20 CITIES SHINING BRIGHTEST WITH SOLAR ENERGY

Environment America scanned the nation find out which cities are shining the brightest when it comes tosolar energy.

Those cities are doing more than just leading the way—the top 20 cities contain more solar power today than the entire country had just six years ago.

Not surprisingly, you’ll see plenty of California cities in the top 20 featured in Environment America’s report, Shining Cities At the Forefront of America’s Solar Energy Revolution, released this week in several variations by the organization’s various state arms around the country.

“California cities are leaders in creating solar energy capacity,” California Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego, said in an Environment California statement. “Of the top 20 American cities listed for this clean and safe energy alternative, California has five cities ranked in the top 12—Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco and Sacramento. It’s leadership that means a cleaner environment, better jobs and a stronger economy.”

The report also includes listings of cities split into categories that extend from “beginners” to “stars.” It should be no surprise that states with politicians that tried passing anti-renewable legislation don’t contain cities that would even qualify as “beginners.” The fact that states like California have federal and state politicians willing to stand behind solar energy certainly aids in its deployment.

“Solar energy is renewable and clean, which is why I’m such an advocate for its role in our national energy portfolio,” U.S. Rep. Scott Peters, D-CA, said. “The solar industry is creating jobs, including more than 675 in my district alone and powering our economy toward a more sustainable future. I’m proud that San Diego and California are leading the way as an example for the rest of the country.”

Some cities, like New York, were pleased with their standing, but look forward to doing more.

“New York City is home to a wealth of industries and it is crucial that it continues to lead the way to nurture and build the solar industry,” said David Sandbank, vice president of New York Solar Energy Industries Association. “With the support of our state and local government officials and the creation of the NY Sun-Initiative, we are well on our way to achieving this goal.

“It is very important that we continue our momentum and create more solar jobs while reducing our carbon footprint and dependence on traditional electrical power.” 

In Ohio, where legislation to freeze renewable energy standards indefinitely is on the table, some desperately want to deploy more clean energy. Cleveland and Columbus were considered “beginners” by Environment America, while Cincinnati is considered a “builder,” ranking 24th in the nation. 

“We’ve made progress here in Columbus, but we’ve just begun,” said Ragan Davis of Environment Ohio. “By committing to bold goals and putting strong policies in place, we can make Columbus shine as a national leader and reap the environmental and economic benefits of the solar revolution.”

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NOVEL STAPLED PEPTIDE NANOPARTICLE COMBINATION PREVENTS RSV INFECTION, STUDY FINDS 0

April 17, 2014

A combination of advanced technologies may lead to a therapy to prevent or treat respiratory syncytial virus, a potentially lethal respiratory infection affecting infants, young children and the elderly, new research suggests. Despite a wide range of anti-RSV efforts, there are no vaccines or drugs on the market to effectively prevent or treat the infection.

Despite a wide range of anti-RSV efforts, there are no vaccines or drugs on the market to effectively prevent or treat the infection.

Now researchers at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, and the James A. Haley VA Hospital and the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL, have developed novel double-stapled peptides that inhibit RSV in cells and in mice. The team also showed that this peptide's capacity to block infection was significantly boosted when delivered to the lungs by miniscule, biodegradable particles known as nanoparticles.

The team's findings are reported online today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

RSV employs a fusion protein with a helical structure to enable the virus to bind to and penetrate epithelial cells lining the nose and lungs.

The Dana-Farber/Boston Children's/Harvard laboratory led by co-senior author Loren Walensky, MD, PhD, used their chemical strategy known as hydrocarbon stapling to make "double-stapled" RSV peptides. Stapling helps the peptides retain their natural helical shape and resist degradation by the body's enzymes while disrupting the fusion process needed for RSV to infect host cells.

The VA/USF group led by co-senior author Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, tested these double-stapled peptides, alone and in combination with propriety nanoparticles, in mice to demonstrate significant inhibition of RSV infection.

"This is an exciting advance in the fight against respiratory syncytial virus infection," said Dr. Mohapatra, director of the USF Nanomedicine Research Center and the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine's Division of Translational Medicine, and a research career scientist at James A. Haley VA Hospital.

"We found that double-stapled peptide interference targeting the virus fusion protein can be administered in the form of a nasal drop or spray. The treatment suppressed viral entry and reproduction, including spread from nose to lungs, providing substantial protection from infection when administered several days before viral exposure."

"Designing therapeutic peptides based on a virus' very own fusion apparatus was previously exploited to block HIV-1 infection, but this class of drugs was severely limited by the pharmacologic liabilities of peptides in general, including loss of bioactive structure and rapid digestion in the body," said Dr. Walensky, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's and principal investigator in Dana-Farber's Linde Program in Cancer Chemical Biology.

"Peptide stapling restores the natural helical shape, which also inhibits proteolysis, providing a new opportunity to take advantage of a well-validated mechanism of action to thwart viruses like RSV that otherwise lack drugs for preventing or treating infection."

Dr. Mohapatra and his team developed nose drops containing the Walensky laboratory's double-stapled peptides after combining them with TransGenex's chitosan nanoparticles that stick to mucous-producing cells lining the lungs.

First, the researchers treated mice intranasally with stapled peptide nose drops, both before and during infection with RSV. The treated mice showed significantly lower levels of virus in the nose and lungs, and less airway inflammation, compared to untreated mice.

Then, double-stapled peptides encapsulated in nanoparticles were delivered to the lungs via the trachea to test whether the combination could further increase the effectiveness of this experimental therapy. The nanoparticle preparation markedly improved delivery of the peptides to the lungs, and the combination worked better and longer in preventing RSV pneumonia than the double-stapled peptide alone.

The researchers say to the best of their knowledge this preclinical study is the first to combine peptide stapling and nanoparticle technologies to maximize the delivery, persistence, and effectiveness of an antiviral therapy.

RSV is the most common virus causing lung and airway infections in infants and young children. Most have had this infection by age 2, and it can be especially serious, even deadly, in high-risk groups, such as babies born prematurely and those whose immune systems do not work well. The virus hospitalizes thousands of infants each year for pneumonia or brochiolitis and has been associated with a significantly greater risk of developing asthma later in life. The elderly are also at high risk of complications from RSV infection.

"This is a new way forward in the development of strategies to prevent RSV infection," said Terrence Dermody, MD, the Dorothy Overall Wells professor of pediatrics and director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who was not involved with the research. "The authors are to be complimented on the clever design, interdisciplinary approach and extension from cell-culture experiments to animal studies. I am particularly excited about the possible application of this technology to other viruses."

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Story Source:  University of South Florida (USF Health)

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Professor Eray Aydil's group is applying nanotechnology to produce lower-cost, high-efficiency solar cells. Image: University of Minnesota.

University of Minnesota engineers have added an innovative feature to a standard solar-cell design that boosts its electricity-generating potential by up to 26%. This remarkable improvement may help researchers push the record power conversion efficiencies of dye-sensitized solar cells beyond 12%.

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are made from titanium dioxide (TiO₂), an affordable compound that makes these solar cells less expensive than traditional silicon solar cells. A big reason for the lower efficiency of DSSCs compared to other solar cells is that they do not capture enough infrared light from the electromagnetic spectrum.

Eray S. Aydil, professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota, and then-graduate student Bin Liu (now a professor of engineering at Nanyang Technological University at Singapore), investigated how the integration of layers of nanometer-sized and micrometer-sized particles into the DSSC design impacts cell performance. They theorized that the addition of these particles would extend the distance the light travels within the cell, thereby converting more infrared spectrum into electricity.

Professor Eray Aydil's group.

Experimental Cell Design

The key component in a DSSC is the photoanode, which is made by depositing a porous, nanocrystalline titanium oxide (TiO₂) film on a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) glass. A layer of a photoactive dye is then adsorbed on the TiO₂ surfaces to absorb light and generate photoexcited electrons.

“Dye-sensitized solar cells make use of excitation of a dye adsorbed on titanium dioxide or a pigment to generate electricity,” says Aydil. “We engineered the pigment both at the nanometer and micrometer scales to trap more light onto the pigment.”

Photoanodes were assembled that included alternating layers of both micrometer-sized and nanometer-sized TiO₂ nanoparticles and porous TiO₂ microspheres. A two-step hydrothermal method was developed for synthesizing the TiO₂ microspheres. These additional surfaces provided more internal surface area, which increased light scattering.

The micrometer-scale microspheres with nanometer pores were placed between layers of nanoscale particles. The spheres act like the bumpers on a pinball machine, disrupting the light path and causing photons to bounce around before eventually making their way through the cell—thereby traveling a greater distance and allowing the solar cell to absorb more of the light.

Various combinations of microsphere layers and nanoparticle layers were tested as photoanodes. The highest power conversion efficiencies resulted from cells that consisted of multiple layers of microspheres and nanoparticles, compared to single-layer cells. This is thought to be due to enhanced light scattering by the porous TiO₂ microspheres. Each time the photon interacts with a sphere, a small charge is produced. The interfaces between the layers also help enhance the efficiency by acting like mirrors, keeping the light inside the solar cell where it can be converted to electricity.

Moving Forward

Incorporating alternating layers of nanoparticles and microspheres in dye-sensitized solar cells can increase efficiency up to 26%. This approach for increasing light-harvesting efficiency can be easily integrated into current commercial DSSCs, as well as opening up more research possibilities for DSSC solar cells. For example, Liu, at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, is exploring how to use these structures in photocatalysis and hydrogen generation by water splitting. He is also trying to engineer these titanium dioxide nanostructures to absorb light in the visible spectrum, without the need for dye.

“While we were successful in trapping more light using these layered structures, whether these layers are mechanically robust and strong enough to survive the beating solar cells take over many years is an important and unanswered question,” says Aydil. “I think exploring the limits of these layers, and how to make them stronger and adhere better, are key issues for mechanical engineers in the future. Developing new low-cost alternatives to traditional silicon solar cells is gaining importance because reducing the cost of silicon solar cells is becoming increasingly more difficult.”

source-ASME