Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) have been used as a power source for mobile electronic devices such as notebook PCs and cellular phones since they were introduced into the market in 1991.  Recently, they have been attracting attention as a power source for automobiles and energy storage devices for sustainable energy resources such as solar and wind power, which are key technologies in solving global warming and energy security problems.  Market demands have caused a change in the active materials used in lithium batteries, which in turn has forced a change in the electrolyte material

While the auto industry continues to make incremental progress toward competitive electric vehicles, we pose a strategic question: can we effect disruptive change in the economics of electric vehicles by improving the systems-level interaction of a vehicle with each unique commuter?  This talk will motivate and describe ChargeCar, a new CREATE Lab project that combines direct community engagement with a hybrid supercapacitor-battery energy management system to increase EV efficiency while decreasing battery duty.

The III-N materials system has many material properties which make it an excellent candidate for high efficiency PV cells, and as such InGaN-Ns have begun to gain attention for use in photovoltaic (PV) devices. The band gap of InN was recently discovered to be 0.7 eV as opposed to the previously believed 1.3 eV. The importance of this discovery is that the band gap of the InGaN material system spans nearly the entire solar spectrum (0.7 eV – 3.4 eV) thus enabling design of multijunction solar cell structures with near ideal bandgap energies for maximum efficiency.

Photovoltaics research represents one of the greatest opportunities to impact the climate change and energy security problems that we face today. Over 1.5×10^22 J (15,000 EJ) of solar energy reach Earth everyday, compared to a daily energy consumption of approximately 1.3 EJ by human activity. The potential for new 4-, 5-, and 6-junction solar cell architectures, capable of greater than 70% efficiency in theory, to reach practical efficiencies over 50% is highly leveraging for the economics of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems.

Fiber Optic Communication technology trends towards integer increases in capacity and per bit power efficiency will be presented. Past and present Fiber Optic Communication technologies in datacom applications will be reviewed, as well as current development and standards activities. Also presented as background will be a summary of comparable past trends in wireline and wireless communication. Examples of successful optical interfaces will be provided.

In response to President Obama’s announcement on tougher fuel-efficiency standards and the subsequent prediction of the potential reduction in oil demand, the Numbers Guy from Wall Street Journal wrote on May 27, 2009 : “…..But what if drivers who find that they can go longer on a tank of gas drive more? Would all that additional driving cancel out the environmental benefits the Obama administration is seeking?”

The world is becoming increasingly instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent - in a word, 'smarter'. Organizations now have the ability to see the exact condition of practically everything in near real-time and can leverage this information to achieve financial, environmental, social, and operational benefits.This session will use case studies to provide a broad overview of how technology can be leveraged to optimize all aspects of an organization's infrastructure and operations for energy, carbon, water, and waste.

All the technologies that we hope to turn our future greener and better use material resources including some of the most exotic ones. Low-carbon energy technologies (LCETs) including Photovoltaics (PVs), wind turbines, hybrid and battery electric vehicles, fuel cells, and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) help reduce our reliance on fossil energy, while they consume various material resources including Tellurium, Indium, Gallium, Neodymium, Dysprosium, Samarium, and Lithium among others.

In this talk  we  present  a vision of Dynamic Monitoring and Decision Systems (DYMONDS) as a possible  Information Communications Technology (ICT) framework in support of sustainable energy systems. The concept rests on the idea that much could be gained by relaxing spatial and temporal decomposition assumptions underlying today's hierarchical electric power systems.

Thermoelectric materials for energy generation have several advantages over conventional power cycles including lack of moving parts, silent operation, miniaturizability, and CO2 free conversion of heat to electricity.