Green Technology Forum

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

The Lightning Car Company offered a detailed look at its 700-horsepower electric Lightning GT this week, with word that “reservations for 2009 delivery are now being taken.” The Lightning GT, which requires a deposit of $30,116 and will cost roughly $300,000, makes the $100,000 Tesla Roadster look like a bargain.

At this point, it appears that the Lightning GT, which its makers say has a 0-60-mph time of 4.0 seconds, is not yet bound for the U.S. “We’ve had tremendous interest from customers in the United States,” says the company on its Web site. “We’re looking into the necessary federal certification requirements to enable us to retail the car in the U.S.”

The Lightning Car Company says “the build of the prototype [is] well underway” and should be finished later this year. The Lightning GT runs solely on electricity. It features a lightweight body built from carbon fiber and Kevlar, along with NanoSafe battery packs. The company says the battery packs have a life expectancy of more than 12 years and use nano titanate materials.

Source: edmunds.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

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

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

The winner, or winners, of the first ever science prize for outstanding achievement in nanosciences will be announced next month by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The first winners of the new Kavli Prize, comprising three international awards for outstanding contributions in the fields of nanoscience, neuroscience and astrophysics, will be announced on 28 May 2008.

The prizes, to be awarded every two years, will be presented in co-operation with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Norwegian ministries for education and research and foreign affairs. They are worth $1 million each, which makes them comparable to the cash received by Nobel Prize winners.

According to Professor Reidun Sirevåg, the Academy’s secretary general, the prize is the first of its kind for nanoscience. “It will be very interesting to know the winner, as the nanoscience field is not yet that specific,” she said.

Source: nanowerk.com

One of the more promising cleaning innovations to hit the US consumer market in recent years is the vapor steam cleaner. Using only tap water, these clever devices disinfect, clean, and deodorize all in one simple process.

Typical buyers are allergy or asthma sufferers, as well as anyone who is germ-phobic. The very hot, low-water-content steam that the machines emit can kill dust mites, viruses, bacteria, molds, and fungi, and do it all without chemicals, which themselves cause allergic reactions in some people.

The better steam cleaners come with attachments that allow you to clean everything from kitchen floors to heating vents to carpets to clothes.

But buying a steam cleaner is no simple matter. You can pay less than $100 for a small machine up to several thousand dollars for a large, multipurpose device.

“I would approach it by educating myself first,” says Mercia Tapping, founder of the Waltham-based website AllergyBuyersClub.com and an allergy sufferer herself. “There is a big amount of difference between the least expensive steam cleaner and the top of the line.”

Steve Hanson, cofounder of TheJanitorialStore.com, a Brainerd, Minn., firm that sells products to cleaning companies, says: “The best advice is to match the machine to your needs.”

Tapping says before you start shopping, you should understand how steam cleaners work.

First, they boil water in a tank. Then, when you pull or press a trigger, steam comes out and sanitizes whatever you are trying to clean. The steam then rises into the machine and is trapped in a towel that is attached to the device.

“They look like vacuum cleaners, but they don’t vacuum anything up,” Tapping says. “They use heat to draw it out.”

The better and more expensive steam cleaners make the water hotter, and some newer ones have a patented technology that actually changes the molecular structure of water, according to Tapping.

“It’s called TANCS, which is an EPA-registered disinfectant. It uses nanotechnology,” she says. “It’s more effective than chemical disinfectants.”

Source: boston.com

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

He’s just 37 years old, but he’s already making a difference in the world! Now, Ivanhoe introduces a young engineer who’s creating small solutions to big problems.

We’ve seen it in the movies — polluted drinking water is a health and environmental concern. In fact, right now, 30 states need to clean up their groundwater. “They’ve been designated by the EPA as being highly contaminated, and they’ve got to do something about the contaminated water,” Michael Wong, Ph.D., a chemical engineer at Rice University in Houston, told Ivanhoe.

Dr. Wong is one of Smithsonian Magazine’s America’s Young Innovators … and for good reason. He’s trying to come up with a way to use nanoparticles to clean up our water. “Water is not just H2O. Water has all sorts of stuff in it and the stuff we don’t want, those are the things that can really hurt you,” Dr. Wong explains.

He’s using nanoparticles made out of gold and palladium — a metal related to platinum — to get rid of chemicals. One of the most common pollutants in United States groundwater is trichloroethylene, or TCE, a solvent used to degrease metals. And it can cause cancer.

“Our idea was, let’s go ahead and break it down — break it down into something that’s safer,” Dr. Wong says. “Safer chemicals that won’t hurt your body and hurt the animals and the fish and what not.”

Source: ivanhoe.com