Air - new beverage billed as "water with alcohol"

 

Air has launched in various cities around the US West Coast

Many people enjoy having a few drinks after work or on the weekend. Only a subset of them actually enjoy the taste of whatever cocktail or malt beverage they're sipping on. Others would prefer to get the buzz and inhibition release without actually choking down liquor or beer. Whether it's that earthy pine-tree-in-a-bottle flavor of gin or the harsh burn of cheap whiskey, alcohol can be downright painful. Air, "the first water with alcohol," provides an alternative with a light flavor profile purported to be closer to club soda than beer or spirits.

Air advertises itself as "Water + Air. Carbonated." The taste is supposedly as simple as the tagline; the malt beverage combines water, alcohol and natural fruit flavors for a taste that's barely there. It claims to use all natural ingredients. While we haven't given it the proverbial swig, the description has us thinking of lightly fruit-flavored club soda spiked with alcohol.
Air, which is a product of US-based Alco-Water Beverage Co, comes in Berry, Citrus and Club flavors. It's packaged in 12-ounce (355-ml) cans, each of which contains 95 calories (or 143 calories for the Club flavor). Its four percent alcohol content is comparable to a lighter beer.

Air distribution is currently limited to a handful of states on the West Coast of the US. A recent tweet indicates the company also plans to come to the eastern states. It's sold in such stores as Whole Foods and Albertsons. The minds behind the young drink have been hosting launch parties in major cities like LA, Las Vegas and Portland throughout the summer.
So is Air really the Holy Grail for drinkers (i.e. all the fun of alcohol without any of the strong, acquired taste)? We're guessing it's more like the latest Zima or Smirnoff Ice - a fruity malt beverage that only the ladies can get away with drinking - but we'll have to taste it to know for sure ... maybe once they get around to filling liquor store coolers in our neck of the woods.
If you don't even want to be bothered with drinking, you might want to try out WAHH Quantum Sensations - they're like alcoholized breath spritzers, said to bring on "a brief moment of light-headedness and distraction."
In any case, you gotta' love the JetLev in the Air promotional video ...
Source: Drink Air via PSFK

UCLA produces transparent solar cells that harness infrared light

The photoactive plastic panel is 70 percent transparent to visible light

A UCLA team has developed a new type of solar cell that is nearly 70 percent transparent to the naked eye. The plastic cells, which use infrared instead of visible light, are also more economical than other types of cells because they are made by an inexpensive polymer solution process and nanowire technology, potentially paving the way for cheaper solar windows.
Solar panels are great. The only problem is that they take up quite a bit of space. To run a building off of solar panels you’d pretty much have to cover it with them. Since people like things called “windows,” that’s usually not an option. Even running small devices off the sun is a bother since the panels are often bulky, take up areas wanted for other purposes or need to be placed somewhere really inconvenient, like the back of a phone. If only solar cells were thin films that you could see through, then you could turn windows and tablet displays into solar panels.
We’ve looked at the idea of transparent solar panels before, but most solutions until now have been only “sort of” transparent with wires or beads embedded in or coated on glass. True, they let light through, but since the opaque components need to absorb some light to generate power, the effect is a bit like tinted glass. They also tend to be a bit on the expensive side.
Enter Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). He and his team have developed a new Polymer Solar Cell (PSC). This photoactive plastic acts as a high-performance transparent solar cell that lets in a much higher percentage of light. The reason is that the PSC doesn’t generate power from visible light. Instead, it absorbs invisible infrared light and converts that into electricity. This means that the cell is 70 percent transparent to the eye.
Another advantage of the PSC is that it’s made using a solution process that Yang has been improving upon since 2009. In this process, the PSC is formed by dissolving the near-infrared light-sensitive polymer in a solvent, applying it to the film base and then baking it. The cost is further brought down and the transparency improved by replacing metal conductors with silver nanowire and titanium dioxide nanoparticles. The result is a near-transparent photoactive film that is four percent effective.
According to Yang, "these results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications. Our new PSCs are made from plastic-like materials and are lightweight and flexible. More importantly, they can be produced in high volume at low cost."
If the PSC or some variant proves successful, it may mean that one day we’ll see skyscrapers making their own power from their vast curtains of windows, self-powering smartphones that look like slabs of glass and maybe even solar powered glass patio tables.
Source: UCLA

Soybean oil could make for longer-lasting, greener tires

 

Goodyear has determined that soybean oil used in tire production could reduce the amount of petroleum-based oil needed, and increase tread longevity 

It’s good for the environment when manufacturers can find ways of using less fossil fuels, while consumers – along with the environment – benefit when products last longer. Now, thanks to the humble soybean, both parties may be able to get what they need. Researchers from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company have discovered that soybean oil can help reduce the amount of petroleum used in tires, while also extending those tires’ tread life.
Specifically, it was determined that by using soybean oil in the tire rubber compound, the company could reduce its use of petroleum-based oil by up to seven million gallons (26.5 million liters) a year, while the tread life of the tires would increase by approximately ten percent.
Additionally, tests showed that the soybean rubber compound blended more easily with the silica used in tire production. This means that tire plants using it could operate more efficiently, using less power and creating less greenhouse gases – they would also cost the company less to run.
Prototype tires made with the soybean oil will be tested in Texas over the next few months. If all goes well, the tires could be available for purchase by 2015.
Goodyear is also developing a sugar-based compound known as BioIsoprene, which could replace some of the petroleum-based isoprene currently used in tires.
Source: Goodyear

Austrian algae biofuel-production technology to debut in Brazil

 

Austrian company See Algae Technology is going to debut its algae production and harvesting process in a biomass plant in Brazil

The state of Pernambuco in Brazil’s northeast is going to become home to the country’s first algal biomass plant, thanks to an agreement between See Algae Technology (SAT), an Austrian developer of equipment for the commercial production of algae, and JB, one of Brazil’s leading ethanol producers. The plant will produce algal biomass from natural and genetically modified strains of algae.
So far, the cost of producing algae has been the biggest obstacle to bringing algae-based fuel to the market, but SAT has introduced a technology that has brought the price down to about that of ethanol - R$0.80 to $1.00 (US$0.40 - $0.50) per liter (around one quarter of a gallon). This is possible because production has been transferred from open air ponds to reactors of up to five meters (16.4 ft) in height, protecting algae from environmental interference.

It is in how light is distributed to facilitate algal reproduction that SAT’s main innovation lies. On ponds, only algae floating on the surface of the water are exposed to sunlight. The lower layers have to compete for light and nutrients, which results in a reduction of productivity. The company developed a solar prism that transfers light to reactors through optical fibers. This way, the reactors are illuminated from the inside, top down. At the Brazilian plant, tubes will connect them to the chimneys of the sugarcane mill next door where JB burns sugarcane bagasse (crushed, dry stalks of sugarcane), using the carbon dioxide generated by that process to feed the algae.

The new plant will make the most of algae's potential. One of the products to come out of it will be feedstock for animals, providing an alternative to soybeans. The process also yields algal lipids that can be used to make biodiesel and biochemicals. Algae are also a source of omega-3. As overfishing has become a serious environmental concern, algae are a more environmentally-friendly source of this nutrient, which is commonly sold as a supplement.
"We believe that this marks a significant step forward in the evolution of our company and validates both our exclusive technology and the commercial viability of algae, especially for use in feed and biofuels,” said Dr. Joachim Grill, SAT’s CEO.
The plant will occupy one hectare (2.5 acres) and the total investment is €8 million (US$9.81 million). SAT expects the unit to be producing 1.2 million liters (317,000 gallons) of biodiesel per year when it starts operating in late 2013.
Source: See Algae Technology

Prototype "flat-pack" wind turbine pops up in the UK

The turbine is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities

A new prototype wind turbine, 30 years in the making, and designed for flat-pack shipping and easy assembly, has been erected at Keele University in the UK.
Like other vertical axis turbines, the prototype, designed by McCamley, is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities, though the company is quick to point out the design is also suitable for rural installations. The turbine is able to begin rotating during light breezes as modest as 1.8 m/s (4 mph) in speed.
McCamley says the design can be adapted to capacities between 1 and 24 kW, though larger sizes have yet to be realized. The present target is to develop a 12-kW model within the next six months. There are plans afoot to eventually scale the design to turbines of over 1 MW in capacity.

The low starting speeds mean that turbines can be mounted on building rooftops without the need of an additional mast, and McCamley claims the multi-leg design of the turbine reduces the stresses placed on the building's structure. Combined with the turbine's lightweight design, McCamley suggests the need for structure reinforcement can be reduced or negated.
Source: Keele University, McCamley

GE’s AquaSel cleans more water with less energy and money

GE's AquaSel system reduced the waste stream to almost zero at a bottling plant in Asia

Although water is the world’s most precious commodity, an astounding amount of it is wasted by industries. Fortunately, water treatment and recovery has become the focus of several technology companies, including GE, which recently demonstrated a water treatment technology that virtually eliminates losses at bottling plants and other water-related operations. The pilot study of GE’s AquaSel, a non-thermal brine concentrator technology, took place at the plant of a leading beverage company in Asia. GE says costs were greatly reduced and there was almost no liquid discharge.
The AquaSel system used in the pilot study had a capacity of 36,000 gallons per day (136,270 L/day). During a trial run of 1,000 hours, the bottler that hosted the study succeeded in capturing and converting 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million liters) into water suitable for reuse with a quality equivalent to that of the water coming into the plant.
This represents a recovery rate of 99 percent, while current methods normally recover between 75 and 85 percent of the water supplied to their treatment room. The rest is lost as waste stream. Besides saving water, the AquaSel system also increases energy efficiency because it can remove impurities at room temperature.
The research that led to the system was based on GE’s technological expertise in desalination and zero liquid discharge technologies. It combines desalination and brine concentration units to process water rejected from existing reverse osmosis systems. Along with a clean water stream, AquaSel also produces a dry salt cake for disposal.
The resulting filtrate water can be looped back to the front of the ingredient water system because the level of dissolved solids is at or below the level of raw water. Besides the food and beverage industry, GE says AquaSel could be used for waste management as well as water supply and processing operations.
GE said that if all bottling plants around the world started using its system, the global leading bottlers would be saving 30 million gallons (113.5 million liters) per day. “GE’s NTBC [non-thermal brine concentrator] technology can turn billions of gallons of lost water into clean, usable water by virtually eliminating the wastewater streams in a variety of industrial and municipal treatment processes,” said Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO for GE Power & Water.
Source: GE