People who follow nanotechnology news have become accustomed to hearing how scientists are making super-small devices even smaller. But here’s a headline from Prof. Arie Zaban, Head of Bar-Ilan University’s Nanotechnology Institute: using nano-based methods, he’s managed to create a solar cell that’s 100 times bigger than his previous design.
The US electricity distribution grid is around 100-years old and aging faster than new construction renews it while peak demand for electricity is projected to rise 19 percent nationally during the next decade--capital investments in electrical generation, transmission and distribution are forecast to grow by only 6 percent over the same period, according to the Electrical Power Research Initiative.
A new material, nano flakes, may revolutionise the transformation of solar energy to electricity. If so, even ordinary households can benefit from solar electricity and save money in the future.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy¡¦s Brookhaven National Laboratory have unveiled important details about a class of catalysts that could help improve the performance of fuel cells. With the goal of producing ¡§clean¡¨ hydrogen for fuel cell reactions in mind, the researchers determined why two next-generation catalysts including gold, cerium, titanium, and oxygen nanomaterials exhibit very high activity. Their results will be published online in the December 14, 2007, edition of the journal Science.
Breathing new life into an old idea, MIT Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus and co-workers are developing innovative materials for controlling temperatures that could lead to substantial energy savings by allowing more efficient car engines, photovoltaic cells and electronic devices.
The scientific community is progressively experiencing a greater interest in environmentally friendly energy generation technologies, and their suitable applications, such is the case of hydrogen fuel cells applied to aeronautics.
Industrial Nanotech, Inc. has announced that its Oklahoma-based distributor, Pioneer Builders, will begin delivery before the end of 4th Quarter 2007 of more than 800 gallons of the Company's patented thermally insulating and corrosion resistant coating, Nansulate, to the new biofuel facility being built by Greenlight Biofuels, Ltd. Pioneer Builders will apply the nanotechnology-based coating on large tanks, lines, and other refinery equipment being installed in the new facility.
In 2002, U.S. farmers harvested 2.7 billion bushels of soybeans. Last year in Missouri, farmers harvested 194 million bushels of soybeans worth about $1.2 billion. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia is turning those soybeans into gold, with nothing more than a little water.
Nanotechnology could revolutionize the natural gas industry across the whole lifecycle from extraction to pollution reduction or be an enormous missed opportunity, claim two industry experts writing in Inderscience's International Journal of Nanotechnology.
Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a model that could help engineers and scientists speed up the development of hydrogen-fueled vehicles by identifying promisin...