Unexpectedly high emissions from wastewater treatment plants

With a custom built drone, researchers at LiU have shown that greenhouse gas emissions from many wastewater treatment plants may be more than twice as large as previously thought.
Photo Credit: Magnus Gålfalk

Greenhouse gas emissions from many wastewater treatment plants may be more than twice as large as previously thought. This is shown in a new study from Linköping University, where the researchers used drones with specially manufactured sensors to measure methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

“We show that certain greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment plants have been unknown. Now that we know more about these emissions, we also know more about how they can be reduced,” says Magnus Gålfalk, docent at Tema M – Environmental Change at Linköping University, who led the study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Wastewater treatment plants receiving sewage from households and industries account for approximately 5 per cent of human-induced methane and nitrous oxide emissions, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.

To calculate this, the IPCC uses so-called emission factors that are linked to how many households are connected to the treatment plant. The calculation model then yields a number for the emissions from each wastewater treatment plant. This number is an estimate and not the result of actual measurements, which has turned out to be problematic.

Locking carbon in trees and soils could ‘stabilize climate for centuries’ – but only if combined with underground storage

Photo Credit: Veronica Lorine

Research on a ‘portfolio approach’ to carbon removal enables firms to mix expensive tech-based solutions that inject carbon deep underground with lower-cost and currently more available nature-based options, such as forests and biochar. 

A team of researchers, led by Cambridge University, has now formulated a method to assess whether carbon removal portfolios can help limit global warming over centuries.

The approach also distinguishes between buying credits to offset risk versus claiming net-negative emissions.

The study paves the way for nature-based carbon removal projects – such as planting new forests or restoring existing ones – to become effective climate change solutions when balanced with a portfolio of other removal techniques, according to researchers.

They say the findings, published in the journal Joule, show how nature-based and technology-based carbon storage solutions can work together through the transition to net zero, challenging the notion that only permanent tech-based “geological storage” can effectively tackle climate change.

SwRI produces, evaluates sustainable aviation fuel made from e-fuel

A multidisciplinary team at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) produced, characterized and tested standard jet fuel along with two sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), including one developed at SwRI, through an internally funded project. A custom jet engine test stand was used to gather emissions and particulate data.
Photo Credit: Southwest Research Institute

Southwest Research Institute produced a batch of blended sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through a refinery process that started with electrofuels or e-fuels made from carbon dioxide and green hydrogen. Using internal research funding, a multidisciplinary team produced and characterized the SAF, along with two other commercially available fuels, before collecting emissions and particulate data to support the aviation industry’s emissions goals.

“Aviation is difficult to decarbonize due to the fuel density and power required for flight,” said Francesco Di Sabatino, a group leader in SwRI’s Mechanical Engineering Division. “With this project we’re gathering important data for conventional fuel and two different SAFs.”

Conventional jet fuel is made from petroleum that burns inside a jet engine. Fueling jets with SAF could help reduce carbon emissions. Worldwide air travel accounts for 2% of all carbon emissions, and 12% of all carbon emissions from transportation. The team tackled three focus areas — production, characterization and testing.

SwRI develops technology to deploy stabilized solar arrays, enabling spacecraft docking

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has developed technology that enables spacecraft to utilize precision pointing algorithms for attitude control. SwRI is currently integrating the Parallelogram Synchronized Truss Assembly (PaSTA) technology to stabilize deployed solar arrays on the Astroscale U.S. Refueler.
Image Credit: Southwest Research Institute

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has developed technology to stiffen deployable structures on spacecraft, enabling autonomous spacecraft docking operations. SwRI is currently integrating the Parallelogram Synchronized Truss Assembly (PaSTA) technology with solar arrays on the Astroscale U.S. Refueler spacecraft The team is also designing two different deployable booms using PaSTA technology for another spacecraft SwRI is developing.

The Astroscale U.S. Refueler, a 300-kilogram spacecraft, will be the first to conduct hydrazine refueling operations above geostationary orbit for the United States Space Force (USSF) and will be the first-ever on-orbit refueling mission supporting a U.S. Department of War asset. SwRI has been contracted by Astroscale U.S. to build, integrate and test the refueler for the USSF. The spacecraft requires precision pointing to dock with other vehicles in space, which necessitates a stiff deployable solar array to power its movements.

Atomic Neighborhoods in Semiconductors Provide New Avenue for Designing Microelectronics

An illustration of the semiconductor material investigated for this study, which is composed of germanium with small amounts of silicon and tin. The germanium atoms are depicted as gray spheres, the silicon as red and tin as blue.
Image Credit: Minor et al/Berkeley Lab

A team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and George Washington University have confirmed that atoms in semiconductors will arrange themselves in distinctive localized patterns that change the material’s electronic behavior. The research, published today in Science, may provide a foundation for designing specialized semiconductors for quantum-computing and optoelectronic devices for defense technologies.

On the atomic scale, semiconductors are crystals made of different elements arranged in repeating lattice structures. Many semiconductors are made primarily of one element with a few others added to the mix in small quantities. There aren’t enough of these trace additives to cause a repeating pattern throughout the material, but how these atoms are arranged next to their immediate neighbors has long been a mystery. Do the rare ingredients just settle randomly among the predominant atoms during material synthesis, or do the atoms have preferred arrangements, a phenomenon seen in other materials called short-range order (SRO)? Until now, no microscopy or characterization technique could zoom in close enough, and with enough clarity, to examine tiny regions of the crystal structure and directly interpret the SRO.

Innovative transistors for quantum chips

Walter Weber, Masiar Sistani and Andreas Fuchsberger
Photo Credit: Technische Universität Wien

The smaller electronic components become, the more complex their manufacture becomes. This has been a major problem for the chip industry for years. At TU Wien, researchers have now succeeded for the first time in manufacturing a silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistor using an alternative approach that will not only enable smaller dimensions in the future, but will also be faster, require less energy and function at extremely low temperatures, which is important for quantum chips.

The key trick lies in the oxide layer that insulates the semiconductor: it is doped and produces a long-range effect that extends into the semiconductor. The technology was developed by TU Wien (Vienna), JKU Linz and Bergakademie Freiberg.

Space-based nuclear detonation detection mission endures

Visual safety observers Debra Yzquierdo, left, and Naomi Baros watch the skies for aircraft atop an observation platform.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Roughly 12,550 miles above Earth, a constellation of U.S. global positioning satellites orbits the planet. GPS satellites also carry a sophisticated system designed to detect above ground nuclear detonations anytime, anywhere.

The Global Burst Detection system, developed by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, carries a suite of sensors and instruments capable of identifying signals from nuclear detonations and providing real-time information to the U.S. military and government.

The final system in the current block of eight systems launched into space in May 2025. Meanwhile, the next series, scheduled for initial deployment in 2027, already has several units completed and ready to be integrated with host satellites.

This mission has endured for more than 60 years at the Labs. Teams of engineers, scientists and technologists work a decade ahead to develop new complex technologies that can withstand the harsh space environment while countering evolving threats.

Sandia team creates X-ray images of the future

Courtney Sovinec examines the multi-patterned target used to create a new type of X-ray image at Sandia National Laboratories.
Photo Credit: Vince Gasparich

When German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in the late 1800s while experimenting with cathode ray tubes, it was a breakthrough that transformed science and medicine. So much so that the basic concept remains in use today. But a team of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories believes they’ve found a better way, harnessing different metals and the colors of light they emit.

“It’s called colorized hyperspectral X-ray imaging with multi-metal targets, or CHXI MMT for short,” said project lead Edward Jimenez, an optical engineer. Jimenez has been working with materials scientist Noelle Collins and electronics engineer Courtney Sovinec to create X-rays of the future.

“With this new technology, we are essentially going from the old way, which is black and white, to a whole new colored world where we can better identify materials and defects of interest,” Collins said.

The team found they could achieve this using tiny, patterned samples of varied metals such as tungsten, molybdenum, gold, samarium and silver.

Lockheed Martin Matures Next Secure Communications Satellite Solution for U.S. Space Force with Major Design Milestone

MUOS Satellite From Lockheed Martin
Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellites, the fifth one of which is seen here in production at Lockheed Martin, are vital to providing secure communications for allied military forces around the world.
Photo Credit: Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin has now proven the readiness of its satellite design in support of the U.S. Space Force (USSF) Space Systems Command’s upcoming Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) Service Life Extension (SLE) program through successful execution of an Early Design Review (EDR). Future MUOS satellites planned as part of the program will be critical in continuing to provide crystal-clear, secure communications to military forces on the move.

Lockheed Martin is one of two companies selected to develop future MUOS satellite concepts under Phase 1 of the program, centered on early design activities and risk reduction.

“In less than the initial one-year base period of performance, our team went above and beyond to deliver not only a successful early design review – but one so robust that it passed the rigorous standards of a more advanced design assessment,” said Maria Hartin-Swart, program management director for Lockheed Martin’s MUOS SLE development efforts.

Better digital memories with the help of noble gases

Adding the noble gas xenon when manufacturing digital memories enables a more even material coating even in small cavities.
Photo Credit: Olov Planthaber

The electronics of the future can be made even smaller and more efficient by getting more memory cells to fit in less space. One way to achieve this is by adding the noble gas xenon when manufacturing digital memories. This has been demonstrated by researchers at Linköping University in a study published in Nature Communications. This technology enables a more even material coating even in small cavities.

Twenty-five years ago, a camera memory card could hold 64 megabytes of information. Today, the same physical size memory card can hold 4 terabytes – over 60,000 times more information.

An electronic storage space, such as a memory card, is created by alternating hundreds of thin layers of an electrically conductive and an insulating material. A multitude of very small holes are then etched through the layers. Finally, the holes are filled with a conductive material. This is done by using a technique in which vapors of various substances are used to create thin material layers.

This Multiferroic Can Take the Heat - up to 160℃

Image Credit: Tohoku University

While most multiferroics are limited such that the hottest they can operate at is room temperature, a team of researchers at Tohoku University demonstrated that terbium oxide Tb2(MoO4)3 works as a multiferroic even at 160 ℃.

As one can imagine, a material that loses its functionality from a hot summer's day or simply the heat generated by the device itself has limited practical applications. This is the major Achilles heel of multiferroics - materials that possess close coupling between magnetism and ferroelectricity. This coupling makes multiferroics an attractive area to explore, despite that weakness.

In order to surmount this weakness to unleash the full potential of multiferroics, the research team investigated the candidate material Tb2(MoO4)3. It successfully showed the hallmark traits of multiferroics, and was able to manipulate electric polarization using a magnetic field, even at 160 ℃. This is a huge jump from the previous limit of approximately 20 ℃. Without that major Achilles heel, this remarkable finding means that multiferroics can meaningfully be applied to areas such as spintronics, memory devices that consume less power, and light diodes.

Researchers find dialysis ‘astonishingly effective’ for treating wastewater

Menachem Elimelech and Yuanmiaoliang “Selina” Chen.
Photo Credit: Gustavo Raskosky/Rice University

Researchers at Rice University, in collaboration with Guangdong University of Technology, have uncovered an innovative approach to treating high-salinity organic wastewaters — streams containing both elevated salt and organic concentrations — by employing dialysis, a technology borrowed from the medical field.

For patients with kidney failure, dialysis uses a machine called a dialyzer to filter waste and excess fluid from the blood; blood is drawn from the body, cleansed in the dialyzer then returned through a separate needle or tube.

In a new study published in Nature Water, the team found that mimicking this same method can separate salts from organic substances with minimal dilution of the wastewater, simultaneously addressing key limitations of conventional methods. This novel pathway has the potential to reduce environmental impacts, lower costs and enable the recovery of valuable resources across a range of industrial sectors.

New protective coating can improve battery performance

Mario El Kazzi and his team have developed a cathode surface coating that enables operating voltages of up to 4.8 volts.
Photo Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic

A research team at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has developed a new sustainable process that can be used to improve the electrochemical performance of lithium-ion batteries. Initial tests of high-voltage batteries modified in this way have been successful. This method could be used to make lithium-ion batteries, for example those for electric vehicles, significantly more efficient.

Lithium-ion batteries are considered a key technology for decarbonization. Therefore, researchers around the world are working to continuously improve their performance, for example by increasing their energy density. “One way to achieve this is to increase the operating voltage,” says Mario El Kazzi from the Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI. "If the voltage increases, the energy density also increases.”

However, there is a problem: At operating voltages above 4.3 volts, strong chemical and electrochemical degradation processes take place at the transition between the cathode, the positive pole, and the electrolyte, the conductive medium. The surface of the cathode materials gets severely damaged by the release of oxygen, dissolution of transition metals, and structural reconstruction – which in turn results in a continuous increase in cell resistance and a decrease in capacity. This is why commercial battery cells, such as those used in electric cars, have so far only run at a maximum of 4.3 volts.

MIT engineers design flexible “skeletons” for soft, muscle-powered robots

MIT engineers have developed a new spring (shown in Petri dish) that maximizes the work of natural muscles. When living muscle tissue is attached to posts at the corners of the device, the muscle’s contractions pull on the spring, forming an effective, natural actuator. The spring can serve as a “skeleton” for future muscle-powered robots.
Photo Credit: Felice Frankel
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED)

Our muscles are nature’s perfect actuators — devices that turn energy into motion. For their size, muscle fibers are more powerful and precise than most synthetic actuators. They can even heal from damage and grow stronger with exercise.

For these reasons, engineers are exploring ways to power robots with natural muscles. They’ve demonstrated a handful of “biohybrid” robots that use muscle-based actuators to power artificial skeletons that walk, swim, pump, and grip. But for every bot, there’s a very different build, and no general blueprint for how to get the most out of muscles for any given robot design.

Now, MIT engineers have developed a spring-like device that could be used as a basic skeleton-like module for almost any muscle-bound bot. The new spring, or “flexure,” is designed to get the most work out of any attached muscle tissues. Like a leg press that’s fit with just the right amount of weight, the device maximizes the amount of movement that a muscle can naturally produce.

The researchers found that when they fit a ring of muscle tissue onto the device, much like a rubber band stretched around two posts, the muscle pulled on the spring, reliably and repeatedly, and stretched it five times more, compared with other previous device designs.

The team sees the flexure design as a new building block that can be combined with other flexures to build any configuration of artificial skeletons. Engineers can then fit the skeletons with muscle tissues to power their movements.

This 3D printer can figure out how to print with an unknown material

Researchers developed a 3D printer that can automatically identify the parameters of an unknown material on its own.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the researchers
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED)

While 3D printing has exploded in popularity, many of the plastic materials these printers use to create objects cannot be easily recycled. While new sustainable materials are emerging for use in 3D printing, they remain difficult to adopt because 3D printer settings need to be adjusted for each material, a process generally done by hand.

To print a new material from scratch, one must typically set up to 100 parameters in software that controls how the printer will extrude the material as it fabricates an object. Commonly used materials, like mass-manufactured polymers, have established sets of parameters that were perfected through tedious, trial-and-error processes.

But the properties of renewable and recyclable materials can fluctuate widely based on their composition, so fixed parameter sets are nearly impossible to create. In this case, users must come up with all these parameters by hand.

Researchers tackled this problem by developing a 3D printer that can automatically identify the parameters of an unknown material on its own.

World's first high-resolution brain developed by 3D printer

Franziska Chalupa-Gantner and Aleksandr Ovsianikov at work.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Technische Universität Wien

In a joint project between TU Wien and MedUni Vienna, the world's first 3D-printed "brain phantom" has been developed, which is modelled on the structure of brain fibres and can be imaged using a special variant of magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). As a scientific team led by TU Wien and MedUni Vienna has now shown in a study, these brain models can be used to advance research into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. The research work was published in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely used diagnostic imaging technique that is primarily used to examine the brain. MRI can be used to examine the structure and function of the brain without the use of ionizing radiation. In a special variant of MRI, diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI), the direction of the nerve fibers in the brain can also be determined. However, it is very difficult to correctly determine the direction of nerve fibers at the crossing points of nerve fiber bundles, as nerve fibers with different directions overlap there. In order to further improve the process and test analysis and evaluation methods, an international team in collaboration with the TU Wien and the Medical University of Vienna developed a so-called "brain phantom", which was produced using a high-resolution 3D printing process.

Sandia collaboration produces improved microneedle technology

Adam Bolotsky demonstrates how Sandia National Laboratories, in collaboration with SRI, has enhanced the extraction of interstitial fluid. The improved extraction method gets more fluid in less time.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Microneedles measure only two to three times the diameter of human hair and are about a millimeter long. But their impact is significant, from helping U.S. service members in the field diagnose infections earlier, to helping individuals monitor their own health.

Sandia National Laboratories is at the forefront of microneedle research and is partnering with others to expand the technology.

A microneedle is a minimally invasive way to sample interstitial fluid from under the skin. Interstitial fluid shares many similarities with blood, but there is still much to learn about it.

“When we started work in this field in 2011, our goal was to develop microneedles as a wearable sensor, as an alternate to blood samples,” said Ronen Polsky, who has led Sandia’s work in microneedles. Microneedles can access interstitial fluid for real-time and continuous measurements of circulating biomarkers.

“People wear continuous glucose monitors for blood sugar measurements,” Polsky said. “We want to expand this to a whole range of other conditions to take advantage of this minimally invasive sampling using microneedles.”

Scientists reveal the first unconventional superconductor that can be found in mineral form in nature

A miassite crystal grown by Paul Canfield.
Photo Credit: Paul Canfield

Scientists from Ames National Laboratory have identified the first unconventional superconductor with a chemical composition also found in nature. Miassite is one of only four minerals found in nature that act as a superconductor when grown in the lab. The team’s investigation of miassite revealed that it is an unconventional superconductor with properties similar to high-temperature superconductors. Their findings further scientists’ understanding of this type of superconductivity, which could lead to more sustainable and economical superconductor-based technology in the future.

Superconductivity is when a material can conduct electricity without energy loss. Superconductors have applications including medical MRI machines, power cables, and quantum computers. Conventional superconductors are well understood but have low critical temperatures. The critical temperature is the highest temperature at which a material acts as a superconductor.

In the 1980s, scientists discovered unconventional superconductors, many of which have much higher critical temperatures. According to Ruslan Prozorov, a scientist at Ames Lab, all these materials are grown in the lab. This fact has led to the general belief that unconventional superconductivity is not a natural phenomenon.

Prozorov explained that it is difficult to find superconductors in nature because most superconducting elements and compounds are metals and tend to react with other elements, like oxygen. He said that miassite (Rh17S15) is an interesting mineral for several reasons, one of which is its complex chemical formula. “Intuitively, you think that this is something which is produced deliberately during a focused search, and it cannot possibly exist in nature,” said Prozorov, “But it turns out it does.”

SwRI develops off-road autonomous driving tools focused on camera vision

SwRI is exploring using stereo cameras, or stereovision, as an alternative to lidar sensors in automated vehicles. SwRI's stereovision algorithms create disparity maps that estimate the depth of roadway features and obstacles. The left image shows how a conventional camera sees an off-road trail. The middle image shows a lidar image of the same trail. The right image shows a stereovision disparity map based on SwRI's algorithms, where colors indicate the distance of detected objects (yellow is near and blue is far). The gray/white in the lidar image suggests the outline of trees and a vehicle hood, but it does not indicate depth or distance.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Southwest Research Institute

Southwest Research Institute has developed off-road autonomous driving tools with a focus on stealth for the military and agility for space and agriculture clients. The vision-based system pairs stereo cameras with novel algorithms, eliminating the need for lidar and active sensors.

“We reflected on the toughest machine vision challenges and then focused on achieving dense, robust modeling for off-road navigation,” said Abe Garza, a research engineer in SwRI’s Intelligent Systems Division.

Through internal research, SwRI engineers developed a suite of tools known as the Vision for Off-Road Autonomy (VORA). The passive system can perceive objects, model environments and simultaneously localize and map while navigating off-road environments.

The VORA team envisioned a camera system as a passive sensing alternative to lidar, a light detection and ranging sensor, that emits active lasers to probe objects and calculate depth and distance. Though highly reliable, lidar sensors produce light that can be detected by hostile forces. Radar, which emits radio waves, is also detectable. GPS navigation can be jammed, and its signals are often blocked in canyons and mountains, which can limit agricultural automation.

More than flying cars: eVTOL battery analysis reveals unique operating demands

The operating phases of an eVTOL need varying amounts of power; some require the battery to discharge high amounts of current rapidly, reducing the distance the vehicle can travel before its battery must be recharged.
Illustration Credit: Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are taking cleaner transportation to the skies by creating and evaluating new batteries for airborne electric vehicles that take off and land vertically. 

These aircraft, commonly called eVTOLs, range from delivery drones to urban air taxis. They are designed to rise into the air like a helicopter and fly using wing-borne lift like an airplane. Compared with helicopters, eVTOLs generally use more rotors spinning at a lower speed, making them both safer and quieter.

The airborne EV’s aren’t just flying cars, and ORNL researchers conclude that eVTOL batteries can’t just be adapted from electric car batteries. So far that has been the dominant approach to the technology, which is mostly in the modeling stage. ORNL researchers took a different tack by evaluating how lithium-ion batteries fare under extremely high-power draw. 

“The eVTOL program presents a unique opportunity for creating a brand-new type of battery with very different requirements and capabilities than what we have seen before," said Ilias Belharouak, an ORNL Corporate Fellow who guides the research.