NASA Releases List Of Patents That Could Effect Renewable Energy To A Large Extent

In order to share its technological innovations with common people , NASA recently released its 56 patented technologies in public domain. It will permit all industries to employ these innovations within their frameworks and designs without any need to pay royalties to other organizations. There are a few of those that will impact the renewable energy segment to large extent. In this write-up we have inserted a few links to those patents that will offer you full insight in all these technologies. In case, you are still unaware of some patent application, this article will be an interesting experience for you. Here are summarized details of some of those:

Carbon Nanotubes: Carbon nanotubes stand for a distinct technology that can take care of a large selection of engineering issues and problems, however, the biggest issue is its higher costs that makes manufacturing very expensive. NASA, being the apex of technological innovations invented a cost-effective of manufacturing carbon nanotubes by passing electric current through carbon cathode and anode. It turned carbon nanotubes into a cheap option for better designs. Manually, the higher strength-to-weight ratio of carbon nanotubes allows the vehicles to let go unwanted weight, modifying their fuel economy and range. Robust and lighter materials will increase the appeal of wind industry which will bring down the costs of turbines and increase their efficiency.

Vortex Reduction: Whenever the blades of wind turbines move, miniature yet strong vortices are formed over the tips of blades. These vortices leads to drag and turbulence that leads to loss of energy and unwanted noises. NASA brought up a vortex control system that has movable flap over the tip of the blade along with a sophisticated control algorithm that leads to movement of blade tips in a manner that it stops the formation of vortices. The system is also capable of detecting vortex formation and adjusts the flap in a way that vortex gets stifled, and prevent the creation of turbulence from getting in way of next blade. It helps in enhancement of efficiency, brings down the noise that comes up and eliminates the wear-and-tear of the blade that increases their endurance.
Photovoltaic Array Along With Integrated Bypass Battery: A solar cell often behaves like a current source dependent on light, as the intensity of light increases towards the cell, the cell generates more current. With respect to a solar panel, specific cells get connected with each other in series for increase the net total voltage. The elements in this series also have similar current, so if a solo cell in a panel is colored, the total current is restricted to current output of the that specific cell which leads to decrement in power. NASA Engineers have also developed a PV panel that combines thin-film energy storage and thin-membrane photovoltaics. The energy storing equipment is a small LI-ion battery that is used instead of bypass diode.