A new technique could enable the production of robust, high-performance membranes to harness sea water as an abundant source of renewable energy, researchers report.
Blue energy, also known as osmotic energy, capitalizes on the energy naturally released when two solutions of different salinities mix conditions that occur in countless locations around the world where fresh and salt water meet.
The key to capturing blue energy lies in selectively permeable membranes, which allow only one constituent of a saltwater solution to pass through either the water molecules or the dissolved salt ions but not the other.
To date, large-scale blue energy projects such as Norway’s Statkraft power plant have been impeded by the poor efficiency of existing membrane technology. In the laboratory, researchers have developed membranes from exotic nanomaterials that have shown great promise in terms of the amount of power they can generate relative to their size. But it remains a challenge to turn t
Sasol sells Moz pipeline stake for R5bn as it pares down debt
By Dineo Faku
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SASOL on Friday announced the R5 billion sale of a 30 percent stake in its Republic of Mozambique Pipeline Investments Company (Rompco) as part of its asset disinvestment programme aimed at settling debt.
The group said it had concluded a sale and purchase agreement with a consortium comprising black empowerment firm, Reatile Group, and the Ideas Fund, one of South Africa s biggest infrastructure funds, which is managed by African Infrastructure Investment Managers, a subsidiary of Old Mutual Alternative Investments Holdings. The proposed transaction is expected to become effective during the second half of 2021.
Minister for Tourism Industry Development and Innovation and Minister for Sport The Honourable Stirling Hinchliffe
More manufacturing jobs are on their way for a Queensland business, thanks to Palaszczuk Government funding to help market a very clever Brisbane innovation.
Innovation Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said Brisbane firm Scott Airway Management had received $100,000 in Advance Queensland Ignite Ideas funding to scale up its SAM Safety Shield medical device and support 15 new jobs.
“For medical staff, men with beards in need of lifesaving ventilation can present a challenge,” Mr Hinchliffe said.
“When patients can’t breathe, first responders usually fit sealed Bag Mask Ventilation (BMV) to a patient’s face to push oxygen into their lungs.
Credit: Image courtesy of Costas Synolakis
On September 28, 2018, an inexplicably large tsunami devastated the Indonesian coastal city of Palu and several others nearby. Between the tsunami and the magnitude 7.5 earthquake that caused it, some 4,340 people were killed, making it the deadliest earthquake that year.
The tsunami’s waves reached around six meters high, which was a shock to geophysicists who had believed that earthquakes along a strike-slip fault could only trigger far smaller tsunamis for that particular region. Now, new research describes a mechanism for these large tsunamis to form, and suggests that other coastal cities that were thought to be safe from massive tsunamis may need to reevaluate their level of risk.