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26 years of online Green Building information Search for: 20456 Home Water Indoor Water Conservation Composting Toilets Pervious Paving Materials Xeriscape Greywater Irrigation Harvested Rainwater Energy Heating and Cooling Solar Hot Water, Heating and Cooling Systems Energy Recovery Ventilator Programmable Thermostat Ground Source Heat Exchange Gas Water Heating Ductwork Radiant Barrier Ridge and Soffit Venting Fans Passive Solar Design Earth Sheltered Design Passive Solar Design Earth Sheltered Design Landscaping for Energy Savings Photovoltaic Systems Lighting Electromagnetic Fields Energy Efficient Appliances Building Materials Wood Dimensional Lumber Wood Treatment Non Toxic Termite Control Wood Flooring Engineered Structural Materials Engineered Sheet Materials Engineered Siding Wall Systems Structural Insulating Wall Panels (SIPs) Straw Bale Construction Flyash Concrete Earth Material Roofing Insulation Windows and Doors Cabinets Paints, Finishes and Adhesives Floor Coverings Recycle/Reuse/Etc Home Recycling Compost System Construction Waste Recycling Shipping Container Housing About Portfolio Our Services Web Hosting Plans Web Development Backup Policy WordPress Monitoring, Update, & Backup Service WordPress Site Hardening WordPress Hack Recovery Web Hosting Plans Backup Policy Web Development Site Updates Sponsors Staff, Contractors, & Contributors Disclaimer Privacy Policy Payments Contact Us Resources Books – Videos – Software – Periodicals International Straw Bale Building Registry Green Building Databases & Design Resources Country Abbreviations Menu ‘It was an accident’: the scientists who have turned humid air into renewable power Posted on July 2, 2023 July 2, 2023 by Bill Christensen Source and full article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/02/it-was-an-accident-the-scientists-who-have-turned-humid-air-into-renewable-power In May, a team at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst published a paper declaring they had successfully generated a small but continuous electric current from humidity in the air. It’s a claim that will probably raise a few eyebrows, and when the team made the discovery that inspired this new research in 2018, it did. To be frank, it was an accident,” says the study’s lead author, Prof Jun Yao. We were actually interested in making a simple sensor for humidity in the air. But for whatever reason, the student who was working on that forgot to plug in the power.” The UMass Amherst team were surprised to find that the device, which comprised an array of microscopic tubes, or nanowires, was producing an electrical signal regardless. Each nanowire was less than one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, wide enough that an airborne water molecule could enter, but so narrow it would bump around inside the tube. Each bump, the team realised, lent the material a small charge, and as the frequency of bumps increased, one end of the tube became differently charged from the other. So it’s really like a battery,” says Yao. You have a positive pull and a negative pull, and when you connect them the charge is going to flow.” For their recent study, Yao’s team have moved on from nanowires, and instead are punching materials with millions of tiny holes, or nanopores. The device they have come up with is the size of a thumbnail, one-fifth the width of a human hair, and capable of generating roughly one microwatt – enough to light a single pixel on a large LED screen. So what would it take to power the rest of the screen, or indeed a whole house? The beauty is that the air is everywhere,” says Yao. Even though a thin sheet of the device gives out a very tiny amount of electricity or power, in principle, we can stack multiple layers in vertical space to increase the power.” That’s exactly what another team, Prof Svitlana Lyubchyk and her twin sons, Profs Andriy and Sergiy Lyubchyk, are trying to do. Svitlana Lyubchyk and Andriy are part of the Lisbon-based Catcher project , whose aim is changing atmospheric humidity into renewable power”, and along with Sergiy they have founded CascataChuva , a startup intended to commercialise the research. They first began working on the idea in 2015, some time before Yao’s team at the UMass Amherst. We were considered the freaks,” says Andriy. The guys who were saying something completely impossible.” In fact, trying to prove the worth of an early proof-of-concept at conferences had them literally red in the face. He says: The signal was not stable and it was low. We were able to generate 300 milliwatts, but you had to put all your effort into your lungs in order to breathe enough humidity into the samples.” They’ve come a long way since then, with Catcher and related projects receiving nearly €5.5m (£4.7m) in funding from the European Innovation Council. The result is a thin grey disc measuring 4cm (1.5in) across. According to the Lyubchyks, one of these devices can generate a relatively modest 1.5 volts and 10 milliamps. However, 20,000 of them stacked into a washing machine-sized cube, they say, could generate 10 kilowatt hours of power a day – roughly the consumption of an average UK household. Even more impressive: they plan to have a prototype ready for demonstration in 2024. More at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/02/it-was-an-accident-the-scientists-who-have-turned-humid-air-into-renewable-power Scientists Solved the Mystery of How the Maya Made Plaster So Strong Posted on May 27, 2023 May 27, 2023 by Bill Christensen Examples of head-scratchingly impressive building material can be found throughout the ancient world, and Maya lime plaster ranks high among them. Scientists from the University of Granada in Spain explored why this plaster was a step above the building materials of its mesoamerican peers. The secret ingredient was sap from nearby trees, introduced during the plaster-making process. The sap created insoluble crystalline structures (similar to those found on the shells of mollusks) that were well-suited to surviving the hot and humid climate of central America. Full article https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a43658939/mystery-of-stronger-maya-plaster-solved/ Heat pumps are now mandatory in new homes in Washington State Posted on December 12, 2022 November 12, 2022 by Bill Christensen Washington State will require new homes and apartments to have heat pumps installed from July 2023, the State Building Code Council ruled on Friday. In April, the Council passed a measure requiring that heat pumps be installed in new commercial buildings and large apartment buildings. This heat pump mandate now covers all residential dwellings, and that makes Washington State a leader in having some of the most robust building codes in the US to require electrical appliances and thus reduce emisisons. In a May 2019 policy brief, Governor Jay Inslee (D-WA) wrote : While statewide emissions have grown 10% overall since 1990, building emissions have jumped by 50%, more than any other source in our state. As of 2020, 56% of Washington residents used electricity for heating, and 37% of residents used natural gas or bottled, tank, or LP gas. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act provides $4.5 billion of direct rebates for heat pumps for low and moderate income households under the High Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Act (HEEHRA). A low-income household will receive a rebate that covers the full cost of a heat pump installation for space heating, up to $8,000. And under the The Energy Efficient Home Improvement credit, Households can deduct 30% of the costs for buying and installing a heat pump water heater or heat pump for their space heating and cooling, up to $2,000,” according to Rewiring America . An air-source electric heat pump uses refrigerant to pull heat from cold outdoor air and transfers it indoors when it’s cold, and it pulls heat out of the warm indoor air to cool your home when it’s hot outside. New homes in...