AUSTRALIA

Solar sleeve powers telecom towers

Victorian infrastructure services firm Decon Corporation has completed a trial of flexible solar laminate wrapped around a telecommunications monopole, in partnership with Australia’s National Broadband Network (nbn). The lightweight, bendable panels were fitted to the north-facing side of a 40-metre fixed wireless tower at New Gisborne in the Macedon Ranges, about 60 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, using the company’s patented mounting system.

During daylight hours, the installation can meet up to 40 per cent of the site’s power demand, depending on weather conditions. Combined with battery storage and energy-saving measures, the system can keep the site running for up to 12 hours during a grid outage, maintaining connectivity for local communities. nbn stated that it will continue to evaluate the solution’s performance and explore wider use of such technologies to strengthen network resilience.

Source: pv-magazine-australia.com

CHINA

Optical interconnect speeds up AI inference

Researchers at Peking University have developed an all-optical interconnect system that links standard electronic chips and combined with purpose-designed algorithms, accelerates distributed artificial intelligence (AI) inference by more than 100 times while using only about one-ninth of the usual computing resources.

The work, led by Dr Shu Haowen and Professor Wang Xingjun and published in National Science Review, connects field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips through silicon photonic transceivers. The approach offers an alternative to the prevailing strategy of adding ever more graphics processors and building larger data centres, pointing to AI systems that deliver greater performance with lower energy and hardware demands.

Source: scmp.com

LONGi sets silicon cell efficiency record

Chinese solar manufacturer LONGi Green Energy Technology has achieved a certified conversion efficiency of 28.29 per cent for a single-junction crystalline silicon solar cell, a new world record verified by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH). The result improves on the 28.13 per cent record the company set earlier in 2026 and is its third world record of the year.

The hybrid interdigitated back-contact (HIBC) cell places both positive and negative contacts on the rear of a half-cut M10 wafer, eliminating front-side shading. Improvements include advanced surface passivation, reduced doping in the contact layers, edge passivation and laser-based crystallisation of amorphous silicon. The company reports that crystalline silicon cell efficiency has now reached 96.2 per cent of its theoretical limit, and that the technology could be adapted to heterojunction mass production.

Source: pv-magazine.com

INDIA

Low-cost reactor removes arsenic, fluoride

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati have developed a water treatment reactor that removes arsenic and fluoride from contaminated groundwater at the same time

— two pollutants that are difficult to treat together because they compete for removal sites in conventional processes.

The rotating-anode electrocoagulation reactor replaces the stationary aluminium electrode used in standard systems with a rotating one. The rotation improves mixing, continuously renews the electrode surface and promotes the formation of aluminium hydroxide flocs that capture both contaminants. In tests, including with real groundwater samples from Assam, the system removed up to 98.2 per cent of arsenate and 91.8 per cent of fluoride within minutes, at an estimated operating cost of Rs 18–58 per 1,000 litres.

The research, led by Professor Mihir K. Purkait with research scholar Mukesh Bharti, was published in the Chemical Engineering Journal. The team is now developing a pilot-scale, continuous-flow version with sensor-based automated control for deployment in rural and community water systems.

Source: aninews.in

Nickel catalyst for affordable green hydrogen

A team at IIT Guwahati has developed a low-cost catalyst for producing hydrogen from water that could support India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission. The catalyst is a coordination polymer made from an inexpensive nickel salt and an anthracene-based organic molecule, synthesised at room temperature using ultrasonic waves.

The material forms a three-dimensional network in which nickel atoms are linked through the organic framework, creating a high density of active sites and efficient electron transport for the hydrogen evolution reaction. It achieved nearly 88 per cent electrical energy efficiency in water splitting and showed long-term stability, offering an alternative to costly noble-metal catalysts. The study, led by Associate Professor Akshai Kumar, was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Source: wionews.com

JAPAN

Magnetic braking tested for spacecraft reentry

Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have built a laboratory system to test magnetohydrodynamic aerobraking, a technique that uses strong magnetic fields to manipulate the ionised gas around a spacecraft during high-speed atmospheric reentry. The approach could reduce heating and increase drag, supporting reusable spacecraft that are less dependent on conventional heat shields.

The team, led by Associate Professor Kohei Shimamura, integrated a pulsed electromagnet into an expansion tube and fired shockwaves at about 7.7 kilometres per second at miniature spacecraft models. The electromagnet generated fields of up to 1.58 tesla — 1.7 to 2.1 times stronger than earlier tests with permanent magnets — and expanded the shock layer by around 16 per cent. The findings were published in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.

Source: thebrighterside.news

Atomic steps guide superconducting vortices

Scientists at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) have found that atomic-scale steps on the surface of ultrathin superconductors can act as rails that guide superconducting vortices — tiny whirlpools of electrical current whose uncontrolled motion causes energy loss. The vortices moved more than 1,000 times more easily along the steps than across them.

Using electrical measurements and scanning tunnelling microscopy, the team led by Takashi Uchihashi showed that the guiding effect can be tuned through temperature and magnetic field. The results, published in Physical Review B, open a route to ultralow-power superconducting devices with more precise control of current and heat flow.

Source: eurekalert.org

REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Molecular network filters clean hydrogen

Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a polymer membrane that separates hydrogen from mixed gases with high efficiency, addressing a key obstacle to the wider use of clean hydrogen. The team linked polymer chains with modular crosslinkers to form a highly connected internal network containing pores smaller than three ångströms — large enough for hydrogen but too small for carbon dioxide.

To measure how completely the network is connected, the researchers introduced a new metric, the bridge connectivity degree. Their membrane reached 73 per cent on this metric and showed markedly higher hydrogen permeability and selectivity than the starting material. The study, led by Professor Tae-Hyun Bae, was published in Nature Communications.

Source: miragenews.com

SINGAPORE

Carbon fibre waste turned into aerogels

Engineers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a method to recycle carbon fibre epoxy composite waste — widely used in aircraft, vehicles and wind turbines but difficult to recycle — into lightweight aerogels. Unlike existing approaches that recover only the carbon fibres, the process makes use of both the fibres and the epoxy.

The waste is mechanically ground into fine powder and short fibres, mixed with a cellulose-based binder and freeze-dried to create a sponge-like material with interconnected pores. The resulting aerogels provide thermal insulation and sound absorption and, when treated to repel water, can absorb large quantities of oil for spill clean-up. The research, led by Associate Professor Duong Hai Minh and published in Waste Management, is now being pursued with industry partners to assess scale-up.

Source: cde.nus.edu.sg

EUROPE

FRANCE

First photonic time crystal controls light

Physicists at École Polytechnique, working with the Collège de France and Germany’s Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), have created the first all-optical photonic time crystal — a material whose optical properties are switched rapidly and repeatedly in time, allowing unprecedented control over light.

The team, led by Assistant Professor Yannis Laplace, built a metamaterial of micrometre-scale gold structures on an indium antimonide semiconductor and modulated it with intense terahertz pulses. This altered the material’s optical response within trillionths of a second and reduced trapped light loss by about half. Published in Nature, the result could lead to new terahertz lasers, amplifiers and signalprocessing technologies for future communication systems.

Source: polytechnique.edu

NORTH AMERICA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Solar desalination without harmful brine

Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a solar-powered desalination system that produces fresh water while collecting salt as a solid, avoiding the concentrated brine that conventional plants discharge into the sea. The team, led by Professor Chunlei Guo, used femtosecond lasers to etch microscopic structures into black metal panels, causing water to spread rapidly across the surface as sunlight evaporates it.

Salt deposits are directed to the edges of the panel, keeping the active surface clean. Tests with seawater from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans achieved near-complete solid salt extraction, while trials with water from the Great Salt Lake recovered about half of its lithium. The work was published in Light: Science & Applications and the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Source: sciencedaily.com

Durable catalyst cuts fuel cell platinum

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a fuel cell catalyst that uses minimal platinum while remaining highly durable, which could help hydrogen fuel cells supply power to energyintensive data centres and vehicles. The team designed hollow carbon spheres with ordered radial nanochannels that hold platinum–cobalt particles below five nanometres in size, even when heated to 1,000°C to form a highly ordered atomic structure.

The catalyst retained 85 per cent of its performance after 150,000 demanding voltage cycles, equivalent to roughly 25,000 hours of operation. The research, led by Professor Gang Wu, was published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Source: source.washu.edu