#Nanoparticle technology triples the production of biogas Researchers of the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence,
and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have developed the new Biogàsplus, a technology which allows increasing the production of biogas by 200%with a controlled introduction of iron oxide nanoparticles to the process of organic waste treatment.
The development of Biogàsplus was carried out by the ICN2's Inorganic nanoparticle group, led by ICREA researcher Víctor Puntes,
and by the Group of Organic Solid Waste Composting of the UAB School of engineering, directed by Antoni Sánchez.
The system is based on the use of iron oxide nanoparticles as an additive which"feeds"the bacteria in charge of breaking down organic matter.
This additive substantially increases the production of biogas and at the same time transforms the iron nanoparticles into innocuous salt."
"We believe we are offering a totally innovative approach to the improvement of biogas production and organic waste treatment,
since this is the first nanoparticle application developed with this in mind. In addition, it offers a significant improvement in the decomposition of organic waste
when compared to existing technologies, "explains Antoni Sánchez. According to researchers, today's biogas production is not very efficient-only 30 to 40 per cent of organic matter is converted into biogas
-when compared to other energy sources.""The first tests conducted with Biogàsplus demonstrated that product increases up to 200%the production of this combustible gas.
This translates into a profitable and sustainable solution to the processing of organic waste, thus favouring the use of this renewable source of energy,
"affirms Eudald Casals, ICN2 researcher participating in the project. At the moment, Biogàsplus has been applied successfully in cellulose
but it also can be used in different anaerobic digestions, such as agricultural, industrial or urban waste treatments.""Now the challenge lies in extrapolating the technology to digesters with capacity for hundreds of cubic metres.
This would allow using it in large-scale anaerobic digestion processes around the world, thereby greatly increasing the production of biogas, a renewable energy
which is growing steadily and is accessible to everyone, "Antoni Sánchez explains. Applied Nanoparticles, a Gateway to the Market"Our idea is the result of many projects:
you study one thing and discover another, "Casals explains.""We were studying the toxicity of iron oxide nanoparticles in the waste treatment of anaerobic biological processes
when we discovered that not only were they not toxic, they actually stimulated the production of biogas,
"he adds. Researchers saw this discovery as the opportunity to begin a business project and make its application possible.
With that in mind, they created Applied Nanoparticles, gestated at the ICN2 and currently in the process of signing a knowledge transfer agreement with the UAB."
"Our business concept focuses on the design of processes with low energy, low toxicity, minimisation of waste and reduction of contaminating emissions",Víctor Puntes affirms."
"In addition, the composition of the additive can be optimised according to the waste which must be treated,
"Acknowledged Project The now patented Biogàsplus technology received in 2011 a 100,000 dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The grant money went towards testing the capacity of iron oxide nanoparticles, which helped to verify the efficacy of its application in a pilot 100 litre digester.
#Research unlocks potential of super-compound Researchers at The University of Western australia's have discovered that nano-sized fragments of graphene sheets of pure carbon-can speed up the rate of chemical reactions.
Assistant professor Amir Karton from UWA's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry said the finding published this week in Chemical Physics Letters journal was significant
Graphene was one of the most exciting materials to work with in nanotechnology because its two-dimensional structure and unique chemical properties made it a promising candidate for new applications such as energy storage material composites as well as computing
and electronics Assistant professor Karton said. Ever since the discovery of graphene in 2004 scientists have been looking for potential applications in nanochemistry he said.
Using powerful supercomputers researchers at UWA discovered that graphene nanoflakes can significantly enhance the rates of a range of chemical reactions.
Graphene is remarkably strong for its low weight-about 100 times stronger than steel -and it conducts heat and electricity with great efficiency.
The global market for graphene is reported to have reached US$9 million this year with most sales concentrated in the semiconductor electronics battery energy and composites.
Assistant professor Karton said the current investigation showed that graphene nonoflakes could efficiently catalyse a range of chemical reactions.
The next steps would be to extend the catalytic scope to other types of chemical reactions and extend the scope of the study to'infinite'graphene sheets rather than graphene nanoflakes he said d
#Researchers patent a nanofluid that improves heat conductivity Researchers at the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) have developed
and patented a nanofluid improving thermal conductivity at temperatures up to 400°C without assuming an increase in costs
or a remodeling of the infrastructure. This progress has important applications in sectors such as chemical, petrochemical and energy,
thus becoming a useful technology in all industrial applications using heat transfer systems such as solar power plants, nuclear power plants, combined-cycle power plants and heating, among other.
The nanofluid developed by the Multiphase Fluids research group at the UJI is the first capable of working at high temperatures (up to 400°C
and it offers enhanced thermal conductivity properties (an increase of up to 30%)of existing heat transfer fluids.
The heat exchange fluid for high temperature applications that has been patented also has the advantage that it does not compromise other relevant variables,
such as the stability of the fluid at high temperatures. This characteristic allows it to be used in current facilities,
without the need for any changes to be made to infrastructures in order to adapt them. The cost of this new nanofluid (to which nanoparticles are added
in order to enhance and improve heat conductivity) is similar to that of the base fluid, since both the nanoparticles and the stabilizers used are inexpensive.
All these features make it suitable for industrial applications that employ heat transmission/exchange systems. The lecturer of Fluids Mechanics at the UJI, José Enrique Juliá Bovalar, explains that,
after testing the thermal properties of the nanofluid and patenting this new technology, the research group has started the phase of searching industrial partners
either to transfer the nanofluid over to them or with whom applications can be researched jointly and developed.
Heat exchange fluids are used fluids to transport heat in a number of industrial applications. These fluids are employed to transport energy in the form of heat from the point where the heat is generated (burners
cores of nuclear reactor, solar farms, etc. to the system that is going to use it (thermal storage systems, steam generators, chemical reactors, etc..
The most widely used thermal fluids are water, ethylene glycol, thermal oils and molten salts. One characteristic that is common to all of them, according to Juliá, is"their low thermal conductivity,
which is what limits the efficiency of the heat exchange systems that use them. The technology that we have developed at the UJI overcomes these limitations
and increases the thermal conductivity by adding an exact proportion of nanoparticles consisting on carbon and other additives to the base fluid (diphenyl/diphenyl oxide),
while maintaining the original range of operating temperatures of the base fluid, which can range from 15°C to 400°C".In this way,
it becomes possible to obtain increases of up to 30%in the thermal conductivity of the base fluid.
which means that it does not give rise to any problems with pumping, the precipitation of nanoparticles or the obstruction of conduits.
Finally, Juliá notes that the method employed to produce the nanofluid is easily scalable to the industrial level,
the nanofluid developed is based on a heat transfer oil (diphenyl/diphenyl oxide) that is widely used in industry,
because both the nanoparticles and the stabilizers used are abundant, readily accessible and inexpensive e
which use photons instead of electrons are opening new opportunities for visualizing neural network structure and exploring brain functions.
however because conventional metal electrode technologies are too thick(>500 nm) to be transparent to light making them incompatible with many optical approaches.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison developed the new technology with support from DARPA's Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program.
and quantifying neural network activity in the brain said Doug Weber DARPA program manager. The ability to simultaneously measure electrical activity on a large and fast scale with direct visualization and modulation of neuronal network anatomy could provide unprecedented insight into relationships between brain structure
or are perturbed by injury or disease. The new device uses graphene a recently discovered form of carbon on a flexible plastic backing that conforms to the shape of tissue.
The graphene sensors are electrically conductive but only 4 atoms thick less than 1 nanometer and hundreds of times thinner than current contacts.
Its extreme thinness enables nearly all light to pass through across a wide range of wavelengths.
Moreover graphene is nontoxic to biological systems an improvement over previous research into transparent electrical contacts that are much thicker rigid difficult to manufacture and reliant on potentially toxic metal alloys.
and optogenetics which involves genetically modifying cells to create specific light-reactive proteins. RE-NET seeks to develop new tools
DARPA is interested in advancing next-generation neurotechnologies for revealing the relationship between neural network structure and function.
This technology provides the capability to modulate neural function by applying programmed pulses of electricity
and treat brain injury and disease. Explore further: See-through sensors open new window into the brain More information:
Graphene-based carbon-layered electrode array technology for neural imaging and optogenetic applications. Nature Communications 5 Article number:
5258 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms625 5
#Materials for the next generation of electronics and photovoltaics One of the longstanding problems of working with nanomaterials substances at the molecular and atomic scale is controlling their size.
When their size changes their properties also change. This suggests that uniform control over size is critical
in order to use them reliably as components in electronics. Put another way if you don't control size you will have inhomogeneity in performance says Mark Hersam.
You don't want some of your cell phones to work and others not. Hersam a professor of materials science engineering chemistry and medicine at Northwestern University has developed a method to separate nanomaterials by size
therefore providing a consistency in properties otherwise not available. Moreover the solution came straight from the life sciences biochemistry in fact.
The technique known as density gradient ultracentrifugation is a decades-old process used to separate biomolecules.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)- funded scientist theorized correctly that he could adapt it to separate carbon nanotubes rolled sheets of graphene (a single atomic layer of hexagonally bonded carbon atoms) long recognized for their potential applications in computers
and tablets smart phones and other portable devices photovoltaics batteries and bioimaging. The technique has proved so successful that Hersam
and his team now hold two dozen pending or issued patents and in 2007 established their own company Nanointegris jump-started with a $150000 NSF small business grant.
which NSF funds including support for approximately 30 faculty members/researchers. Hersam also is a recent recipient of one of this year's prestigious Macarthur fellowships a $625000 no-strings-attached award popularly known as a genius grant.
I will use the funds to influence as many students as possible. The carbon nanotubes separation process
which Hersam developed begins with a centrifuge tube. Into that we load a water based solution and introduce an additive
We then load the carbon nanotubes and put it into the centrifuge which drives the nanotubes through the gradient.
The nanotubes move through the gradient until their density matches that of the gradient. The result is that the nanotubes form separated bands in the centrifuge tube by density.
Since the density of the nanotube is a function of its diameter this method allows separation by diameter.
One property that distinguishes these materials from traditional semiconductors like silicon is that they are mechanically flexible.
Carbon nanotubes are highly resilient Hersam says. That allows us to integrate electronics on flexible substrates like clothing shoes and wrist bands for real time monitoring of biomedical diagnostics and athletic performance.
These materials have the right combination of properties to realize wearable electronics. He and his colleagues also are working on energy technologies such as solar cells
and batteries that can improve efficiency and reduce the cost of solar cells and increase the capacity and reduce the charging time of batteries he says.
The resulting batteries and solar cells are also mechanically flexible and thus can be integrated with flexible electronics.
They likely even will prove waterproof. It turns out that carbon nanomaterials are hydrophobic so water will roll right off of them he says.
Materials at the nanometer scale now can realize new properties and combinations of properties that are unprecedented he adds.
This will not only improve current technologies but enable new technologies in the future. Explore further: Breakthrough for carbon nanotube solar cell l
#See-through one-atom-thick carbon electrodes powerful tool to study brain disorders Researchers from the Perelman School of medicine and School of engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have used graphene
a two-dimensional form of carbon only one atom thick to fabricate a new type of microelectrode that solves a major problem for investigators looking to understand the intricate circuitry of the brain.
Pinning down the details of how individual neural circuits operate in epilepsy and other neurological disorders requires real-time observation of their locations firing patterns
and other factors using high-resolution optical imaging and electrophysiological recording. But traditional metallic microelectrodes are opaque
and block the clinician's view and create shadows that can obscure important details. In the past researchers could obtain either high-resolution optical images or electrophysiological data but not both at the same time.
The Center for Neuroengineering and Therapeutics (CNT) under the leadership of senior author Brian Litt Phd has solved this problem with the development of a completely transparent graphene microelectrode that allows for simultaneous optical imaging
and electrophysiological recordings of neural circuits. Their work was published this week in Nature Communications. There are technologies that can give very high spatial resolution such as calcium imaging;
there are technologies that can give high temporal resolution such as electrophysiology but there's no single technology that can provide both says study co-first-author Duygu Kuzum Phd.
Along with co-author Hajime Takano Phd and their colleagues Kuzum notes that the team developed a neuroelectrode technology based on graphene to achieve high spatial and temporal resolution simultaneously.
Aside from the obvious benefits of its transparency graphene offers other advantages: It can act as an anti-corrosive for metal surfaces to eliminate all corrosive electrochemical reactions in tissues Kuzum says.
It's also inherently a low-noise material which is important in neural recording because we try to get a high signal-to-noise ratio.
While previous efforts have been made to construct transparent electrodes using indium tin oxide they are expensive and highly brittle making that substance ill-suited for microelectrode arrays.
Another advantage of graphene is that it's flexible so we can make very thin flexible electrodes that can hug the neural tissue Kuzum notes.
In the study Litt Kuzum and their colleagues performed calcium imaging of hippocampal slices in a rat model with both confocal and two-photon microscopy while also conducting electrophysiological recordings.
The team also notes that the single-electrode techniques used in the Nature Communications study could be adapted easily to study other larger areas of the brain with more expansive arrays.
Because of graphene's nonmagnetic and anti-corrosive properties these probes can also be a very promising technology to increase the longevity of neural implants.
Graphene's nonmagnetic characteristics also allow for safe artifact-free MRI reading unlike metallic implants. Kuzum emphasizes that the transparent graphene microelectrode technology was achieved through an interdisciplinary effort of CNT and the departments of Neuroscience Pediatrics and Materials science at Penn and the division of Neurology at CHOP.
Ertugrul Cubukcu's lab at Materials science and engineering Department helped with the graphene processing technology used in fabricating flexible transparent neural electrodes as well as performing optical and materials characterization in collaboration with Euijae Shim and Jason Reed.
The simultaneous imaging and recording experiments involving calcium imaging with confocal and two photon microscopy was performed at Douglas Coulter's Lab at CHOP with Hajime Takano.
#Flexible paper electrodes with ultra-high loading for lithium-sulfur batteries With the rapid development of portable electronic devices, electric automobiles,
and renewable energy storage, high-density energy storage systems are needed. Lithium-ion batteries, though mature and widely utilized, have encountered the theoretical limit
and therefore can not meet the urgent need for high energy density. Lithium-sulfur batteries, owning a theoretical energy density of 2600 Wh kg-1,
which are approximately 4 times as much as commercially used lithium-ion batteries, are considered to be strong candidates.
The abundance and environmentally friendly nature of the element sulfur as cathode material are factors in the huge potential of lithium-sulfur batteries.
The combination of nanocarbon and sulfur is effective at overcoming the insulating nature of sulfur for lithium sulfur batteries."
"Due to excellent electrical conductivity, mechanical strength and chemical stability, nanocarbon materials have played an essential role in the area of advanced energy storage,
"said Dr. Qiang Zhang, associate professor in the Department of Chemical engineering at Tsinghua University. However, most contributions concerning carbon/sulfur composite cathodes possess a relatively low areal loading of sulfur of less than 2. 0 mg cm-2,
which prevented the full demonstration of the outstanding performance of C/S composite cathodes.""The areal capacity of commercially used lithium-ion batteries is about 4 mah cm-2,
and therefore, the areal loading of sulfur in the cathode of lithium-sulfur batteries needs to be improved greatly,
"said Qiang. Recently, scientists from Tsinghua University have created a freestanding carbon nanotube paper electrode with high sulfur loading for lithium-sulfur batteries.
A bottom-up strategy was employed and a hierarchical structure was designed and achieved.""We select carbon nanotube (CNT) as the building block",Qiang told Phys. org,
"CNTS are one of the most efficient and effective conductive fillers for electrode. We selected short multi-walled CNTS (MWCNTS) with lengths of 10-50 m as the shortrange electrical conductive network to support sulfur,
as well as super long CNTS with lengths of 1000-2000 m from vertically aligned CNTS (VACNTS) as both long-range conductive networks and inter-penetrated binders for the hierarchical freestanding paper electrode.""
""We develop a bottom-up routine in which sulfur was dispersed firstly well into the MWCNT network to obtain MWCNT@S building blocks
and then MWCNT@S and VACNTS were assembled into macro-CNT-S films via the dispersion in ethanol followed by vacuum filtration",Zhe Yuan,
a student in Tsinghua University, explained, "Such sulfur electrodes with hierarchical CNT scaffolds can accommodate over 5 to 10 times the sulfur species compared with conventional electrodes on metal foil current collectors
while maintaining the high utilization level of sulfur.""In most reported Li-S cells, aluminum foil was used as current collector
and a routine slurry-coating procedure was used widely. However, there was a ratio of 10 to 50 wt%of binders, conductive agents,
as well as modifying precursors in the electrode, which neutralized the advantage of Li-S system in high specific capacity.
Herein, no aluminum foil or binders were employed in this research.""An initial discharge capacity of 6. 2 mah cm-2 (995 mah g-1), a 60%utilization of sulfur,
and a slow cyclic fading rate of 0. 20%/cyc within the initial 150 cycles at a low current density of 0. 05 C were achieved,
"says co-author Jia-Qi Huang of Tsinghua University.""The areal capacity can be increased further to 15.1 mah cm-2 by stacking three CNT-S paper electrodes, with an areal sulfur loading of 17.3 mg cm-2 as the cathode in a Li
-S cell.""This work was published on Volume 24, Issue 39 of Advanced Functional Material on Oct 22, 2014.
This proof-of-concept experiment indicates that the rational design of the nanostructured electrode offers the possibility of the efficient use of active materials as practical loading."
"The current bottom-up electrode fabrication procedure is effective for the preparation of large-scale flexible paper electrodes with good distribution of all functional compounds,
which is also favorable for graphene, CNT-graphene, CNTMETAL oxide based flexible electrodes, "Qiang said."
"The as-obtained freestanding paper electrode is promising for the ubiquitous applications of Li-S batteries with low cost,
high energy densities for future flexible electronic devices such as smart electronics and roll up displays. y
#New self-assembly method for fabricating graphene nanoribbons First characterized in 2004 graphene is a two-dimensional material with extraordinary properties.
The thickness of just one carbon atom and hundreds of times faster at conducting heat and charge than silicon graphene is expected to revolutionize high-speed transistors in the near future.
Graphene's exotic electronic and magnetic properties can be tailored by cutting large sheets of the material down to ribbons of specific lengths
and edge configurations scientists have theorized that nanoribbons with zigzag edges are the most magnetic making them suitable for spintronics applications.
Spintronics devices unlike conventional electronics use electrons'spins rather than their charge. But this top-down fabrication approach is not yet practical
because current lithographic techniques for tailoring the ribbons always produce defects. Now scientists from UCLA and Tohoku University have discovered a new self-assembly method for producing defect-free graphene nanoribbons with periodic zigzag-edge regions.
In this bottom-up technique researchers use a copper substrate's unique properties to change the way the precursor molecules react to one another as they assemble into graphene nanoribbons.
This allows the scientists to control the nanoribbons'length edge configuration and location on the substrate.
This new method of graphene fabrication by self-assembly is a stepping stone toward the production of self-assembled graphene devices that will vastly improve the performance of data storage circuits batteries and electronics.
Paul Weiss distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a member of UCLA's California Nanosystems Institute developed the method for producing the nanoribbons with Patrick Han and Taro Hitosugi professors at the Advanced Institute
of Materials Research at Tohoku University in Sendai Japan of which Weiss is also a member.
three-dimensional (3d) structures for applications in devices such as batteries and supercapacitors. Their study was published recently in the journal Nature Communications.
and possesses exciting properties such as high mechanical stability and remarkable electrical conductivity. It has been touted as the next generation material that can conceivably revolutionize existing technology
and energy sectors as we know them. However the thin structure of graphene also acts as a major obstacle for practical uses.
To overcome this challenge the researchers from the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (icems) at Kyoto University borrowed a principle from polymer chemistry
By putting graphene oxide (an oxidized form of graphene) into contact with an oppositely charged polymer the two components could form a stable composite layer a process also known as interfacial complexation.
Interestingly the polymer could continuously diffuse through the interface and induce additional reactions which allowed the graphene-based composite to develop into thick multilayered structures.
Hence we named this process'diffusion driven layer-by-layer assembly'explained Jianli Zou a co-investigator in the project.
which will be highly useful as electrodes and membranes for energy generation or storage. While we have demonstrated only the construction of graphene-based structures in this study we strongly believe that the new technique will be able to serve as a general method for the assembly of a much wider range of nanomaterials concluded Franklin Kim the principal investigator of the study y
#Engineers develop prototype of low-cost disposable lung infection detector Imagine a low-cost, disposable breath analysis device that a person with cystic fibrosis could use at home
along with a smartphone to immediately detect a lung infection, much like the device police use to gauge a driver's blood alcohol level.
Timely knowledge of a lung infection would let people with CF or other inflammatory respiratory conditions seek immediate treatment
and thereby prevent life-shortening permanent damage to their already vulnerable airways. Thanks to a nearly $1. 3 million grant from the National Science Foundation
UC Irvine engineers can continue developing this type of nanotechnology device and potentially many others using a more wide-scale manufacturing process.
Materials scientist Regina Ragan and electrical engineer Filippo Capolino have created a nano-optical sensor that can detect trace levels of infection in a small sample of breath.
They made the sensor in the laboratory but would like to see it become commercially available.
In addition to diagnosing medical conditions, the device could be modified to monitor environmental conditions for instance, identifying harmful airborne agents produced through automotive or chemical industry practices.
Nanotechnologies such as this sensor depend on extremely small nanometer scale building blocks. A nanometer is about 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Fabricating on this tiny scale poses huge challenges, since most of the current methods that achieve a high level of precision are too costly and slow to be viable for manufacturing."
"With support from the NSF and input from industry, our goal is to help nanoscale manufacturing processes leave the laboratory where they've been confined
and become usable in widespread commercial applications, "said Ragan, associate professor of chemical engineering & materials science and principal investigator on the project.
This grant highlights the strength of our faculty in both nanosciences and advanced manufacturing,"said Gregory Washington, dean of The Henry Samueli School of engineering."
"The Samueli School is poised to move forward as a force in this area
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