Green Technology Forum

IBM announced an innovative new semiconductor wafer reclamation process pioneered at its Burlington, Vermont manufacturing facility. The new process uses a specialized pattern removal technique to repurpose scrap semiconductor wafers — thin discs of silicon material used to imprint patterns that make finished semiconductor chips for computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics — to a form used to manufacture silicon-based solar panels. The new process was recently awarded the “2007 Most Valuable Pollution Prevention Award” from the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable.

source: IBM

“Green IT” tops the list of 10 strategic technologies for next year, according to the research firm, Gartner. They warn that if businesses don’t improve data center energy efficiency, the government may force them to do so. “Some event somewhere, a popular movie, some shift in election politics, and suddenly you are forced to change dramatically and it comes with little warning,” said their analyst Carl Claunch. “You need to be thinking what to do.”

France’s Albert Fert and Germany’s Peter Gruenberg (pictured) have won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries allowing the miniaturization of hard disks in electronic devices. Their work in harnessing tiny magnetic changes–dubbed spintronics–made it possible to pack much more data onto hard disks and the development of handheld devices such as mobile phones and music players. “It is thanks to this technology that it has been possible to miniaturize hard disks so radically in recent years,” the academy said in a statement. “It is the thing that has made iPods possible and anything that requires lots of data storage, like YouTube.”

Bioident is a co-winner of the seventh annual Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation award for its PhotonicLab Platform, which enables rapid in-vitro diagnostics, chemical and biological threat detection, and environmental testing without the need for off-site lab analysis. Their technology uses an inkjet printer to print electronic circuits on a variety of surfaces, such as plastic foil or glass. “We are delighted to win this prestigious award that recognizes our innovative work on the cutting edge of nanotechnology,” said Dr. Wasiq Bokhari, CEO for Bioident.

Want a quick and dirty estimate of your carbon footprint? Yahoo has introduced a straightforward (if a bit oversimplified) website on green living inviting visitors to take action against climate change. They offer an introduction to the issues, a carbon footprint calculator, and an interactive opportunity for you to make a “green plan” to reduce your carbon output, which they tell us is 9.44 tons per year for the average American.

Rice University and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have formed a $2.6-million Institute for Sustainable Nanoelectronics. The joint research initiative aims to slash the design and production costs for embedded microchips–special-purpose computer chips that power everything from cell phones and digital cameras to jet airplanes and MRI machines. The institute hopes its work will be applicable not only to today’s complementary metal–oxide semiconductors, or CMOS, but also to emerging computing platforms based on photonics and nanotechnology.

If you have any doubt that the convergence of nanotechnology and biotechnology are driving the green revolution, check out one of the most influential reports of the year, “The Global Technology Revolution 2020, In-Depth Analyses: Bio/Nano/Materials/Information Trends, Drivers, Barriers, and Social Implications,” from the Rand Corporation. The 316-page report predicts that, “In 2020, areas of particular importance for technology trends will include biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials technology, and information technology.” You can download a free pdf of the full report here.

A new study shows that certain laser printers emit nanoparticles into the air. Researchers found that approximately 60% of the investigated printers did not emit submicrometer particles and of the 40% that did emit particles, 27% were high particle emitters. They suspect toner is directly released as ultra fine particles (UFPs) into the air. Further studies are needed to determine what the implications of this are, but as Michael Berger at Nanowerk points out, it might be a wise move to err on the side of caution and use laser printers that do not emit UFPs.

Flexible screens will soon be all the rage in consumer electronics, but flexible devices won’t really work unless scientists can come up with batteries that bend, fold and twist. One response to that challenge is a new battery made out of paper impregnated with carbon nanotubes. Researchers used a piece of paper containing carbon nanotubes as a cathode and evaporated a layer of lithium onto the other side to serve as an anode. They then sandwiched it between sheets of aluminium foil, which served as current collectors. The team says the next step will be to develop different formulations of cellulose and electrolyte that will increase their paper battery’s storage capacity.

The heat generated by electronic equipment not only limits performance, it adds considerably to the cooling loads (and therefore the carbon footprint) of office buildings. But Purdue University researchers report a prototype that improves device cooling by up to 250 percent by creating an ionic wind. The team designed a tiny anode and cathode arrangement with a 10-millimeter gap through which electrons pass right above a computer chip. As the negatively charged electrons collide with air molecules, they create positively charged ions that rush toward negatively charged electrodes, creating a tiny wind to carry off heat.