EE&T News: November 8, 2011

The low-down on an electric super bike

This thermostat might be smarter than your dog

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A low-power boost for energy harvesting

The energy harvesting arena has become more interesting with the advent of an energy management chip designed to work with a harvesting device alone, without the use of a companion battery. The new chip is designed to step-up or boost the output voltage of widely used energy generators such as thermoelectric generators, electromagnetic coils, single photovoltaic cells, and infrared emitters. The output voltages of such devices are generally in the tens-of-millivolts range. READ MORE

Coming: Better thermoelectric generators

You can add nanocomposites to the list of materials that will turn heat into electricity. Developed by MIT's Dr. Gang Chen and his research team, the work has implications that could potentially be quite broad. The team's solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs) have hit a peak efficiency of 4.6% -- a figure seven or eight times higher than the best flat-panel STEG values reported previously. READ MORE

More efficient grocery store coolers

Engineers at the University of Washington and Kettering University in Michigan have figured out a way to cut the energy used by the open-face coolers that are widely used in grocery stores.They say widespread implementation of their techniques across the U.S. would save roughly $100 million in electricity costs each year. READ MORE

Energy shorts

CFL ballast control IC
Improving energy efficiency in industrial pneumatics
Whitepaper: High isolation optocoupler target HEV apps
IC for LED control

Plastic OLEDs perform as well as glass versions

Heavily doped glass substrates have been the key to getting high output efficiency out of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). But a group of researchers at the University of Toronto think they have figured out how to get OLEDs fabricated on plastic to yield efficiencies equivalent to those of their glass-based counterparts. READ MORE

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