So a lot of interest keeps being generated by this topic globally as people struggle to see how we are going to move from the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) to a more sustainable way of getting around.
To be fair I think mostly the mainstream media are selling the public a whole tissue of lies when which is a shame, as we can do some amazing things with electric now, but its not quite as easy as they are making out.
One advance to keep an eye on this year is in so-called solid-state batteries which I am reading a lot more about. The current lithium-ion batteries and related chemistries use a liquid electrolyte that shuttles charge around; solid-state batteries replace this liquid with ceramics or other solid materials. I think we have really reached the limit for energy density for Li-ion at a cheap price.
Researchers have succeeded in making rechargeable pouch-type lithium batteries with a record-breaking energy density of over 700 Wh/kg. The new design comprises a high-capacity lithium-rich manganese-based cathode and a thin lithium metal anode with high specific energy. If developed further, the device could find use in applications such as electric aviation, which requires much higher energy density batteries than those available today.
This swap unlocks possibilities that pack more energy into a smaller space, potentially improving the range of electric vehicles. Solid-state batteries could also move charge around faster, meaning shorter charging times. And because some solvents used in electrolytes can be flammable, proponents of solid-state batteries say they improve safety by cutting fire
However, a new type of battery could finally make electric cars as convenient and cheap as gas ones. Solid-state batteries can use a wide range of chemistries, but a leading candidate for commercialization uses lithium metal. Quantumscape, for one, is focused on that technology and raised hundreds of millions in funding before going public in 2020. The company has a deal with Volkswagen that could put its batteries in cars by 2025. They have created a single-layer, solid-state lithium-metal battery cell.
However, completely reinventing batteries has proved difficult, and lithium-metal batteries have seen concerns about degradation over time, as well as manufacturing challenges. Quantumscape announced in late December it had delivered samples to automotive partners for testing, a significant milestone on the road to getting solid-state batteries into cars. Other solid-state-battery players, like Solid Power, are also working to build and test their batteries. But while they could reach major milestones this year as well, their batteries won’t make it into vehicles on the road in 2023.
Solid-state batteries aren’t the only new technology to watch out for. Sodium-ion batteries also swerve sharply from lithium-ion chemistries common today. These batteries have a design similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, including a liquid electrolyte, but instead of relying on lithium, they use sodium as the main chemical ingredient. Chinese battery giant CATL reportedly plans to begin mass-producing them in 2023.
Sodium-ion batteries may not improve performance, but they could cut costs because they rely on cheaper, more widely available materials than lithium-ion chemistries do. But it’s not clear whether these batteries will be able to meet needs for EV range and charging time.
Cathodes are typically one of the most expensive parts of a battery, and a type of cathode called NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) is the dominant variety in EV batteries today. But those three elements, in addition to lithium, are expensive, so cutting some or all of them could help decrease costs.
This year could be a breakout year for one alternative: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), a low-cost cathode material sometimes used for lithium-ion batteries.
The big question I have is when we will see the birth and realisation of a viable retrofit system where you can give up a bit of boot space, or undercar space, to have a battery pack and electrical motor fitted in good cars already out there. This could be a licence to print money and be much better for the environment. In the mean time I am holding on to both my Saab 95 cars in hope!
Just a mention I have been tweaking and removing some older content from the main menus, you can still get it by using the search function but I have I tweaked the KS3 and Science areas to make it easy to find things and also add some new topics. I am broadly trying to follow the Active series of lessons by OUP so adding content as I go. I don’t teach much if any KS3 Science now so it might be a while, but when I have more time, I will add lots more of my hidden resources and build some more video banks. Any questions please let me know, and remember if you use the resources they are not for resale but free to share and use for lessons.
The fusing ball we call the sun shines down, it’s rays a warm embrace, The EM radiation passes through, a quantum symphony of grace.
The air is filled with longitudinal waves and song as birds chirp merrily, bees are buzzing at 800Hz and kinetic energy rustles through the trees.
The world is awash with a spectrum of light, The 525 nm of the trees, The 420 nm of the sky and 650nm of the flowers around us.
Our Universe is such a place a quantum possibility with the potential for our star, sol being either on or off, or maybe neither?
However, for us being larger than your average electron can always be approximated to a hot sweaty lump of biological matter just soaking up the EM radiation as all of the wavefunctions have collapsed.
I started Animated Science in 2003 as a small flash-based site for my own pupils. I am now serving Science, teacher training and food-based blog content around the world with an ever-increasing footprint.
It has been over 20 years now online and the changes have been massive, but I try to keep up and serving free content for all users. I serve over 200,000 pages a month from this site alone. The reach is global with many countries using the content but mainly the traffic is from the UK, US, Philippines, India, UAE, Australia, Sweden, Canada.
My site is a non-profit concern, and all resources are provided free of charge and should not be commercially exploited in any way. The ads I have all pay for the hosting and features on the site, so it really is a super Physics resource for all to use.
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It’s here: Scientists have reported the discovery of the first room-temperature superconductor, after more than a century of waiting. The compound conducts electricity without resistance up to 15° C, but only under high pressure.
The discovery evokes daydreams of futuristic technologies that could reshape electronics and transportation. Superconductors transmit electricity without resistance, allowing current to flow without any energy loss. But all superconductors previously discovered must be cooled, many of them to very low temperatures, making them impractical for most uses.
Now, scientists have found the first superconductor that operates at room temperature — at least given a fairly chilly room. The material is superconducting below temperatures of about 15° Celsius, physicist Ranga Dias of the University of Rochester in New York and colleagues report October 14 in Nature. However, the new material’s superconducting superpowers appear only at extremely high pressures, limiting its practical usefulness.
Dias and colleagues formed the superconductor by squeezing carbon, hydrogen and sulfur between the tips of two diamonds and hitting the material with laser light to induce chemical reactions. At a pressure about 2.6 million times that of Earth’s atmosphere, and temperatures below about 15° C, the electrical resistance vanished.
Superconductors and magnetic fields are known to clash — strong magnetic fields inhibit superconductivity. Sure enough, when the material was placed in a magnetic field, lower temperatures were needed to make it superconducting. The team also applied an oscillating magnetic field to the material, and showed that, when the material became a superconductor, it expelled that magnetic field from its interior, another sign of superconductivity.
The scientists were not able to determine the exact composition of the material or how its atoms are arranged, making it difficult to explain how it can be superconducting at such relatively high temperatures. Future work will focus on describing the material more completely, Dias says.
When superconductivity was discovered in 1911, it was found only at temperatures close to absolute zero (−273.15° C). But since then, researchers have steadily uncovered materials that super conduct at higher temperatures. In recent years, scientists have accelerated that progress by focusing on hydrogen-rich materials at high pressure.
If you click on the video below, I have taken many of the key steps and put onto a playlist on Youtube. I suggest you click “Youtube” and play from there.
Key Equipment
Apples – A lot is talked about in this respect. I think in essence you have to go with what you are growing and what is free. If you have to start buying apples the whole process becomes expensive! However, try and balance of sweet and cooking or tart apples. The balance of sugar and acid are required to give strength and character to a cider. Also to stop it spoiling, you cannot just use a cheap supermarket budget juice!
Scratter – fruit pulper, these are a must, and you are looking to try and pay around no more than £50 for a standard one. They are really a two person job, with one holding the arms on one side as you turn, unless you mount on a very sturdy frame, which unless you make a lot of cider and no friends is not worth it. Mine is from VidxXL and is 7L but they are also sold in other places too.
Cider Press – these do vary a lot and you can spend a lot of time making one, or sourcing a used one of high quality. I just bought a cheap one from VidaXL 18L for £70 which is good enough. If you can buy a bigger one it will work well if you have massive amounts of fruit. However, I did about 5 pressings for a boot full of apples so no issues really. They come with hardwood battens but take care, they should NOT cost £300 as some online retailers have them at, they are ripping you off! Also avoid buying anything less than 18L. 18L works out for cut up apple as about a 5 gallon tub, which you have just crushed into, this is just right for a batch. 12L or 6L seem pretty pointless. I also think that with wine grapes they will be much easier as they are so much softer, but I have yet to try this out.
Fermenting Tubs – Be prepared to have lots of these. I just 25l old de-ionised water (food grade) plastic tubs for juices as they have great lids and take up less room. But a flat bottom vessel like this is a must. In fact you need at least two identical ones with taps (you can cut them yourself) to decant into. 25 litres is a good working volume. Also you will need old bottles and a pressure vessel to make a carbonated drink, so have one of these as well. I also like a smaller neck vessel which is easier when you are onto longer term storage and racking with a screw top lid and cut out for an air lock.
Refractometer – this is a must for anyone making any alcohol from fruit juices. It is really good as it tells you how much sugar is in your initial fluid and then later how much so you know when to bottle or keg safely. Without this you are guessing. I suggest you buy one and learn to use it before the season starts. Calibrate with pure distilled water, and then just use. Very fast and accurate. If the juice has not got enough sugar, it will not develop enough alcohol then the cider, beer or wine will spoil. Too much and you may kill the yeast too quick and end up with a very sweet drink. These should cost about £20 from Amazon.
pH Meter – I bought one from Amazon again for about £15, this is essential as it gives you a pH reading initially to tell you how many Camden tablets are required to kill off any bacteria and yeasts in the initial solution. Also clearly you can also check the later pH. Acid is good as it stops the spoilage of the brew but too much is not nice to drink.
Campden tablets (sodium metabisulphite) are sometimes added to apple juice before fermentation to subdue some of the wild yeasts and bacteria present in the juice, reducing the likelihood of the cider spoiling. Dosage depends on the acidity of the juice: a low acid juice (pH of 3.7 to 3.8) will require 3 campden tablets per gallon of juice; average acid juice (pH of 3.4 to 3.6) will require 2 tablets per gallon; high acid juice (pH below 3) does not require campden tablets. To add campden tablets, crush them in a little warm juice or water and add to the juice in the fermenter. Put a mesh cloth over the cider and no lid, ensure it is tightly sealed to prevent any flies getting inside but to allow any sulphur vapours to come off the liquid.
Yeast – After 24 hours add a cultured cider yeast or a cultured wine yeast, and prime the airlock. Clearly the upside to this method is to “stun” the natural yeasts and inhibit them, to enable you later to introduce your yeast of choice. There are lots available and you might use a cider yeast, this has been specifically chosen to give a “cider” flavour which can be bought cheaply for bulk sachets OR champagne yeast. Bigger Jugs sell 100g of yeast for £6.99 on Amazon which works well between 16 and 25 degrees. 10g per 25 litres. I also suggest with all yeasts that you make a starter with dextrose and tepid water before you pitch in to get the colony off to a really good start. We are looking a natural ecosystem in the beer and it will be survival of the fittest!
Also remember that Yeast is a fungus and needs a supply of energy for its living and growth. Sugar supplies this energy (your body also gets much of its energy from sugar and other carbohydrates). Yeast can use oxygen to release the energy from sugar (like you can) in the process called “respiration”. So, the more sugar there is, the more active the yeast will be and the faster its growth (up to a certain point – even yeast cannot grow in very strong sugar – such as honey). However, if oxygen is short (like in the middle of a ball of dough), then yeast can still release energy from sugar, but in these conditions, its by-products are alcohol and carbon dioxide. It is this carbon dioxide gas which makes the bubbles in dough (and therefore in bread), causing the dough to rise. Alcohol is a poison (for yeast as well as for people) and so the yeast is not able to grow when the alcohol content gets too high. This is why wine is never more than about 12% alcohol.
Yeast Nutrient – Yeast health is one of the most important aspects of making good homebrew beer, wine or mead. After all, it is the sole reason for any alcohol being produced at all. Not only is yeast necessary for converting sugars to alcohol but it is also particularly important because it has a large influence on the flavour of the finished drink. Yeast creates many different compounds when fermenting a beer or wine that have a big effect on flavour. Wheat beer yeast for instance produce, clove, banana and bubblegum like flavours and this is desirable for the most part, if they are not healthy, however, they can produce undesirable flavours.
Unhealthy yeast can contribute undesirable flavours to your home brew. Flavours like apple flavours from acetaldehyde, harsh alcohol flavours or buttery flavours from diacetyl. These are all symptoms of poor yeast health or not enough yeast cells. This brings us to our main subject, yeast nutrition.
Yeast nutrients are added to beer or wine to ensure that the building blocks required by the yeast to form new cells and reproduce are available to them before and during fermentation.
When yeast reproduces, they require things like amino acids, nitrogen, fatty acids and vitamins to form new cells. If these are not present when you add yeast to your wort or must it can lead to problems during fermentation or even starting fermentation, to begin with. Hence, we simply add the yeast nutrient to the mix to ensure they are here, to make the fermentation and colony work well.
Dextrose – USE THIS! Dextrose brewing sugar, is a naturally occurring right-handed version of glucose. Use dextrose instead of white sugar in either your fermentation or priming your beer when bottling. Dextrose is quicker to dissolve than white sugar and 100% fermentable. It also is “pure” when labelled for beer making so should not impart any odd favours to your brew.
Sucrose – DON’T USE THIS! Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of one molecule of glucose and one of fructose. More precisely, it is dextrose plus dextrorotary fructose. It must be broken apart before the yeasts can use it. When heated in an acidic solution (such as wort) the sugar is inverted to make glucose and fructose. Yeasts will invert the sucrose if it is not already in that form before using by using invertase. It is derived from sugar beets or sugar cane that are crushed and dissolved in water. The raw syrup is boiled down to concentrate it to a point where some fraction crystallizes. The remaining heavy syrup (see “molasses”) is separated from the 95+ % pure sugar. The crystals are further processed several times to increase its purity yielding, eventually, the pure white crystals we commonly use. Some other commonly used sugars are also produced during the processing.
A complaint in the early days of modern home brewing was that using table sugar in beer-making resulted in a “cidery” beer. The symptoms were that a beer made with table sugar that was added to the boil produced a cidery flavor that faded after several weeks in the bottle. Therefore the rule of thumb became ‘avoid all table sugar’. While this is still a good idea when using malt extract, this old wives tale is misleading. That defect most likely came from poor yeast due to a too low pitch, insufficient free-available-nitrogen, or a lack of other necessary yeast building materials in the wort. Table sugar can be used in small amounts with no harm and it is certainly cheaper to use for priming. However, my suggestion is always to stick your supply of dextrose, which is best bought in bulk of 20kg bags as the price can be steep online or in smaller bags. This will always be more consistent and can be used with wine, beer or cider regardless. If you buy a large bag it covers everything!
If you are a Kyncl fan, I went to a really good exhibition here, where we saw some very impressive modern art.
František Kyncl : Point, line, space Museum Kampa – Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation, U Sovových mlýnů 2, Prague 1 – Malá Strana 1. October 2018 – 13. January 2019
Frantisek Kyncl’s artistic work reflects the controversy between rationalism and intuition, between order and coincidence, simply between modern rational thinking and postmodern doubts, typical of the second half of the 20th century. Influenced by constructivism and the German Zero group, in the 1970s, Kyncl began to assemble three-dimensional objects from the skewers, the geometric forms, such as the triangle, the square, the circle, and the organic growth to all sides.
Fragile objects have been created, in the form of grids, grids, sometimes even cobweb clusters that break and reflect light, thereby becoming part of these objects. Kyncl calls them Space Structures and understands them as an image of society: “When they multiply and grow, it is something like an image of society and how people behave together. “Since the late eighties, he has devoted himself to drawing, which leaves geometric forms, becomes more expressive, and figurative elements appear in it.
František Kyncl exhibition – Point, line, space in the Museum Kampa will present the artist’s work for the first time in its full versatility.
František Kyncl was born in 1934 in Pardubice. In 1968 he left Czechoslovakia. Since 1969 he was living in Düsseldorf where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. During his studies he became part of the Düsseldorf art scene, which at the time was one of the most radical artistic movements not only in Germany. He is acquainted with the artists Günther Uecker, Norbert Krick and Joseph Beuys. Exhibits in major institutions such as the Düsseldorf Kunstverein or the legendary Hans Mayer Gallery.
This booklet of Methods is a simple reference point for the 1-9 Physics GCSE Required Practical methods.
Often questions will be based around these themes and you must learn to interpret the questions on the day as they will try and put them in unfamiliar situations.
This booklet is not designed to teach you everything in the practical’s but to be used to recap what you have already done in class. I have limited most topics to 1 or 2 pages of the bare basics.
You must be able to recall all this booklet and the ideas in it if you want to be able to answer some of the questions in your exams.
They are sure to ask about at least 2 of these topics, and most likely 4 or 5 topics in details so time spent on these topics will stand you in good stead.
Try and use this booklet as a starting point and then read more around the subject and tackle some exam questions to help you out.
