Green Technology Forum

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

Nanocomp Technologies, Inc., a developer of energy-saving performance materials and component products, today announced it has been awarded a Phase One contract by the United States Air Force under the Department of Defense’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The intent of this SBIR project is to develop a new generation of very lightweight, electrically conductive wires, cables and materials made from carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Under Phase One, Nanocomp Technologies will expand upon its current processing and manufacturing methods for producing CNT sheets and spun conductors, composed of long-length CNTs, to surpass established electrical performance standards required by aerospace to replace traditional copper wiring.

“We are thrilled to have received this important program award from the USAF,” said Peter Antoinette, president and CEO of Nanocomp Technologies.

“It is generally overlooked that modern satellites and aircraft rely upon an invention from the 1800s – copper-based electrical wires and cables. Our work can result in a true 21^st century change in the game, creating electrically optimized carbon nanotube wires and cables, comparable to copper in terms of electrical conductivity but up to 80 percent lighter and more robust. The result will be increased mission capability for the Air Force and dramatic fuel savings for the entire aerospace industry. . .”

Source: businesswire.com

Nokia has taken the idea of mobile phones as fashion accessories to its logical conclusion.

Researchers from Nokia have collaborated with Cambridge University’s Nanoscience Centre to produce the Morph phone. The Morph utilises nanotechnology to break down the stale shape relations of the “brick” phone.

The morph phone uses radical wiring and materials in order to allow bending, rolling and folding – so that the phone presents as a bracelet. The Morph has the added appeal of being self-cleaning and energy efficient.

The Morph is still very much a concept phone, currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of the Design and Elastic Mind exhibition.

The nanotechnology used in design is a prelude to tangible benefits in handheld communication, lower cost manufacturing and energy rationing. The Morph serves as a fresh example of successful collaboration between industry and technical colleges.

Source: smartcompany.com.au

Driven by an expected exponential growth in commercialization successes in the healthcare and electronics sectors, worldwide revenues from products incorporating Nanotechnology are projected to exceed US$2.78 trillion by end of the year 2015.

Chemical industry currently dominates the Nanotech arena in terms of maturity of R&D efforts and actual product commercialization, and worldwide revenues are projected to exceed US$82 billion in 2008. Pharma & Healthcare industries for instance are projected to post the fastest annual growth rates in terms of annual revenues from nanotech-incorporated products over the next ten years, at a CAGR of 88.2% over the years 2006 through 2015. Revenues from products incorporating nanotechnology in the semiconductors/electronics arena are projected to exceed US$1 trillion by 2014.

Source: nanotech-now.com

Acclaimed nanotechnology researcher Ted Sargent has been awarded a $10 million dollar grant from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia – an international graduate-level research university set to open in September 2009.

Sargent’s research will build on the work for which he has already won wide acclaim – developing nanotechnology that uses the infrared rays of the sun to provide power for virtually everything that now uses electricity. In 2005, Sargent and his research team at U of T proved that it is possible to capture and convert the sun’s invisible infrared rays into electricity. The team did so using a material that could be simply spray-coated onto any flexible backing.

Source: news.utoronto.ca

Diamon-Fusion patented hydrophobic nanotechnology has added value and improved safety as tested and approved by consumers in Arizona.

Desert-like weather conditions have a harsh impact on the visibility of Arizona’s vehicles. A DFI Treated windshield will be able to prevent Sand pitting, erosion and will be able to deflect small impacts that typically would dent or crack an untreated windshield, due to its impact resistance properties as tested by William La Course. It has been proven by independent studies that a hydrophobic coating such as Diamon Fusion applied on the automobiles windshield will improve the visibility during rainy conditions over 30%, giving an additional second of reaction time which results in an extra 58 feet in distance traveling at 40 mph.
Source: mario7660.family.ericsato.net

Scientists have created a breakthrough substance that can change in seconds when exposed to liquid, shifting from hard plastic to soft and back again, and that has a wide range of potential medical applications.

The material — inspired by the skin of sea cucumbers — has astounding “mechanical morphing characteristics,” according to an article published in the latest issue of Science.

Researchers said a plethora of possible biomedical applications exist for the malleable new material, including as part of “artificial nervous systems” for patients with Parkinson’s disease, stroke or spinal cord injuries.

Sea cucumbers, found on ocean floors around the world, have leathery skin, an elongated, cucumber-like shape, and a consistency that can be either gelatinous, stiff and rigid, or anything in between.

This “switching effect” in the tissue of the sea cucumber is derived from a distinct nanocomposite structure in which highly rigid collagen nanofibers are embedded in a soft connective tissue.

Now the school of engineering at Case Western Reserve University and researchers at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center have succeeded after years of effort in mimicking the unusual architectural structure of the sea creatures.

“These creatures can reversibly and quickly change the stiffness of their skin. Normally it is very soft but, for example in response to a threat, the animal can activate its ‘body armor’ by hardening its skin,” said Jeffrey Capadona, associate investigator at the VA’s Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center.

With the sea cucumber as their model, the scientists unveiled a radically new approach for developing polymer nanocomposites which alter their mechanical properties when exposed to certain chemical stimuli.

“We can engineer these new polymers to change their mechanical properties — in particular stiffness and strength — in a programmed fashion when exposed to a specific chemical,” said Christoph Weder, a professor of macromolecular science at Case Western Reserve, and a senior author on the article.

Stuart Rowan, professor of macromolecular science at Case Western Reserve, said: “The materials … were designed to change from a hard plastic — think of a CD case — to a soft rubber when brought in contact with water.”

Source: discovery.com

The Institute of Nanotechnology brings you the ‘3rd International Conference on Nanotechnology and Smart Textiles for Industry, Healthcare and Fashion’, an unmissable one-day conference taking place at the Royal Society, London on the 19th March, 2008. This event provides a venue and breeding ground for industry development, university and other research personnel to get together to present new ideas, learn what the industry wants and make linkages.

This textiles conference should be seen by the industry as the key international venue, where new ideas and developments are presented and industry challenges are tabled. It should indeed be regarded as the venue for bringing together new science and technologies into the industry arena.

Conference aims:

• To raise awareness of the potential for advanced technologies and the opportunities they present for the future success of the textile industry.
• To showcase novel textile technologies.
• To consider the implications of advances in technology on maintaining the competitiveness of the industrial and fashion textiles industries.
• To bring together a mutli-disciplinary delegation, to encourage discussion and advance collaborative opportunities.

Why attend?

This conference offers you:

• The opportunity to learn about new developments affecting the textile industry.
• Presentations from research and industry experts, to expand your knowledge of the latest developments in textile technologies.
• The opportunity to meet, advise and influence, representatives of a range of textile organizations from across the value chain.

source: nano.org.uk

Researchers from Clemson University and the École Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Strasbourg in France have developed rare-earth-doped, core-shell LaF₃ nanoparticles that could enable spectral design of luminescent materials [DiMaio et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA (2008) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0711638105].

The broad spectral range of emission from such nanoparticles could find application in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), solar cells, lasers and amplifiers, and biological assaying.

For applications, such nanoparticles should, ideally, have the ability to tailor independent emissions from a codoped material. Until now, it was thought that this could only be achieved by using nanoparticles incorporated into a host matrix where each nanoparticle is doped with a particular rare earth element (i.e. a lanthanide).

Instead, however, the researchers use 10 nm, core-shell LaF₃ nanoparticles with Tb³⁺ and Eu³⁺ dopants constrained to specific individual shells. The distance between shells, and therefore dopants, can be carefully controlled.

This enables, in turn, control over the energy transfer to varying degrees – from zero to partial to total – between the dopants within an individual nanoparticle.

Using three-shell particles, the ratio of the 540-nm Tb³⁺ peak to that of the 590-nm Eu³⁺ peak can be varied from 0.2–2.4. This variation only arises from changes in the internal structure of the nanoparticles, not any compositional or external dimensional changes. The separation between the shells has to be a minimum of >2 nm.

“This work shows that nanoparticles ~10 nm in diameter can have complex core-shell architectures that allow significant tuning of their light emissive properties,” explains Jeffrey R. DiMaio, now at Tetramer Technologies. These nanoparticles, and composites made from them, could be used to engineer specific spectral features.

“The key issue here is that nanoparticles can be engineered to emit at multiple tunable wavelengths from a single optical source,” comments Jean Pierre Leburton of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

source: nanotoday.com

Leading suppliers of materials for rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing are finding that nanoparticles can dramatically alter the properties of finished components. Paul Stevens looks at what is available on the market and how another nanotechnology-based process is enhancing the properties of parts built from standard materials.

Nanotechnology is now finding applications in numerous consumer products, ranging from sunscreen and cosmetics to sporting goods and guitar strings. In the field of rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing, nanotechnology is also now offering advantages to new product development teams.

In this article we will look at materials for tooling and model building, as well as an innovative technology that improves the performance of standard materials used for rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing.

Heavily filled with non-crystalline nanoparticles, Nanotool resin is one of the Protocomposite materials available from DSM Somos. When cured, it is a ceramic-like material with a flexural modulus of 10,500 MPa, a heat deflection temperature of 260˚C (at 0.46 MPa after thermal post-cure), a Shore D hardness of 94 and very low linear shrinkage.

DSM Somos says the resin also offers excellent side wall quality, which reduces the amount of finishing time required and makes it attractive for applications that requiring highly finished parts. As well as being suitable for rapid tooling used in injection moulding applications, Nanotool is also suitable for the production of high-quality models for wind tunnel testing and parts that can be metal-plated as prototypes for cast metal components.

Nanotool can be used with the stereolithography process to create tooling inserts capable of moulding hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of parts from thermoplastics such as polyethylene, polypropylene, thermoplastic elastomers, high-impact polystyrene, ABS, polycarbonate and glass-filled nylon. These moulded parts would typically be used for performance testing or marketing studies, though the quality and structural integrity of the parts mean that they can also be suitable as production parts for short-run applications, provided the relatively long moulding cycle time of 60–120 s is acceptable. For tooling that would traditionally require extensive electro-discharge machining, the rapid tooling process is likely to be more cost-effective than machined metal tooling. In addition, turnaround times can be very short, with moulded parts available in as little as three to five days.

As a guideline, DSM Somos suggests that Nanotool should be used for components up to approximately 100 mm in size with ribs no less than 1.6 mm thick due to the relatively brittle nature of the material. A minimum draft angle of 2 degrees is recommended and, although sharp corners can be produced, the company cautions that this can reduce the life of the tool. For complex components, hand loaded cores can be used, and metal inserts remain an option for tall or thin-walled features that would be difficult to tool in Nanotool.

source: engineerlive.com