Green Technology Forum

Some of the tiniest solar cells ever built have been successfully tested as a power source for even tinier microscopic machines, reports azonano.com.

The cells, each one about a quarter the size of a lowercase “o” in a standard 12-point font, were made of an organic polymer and were joined together in an experiment aimed at proving their ability to power tiny devices that can be used to detect chemical leaks and for other applications, says Xiaomei Jiang, who led the research at the University of South Florida.

“I think these materials have a lot more potential than traditional silicon,” says Jiang. “They could be sprayed on any surface that is exposed to sunlight — a uniform, a car, a house.”

The recent report entitled Water for People – Water for Life of the World Water Assessment Programme of the UNESCO says that more than 6000 people die every day due to water-related diseases, including diarrhoea, worm infections, and infectious diseases.

In addition, organic pollutants from industrial wastewater from pulp and paper mills, textiles and leather factories, steel foundries, and petrochemicals refineries, are a major cause of illness in parts of the world where regulations do not necessarily protect people from such industrial outflows.

So the availability of drinking quality water is fast becoming a major socio-economic issue across the globe, especially in the developing world. However, water purification technology is often complicated, requires sophisticated equipment and is expensive to run and maintain. Moreover, it usually requires a final costly disinfection stage.

Now a team of scientists at the Ian Wark Research Institute at the University of South Australia are tackling this by taking a nanotechnology approach to water purification – a move that has the potential to prevent disease and poisoning from affection millions of people.

Research professor Peter Majewski and biomolecular chemist Chiu Ping Chan have investigated how silica particles can be coated easily with a nanometre-thin layer of surface active material (SAM) based on a hydrocarbon with a silicon-containing anchor. The coating is formed through a chemical self-assembly process so involves nothing more than stirring the ingredients to make the active particles.

These active particles were then tested to demonstrate that they could remove biological molecules, pathogens such as the polio virus, bacteria such as Escherichia coli, and Cryptosporidium parvum -– a waterborne parasite.

Source: engineerlive.com

Researchers at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign have developed a simple process to grow upright copper nanowires on different surfaces. The nanowire arrays could find use in field-emission displays, a new type of display technology that promises to provide brighter, more vivid pictures than existing flat-panel displays. In such an application, the nanowires would be used to fire electrons at phosphor particles on a screen, lighting them up.

The new manufacturing method, developed by Kyekyoon Kim and Hyungsoo Choi, leads to copper nanowires between 70 nanometers and 250 nanometers wide. The researchers can use the process to grow the nanowires on various surfaces, including silicon, glass, metal, and plastic. They describe the nanowire array and demonstrate a prototype field-emission display in an online Advanced Materials paper.

Source: technologyreview.com

Avalon Aviation’s Giles G-200 aircraft flew this month with Unidym’s carbon nanotubes, which were incorporated into its metal engine covering. Avalon Aviation utilized the carbon nanotubes to achieve greater strength and retain flexibility within the airframe. The Giles G-200 aircraft will be flown in several air shows around the country this year. Unidym, Inc., is a majority-owned subsidiary of Arrowhead Research Corporation.

Source: nsti.org

The trouble with a lot of the corporate speak about going green is the promises can seem abstract, or worse, like just another PR campaign. Xerox Corp. is working on a green technique that’s as plain as the stack of papers on your desk. Scientists at Xerox can make the print on documents appear — then disappear in time, allowing paper to be reused.

Using a molecular compound similar to the one on tinted eyeglasses, which darken or lighten depending on the amount of ultraviolet (UV) light in the environment, Xerox labs have developed paper that changes color when exposed to UV light. Unlike tinted glasses, however, which change color instantly upon walking outside or into a building, the print on Xerox’s paper fades gradually over 16 to 24 hours, or it can be erased instantly by heating the paper.

The goal is to produce an erasable paper that costs two to three times the price of regular paper but can be used hundreds of times. People can relate, Xerox scientist Paul Smith said.

“We got enormous feedback from customers. They loved this concept of a green technique,” said Smith, laboratory manager at Xerox Research Centre of Canada, near Toronto.

Source: searchcio.techtarget.com

In an advancement that could radically reduce the cost of making solar panels, Massachusetts-based Konarka Technologies has developed and successfully demonstrated the ability to print solar cells with an inkjet printer. By using the inkjet printing process in the manufacturing of solar cells, the need for “clean rooms” is eliminated, and manufacturers can work with a number of different substrates, including plastics, and different colors.

Rick Hess, president and CEO at Konarka stated, “Demonstrating the use of inkjet printing technology as a fabrication tool for highly efficient solar cells and sensors with small area requirements is a major milestone. This essential breakthrough in the field of printed solar cells positions Konarka as an emerging leader in printed photovoltaics.”

Source: jogja-jogja.com

Bioplastics are biodegradable and can be made from a wide range of different plants. In the future genetically modified plants will need less water and reduce the costs. Bioplastics has the potential to reduce the petroleum consumption for plastic by 15 to 20 percent in 2025. Improved technical properties and innovations open new markets and applications with higher profit potentials in automotive, medicine and electronics.

When bioplastic companies change their strategy from just replacing today’s products to new applications, product conceptions and production processes with the advantage of bioplastics the profitability and saleability increase dramatically.

In 2025 Europe will count for 31 percent, USA 28 percent and Asian for 32 percent of the total markets. Asian has the advantage that genetically modified plants are easier to realize and new outlets for agriculture are faster to build up. These are some results of a new released market study by Helmut Kaiser Consultancy.

Bioplastics fast market growth of more than 8-10% per year. Bioplastics cover approximately 10-15% of the total plastics market and will increase its market share to 25-30% by 2020. The market itself is huge, it reached over 1bn US$ in 2007 and will be over 10 billion by 2020. More and more companies are entering and investing in this market. New applications and innovations in the Automotive and Electronics Industry lead to market boom. Over 500 bioplastics processing companies are already available, more than 5000 is expected by 2020.

Source: nanovip.com

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has settled with ATEN Technology, Inc., of Irvine, Calif., acting for its subsidiary IOGEAR, for selling unregistered pesticides and making unproven claims about their effectiveness.

EPA maintains that IOGEAR made unsubstantiated public health claims regarding unregistered products, and their ability to control germs and pathogens — a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.

“We’re seeing far too many unregistered products that assert unsubstantiated antimicrobial properties,” said Katherine Taylor, associate director of the Communities and Ecosystems Division in EPA’s Pacific Southwest region. “Whether the claim involves use of an existing material such as silver, or new nano technology, the EPA takes these unverified public health claims very seriously. Consumers should always follow common-sense hygiene practices, like washing hands frequently and thoroughly.”
Source: yosemite.epa.gov

In the unknowns of emerging nanotechnology, researchers are wondering if the science behind trendy no-smell socks, underwear and hunting gear might create unintended consequences in the environment.

Just a few simulated washings, for example, can pull nanosilver out of new socks that rely on it for killing odors, researchers said Sunday. That action sets the substance free to travel into wastewater and perhaps into fertilizer.

That prospect underscores the importance of studying nanosized materials that are increasingly a part of clothing and medical, electronic, and other consumer products, said UC Davis professor Alexandra Navrotsky.

“As a society, we should be doing research on these effects ideally before products go to market, not after,” said Navrotsky, who heads a campus nanomaterials research unit.

Source: sacbee.com

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have moved closer to creating a thin-film solar cell that can compete with the efficiency of the more common silicon-based solar cell.

The copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cell recently reached 19.9 percent efficiency, setting a new world record for this type of cell. Multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells have shown efficiencies as high as 20.3 percent. The energy conversion efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of sunlight converted by the cell into electricity.

“This is an important milestone,” said NREL Senior Scientist Miguel Contreras. “The thin film people have always looked for matching silicon in performance, and we are reaching that goal.”

Source: nrel.gov