasmoelectric solar cells, spray on solar cells and transparent solar cells. 

Perovskites 

Perovskites are special types of minerals that have strong benefits in solar power harvesting. Perovskite can be used as absorber in solar cells. It can be easily combined with photovoltaic solar cells to increase their effectiveness. Perovskites still have a long way to go, since their application is still in experimental phase. But it is obvious that the efficiency of perovskite solar cells is gradually increasing with new innovations and experiments. 

Plasmoelectric solar cells

Plasmoelectric effect is related to plasmonic effect on metallic surface where potential is created as a result of light that reaches the nanoplasmonic clusters. Plasmoelectric cells will bring boost to harvesting of solar powers in high range, including infrared part of solar spectrum. 

Spray on solar cells

Spray on solar cells combine perovskites and photovoltaic effect in an easy spray on application. This is very interesting because you don't need to build solar panels and you can just spray the solar cells directly on any desired surface. You could imagine how it would be easy to spray solar cells on roofs, walls and other parts of the building and make the building energy sustainable. 

Transparent solar cells

Instead of traditional dark gray or black photovoltaic solar cells, the future solar cells should be transparent. It is well known that black is absorbing the visible part of solar radiation. But the technology with organic molecules will give alternative to classical photovoltaic cells. The transparent solar panels will absorb both ultraviolet and infrared part of the solar spectrum and the efficiency will be satisfactory. We could surely expect that the transparent solar panels will replace the traditional windows and generate electricity for many buildings. 

Plasmoelectric effect instead of photovoltaic effect - a nice solution for future solar cells

Traditional solar cells are still using the photovoltaic effect to convert solar power to electricity. Now is the time to deliver some changes to the solar power technology. It is wise to use the plasmoelectric effect instead of photovoltaic effect. Plasmoelectric effect is based on plasmons that are generated on metalic surface with nanoholes. The metal atoms convert to excited state and the electric potential is formed. This way it is not only the visible part of the solar energy that can be converted to electricity. The infrared part will also have its conversion made. Plasmonic materials are still in a research phase, but the first lab applications have already been made and we could expect satisfactory results in near future. 

Perovskite solar cells bring numerous benefits to solar power generation

Perovskite solar cells that are made of perovskites (special type of mineral) are bringing promising results in solar cells technology. Although there are lot of things that need to be done to increase their effectiveness, the first results are very good and it is estimated that in the future perovskites will be used to create solar cells that have effectiveness of up to 40 percent. Comparing to silicone photovoltaic cells, perovskites will give more power and they can be used as absorbers for solar power. The future researches will certainly deliver new results that will quickly give a boost to performance of perovskite solar cells. 

Plasmoelectric effect with metalic nanoplasmons will bring revolution to future solar cells technology

The traditional photovoltaic cells have lower efficiency because they are not able to harvest the infrared part of solar energy. The scientists are trying to incorporate the plasmoelectric effect in modern solar cells with high effectiveness. Plasmoelectric effect is used by creating nanoplasmons on metalic surface. The nanoplasmons can use the plasmon resonance to produce electricity. The experiments have already been made where nanoplasmons successfully created electric potential. The main idea is to combine the plasmoelectric solar cells with photovoltaic solar cells and harvest both visible and infrared part of solar spectrum. This way it will be possible to drastically increase performance of traditional silicon based solar panels. 

Sources:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/12/metals-with-nanoholes-can-harvest-solar.html

http://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/harnessing-solar-energy-metal-053543/

According to scientists, wind turbines don't cause any health problems, except annoyance

There have been many claims that wind turbines cause dizziness, headache, insomnia, sleep disorders, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, fatigue and ringing in the ears. There have been numerous law suits conducted by people who think that wind turbines are causing their health problems. However, scientists have found no evidence of any health problems that are caused by wind turbines. According to the research, wind turbines don't cause any health issues, but their sound could be annoying to the people who are living in the vicinity of wind turbines. Sometimes there might be sleep disturbances that are caused by the sound of wind turbines, but there is no evidence that they can influence health conditions. 

Source:->



http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/technology/story/1.3025495

Airborne wind turbine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Airborne wind turbines are representing a new concept where turbines are launched into the air and kept there by using balloons, kites, kytoons, helium balloons, hot air balloons or tethered aircraft. This concept is relatively new, but the applications will certainly follow in the future. When the wind turbines are converted to airborne, they drastically increase efficiency and they can generate more power. The wind speed is higher on higher altitude and it is wise to put wind turbines on big heights. However, it is not convenient to build turbines in the mountains or other unreachable areas. On the other side, airborne wind turbines can be placed everywhere, including off shore or in urban areas. The airborne technology will certainly revolutionize  the wind power generation all over the world. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_turbine

Kytoons will lift the future wind turbines into the air

Airborne wind turbines have many problems that need to be solved. Balloons might be slow and difficult to control. Kites might be fast but unstable. The solution to these problem is to combine a balloon and a kite in a device that is called kytoon. Kytoons are very convenient because they combine the good properties of kites and balloons. The can reach high altitudes and be quite stable. It is well known that wind power rises exponentially with the increase of altitude. Therefore it is wise to consider installation of airborne wind turbines. These turbines could give high efficiency yields of wind power. Beside kytoons, air balloons, tethered aircrafts and kites can also be used to lift the wind turbines to high altitudes. Although this technology has not reached wide application, it will certainly be more popular in the future and we can expect many airborne wind turbines installed. 

Source:->

http://www.industrytap.com/harness-more-wind-power-go-fly-a-kite/11516

Wind vane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wind vane is a simple device that is used to monitor and detect wind direction over time. Wind vanes were used from ancient times, when they were usually put on the top of a roof. The most usual form was in form of rooster. The modern wind vanes are more sophisticated and they are based on electromagnetic principle, where electronic signals can be sent through sensors to a computer device with a proper software that will help to assess and record the wind variations during different seasons. Many companies use wind vanes, besides the weather stations, tall buildings, ports, towers and other structures are also equipped with wind vanes. 

Source:>



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weather_vane&redirect=no

Plasmonic nanoparticle future technology will give boost to cheaper and lighter solar cells

The researchers have managed to use colloidal quantum dots to produce cheaper and lighter solar cells. These colloidal nanoparticles could be easily used in paint and sprays and directly sprayed or painted on roofs and other surface. This is a very promising technology that will  influence future researches. Because of the fact that the regular solar cells don't use the infrared part of solar spectrum, the scientists are experimenting with plasmonic nanoparticles that will create additional energy and boost the solar cells. Concerning the fact that half of the solar energy that reaches the Earth is in infrared spectrum, this will provide the future plasmonic solar cells with a boost and increase their efficiency while maintaining lower prices. 

Source:->

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/8274/20140611/nanoparticle-innovation-promises-cheaper-lighter-solar-cells.htm

Plasmonic solar cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plasmonic solar cells use plasmons to convert light into electricity based on the photovoltaic principle. They are usually used in thin film cells. Metallic nano particles are excited by surface plasmon resonance. This makes it possible to create ultrathin film photovoltaic plasmonic solar cells of the next generation. Plasmonic light trapping technology will give boost to ultrathin photovoltatic plasmonic cells that will certainly find their application in future solar power plants. 

Source:>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmonic_solar_cell

Kytoon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kytoon is a combination of kite and balloon and it incorporates the good sides of both kite and balloon. Kytoon can be inflated by using hydrogen, helium, methane, hot air or other gasses.Ordinary balloons and kites are not stable at high altitudes, but kytoon is different because it can be very stable and more resistant to influence of strong wind.  Therefore, kytoons have found their application in construction of airborne wind turbines. Airborne wind turbines are very convenient because the wind is stronger at higher altitudes and power generating is more efficient. 

Source:> 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kytoon

Using Oxygen absorbing material instead of oxygen tanks will make it easy to breathe underwater in the future

The current scuba dive oxygen tanks are heavy and difficult to use. They only provide limited supply of oxygen and they are not suitable for longer diving periods. The scientists are developing an easier and more convenient technology that is using oxygen absorbing materials. The oxygen absorbing material is created by introducing cobalt molecule into organic crystalline structure. This material can absorb oxygen from the environment and slowly release it during time. This technology will also be beneficial for lung patients that must carry oxygen tanks with them. Only a small quantity of crystalline material can quickly absorb oxygen and slowly release it during time. Although there are no practical implementation of this technology until now, but the scientists are developing new methods that will make this technology available for practical usage.  

Source:>

http://www.gizmag.com/crystalline-material-absorb-oxygen-denmark/34064/