Category: Research

Associate Professor Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) presented “The Progress and Potential for Distributed Household Recycling” at the 24th Annual UPRC (Upper Peninsula Recycling Coalition) Recycling Conference in Iron Mountain, Wednesday, Sept. 26.

Recycling could bring more money and jobs to Michigan

The conference gives recyclers throughout the U.P. an opportunity to get together to talk about what’s new and ways to improve programs, for both consumers and businesses, throughout Michigan.

Read more and view the video at Upper Michigan’s Source, by Beth Cefalu.

Graduate Student Brennan Tymrak (ME-EM), Associate Professor Joshua Pearce (MSE), and Associate Professor Michele Miller (ME-EM), “NSF Graduate Fellowship-Technologies for Developing Countries,” NSF.

Associate Professor Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) authored an article, “Building Research Equipment with Free, Open-Source Hardware,” in Science 337 (6100): 1303–1304 (2012).

From the Science Podcast: Science’s Sarah Crespi speaks with Joshua Pearce on do-it-yourself lab equipment using 3D printers.

Podcast Interview

Associate Professor Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE), had his research reported in Phys.org and was quoted in Popular Mechanics and the Txchnologist discussing the opportunities made possible by open source hardware and 3D printing.

Associate Professor Joshua M. Pearce (MSE/ECE) was quoted in IEEE Spectrum magazine as part of its coverage of the energy return for solar photovoltaic technology.

Argument Over the Value of Solar Focuses on Spain

Joshua Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Michigan Technological University, notes that energy policies could improve real returns from solar energy by offering incentives for the use of the highest-EROI systems. Centralized solar farms full of cheap crystalline silicon modules—which EROI studies show to be the most energy intensive of PV installations—dominate the market because they are the most profitable to build. A deployment scheme designed to reward EROI instead would shift the calculus, says Pearce: “Before a single centralized PV facility was erected, we would have thin-film PV panels integrated into every appropriate rooftop.”

Read more at IEEE Spectrum, by Peter Fairley

Associate Professor Joshua M. Pearce (MSE/ECE) coauthored an article, “Open-Source Development of Solar Photovoltaic Technology,” in Energy for Sustainable Development. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2012.06.006 .

Associate Professor Joshua M. Pearce (MSE/ECE) authored an article entitled “Open Source Research in Sustainability,” in Sustainability: the Journal of Record.

Professor Hun Hang Hu has been nominated for a World Technology Award. The awards “recognize and honor the world’s key visionaries, creators, and thinkers from all across the spectrum of science, technology and related fields” and pay tribute to “innovative work of the greatest likely long-term significance” in their respective field.

Read more at Tech Today.

A paper by Hu and graduate student Yan Huo was among the most-read articles in the Journal of Physical Chemistry during the second quarter of 2012. “Fast and Exothermic Reaction of CO2 and Li3N into C–N-Containing Solid Materials” showed that carbon nitride could be made in an exothermic reaction of carbon dioxide and a lithium compound.

From Lemons to Lemonade: Reaction Uses Carbon Dioxide to Make Carbon-Based Semiconductor

A materials scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy.

Read more at Michigan Tech News, by Marcia Goodrich.

Associate Professor Joshua M. Pearce (MSE/ECE) coauthored an article, “Improved parametric empirical determination of module short circuit current for modelling and optimization of solar photovoltaic systems,” in Solar Energy.

Associate Professor Timothy Scarlett (SS) and CoPI Associate Professor Jaroslaw Drelich (MSE) have received $79,725 from the National Science Foundation for a one-year project, “Collaborative Research: Testing and Refining Ceramic Rehydroxylation Dating.”