Carbon Nanotubes: Web 2.0

In case you thought there's anything that carbon nanotubes can't do, have a look at this article at NewScientist.com about the ongoing research into developing a fully functional carbon nanotube Spiderman suit. It'll have you climbing the walls.

More Nano Power!!

Last week I told you all about the thrilling new nanotechnology development that may soon let your walking shoes power your iPod. It was such an exciting thing to learn that I know that you are dying to find out what else is going on in the wonderful world of nanotech. The yearning for more nano-knowledge is probably gnawing at you even now, and you feel very much like the desperate person who has been given a single tantalizing bite of cheesecake, only to see the rest of the delightful dessert accidentally upended onto an anthill. The suffering is, no doubt, intense. I simply can't be responsible for that kind of discomfort. The mere thought pains me, so today I will ease our mutual misery by bringing you news of yet another new nanoventure, only this one will be "better, stronger, faster," like Steve Austin after the upgrade. Last week's nanopower invention could run a cellphone; today's nanopower invention could possibly run satellites, or other spacecraft.

Our old friends, carbon nanotubes, having achieved near-universal-usefulness status with their extreme strength and lightness, are trying to further their foothold on ubiquity, by making their way into the realm of solar power. John Toon, writing at Georgia Tech Research News, explains how 3D solar cells, constructed using carbon nanotubes, could change the shape of solar, and thus of spacecraft power:

Unique three-dimensional solar cells that capture nearly all of the light that strikes them could boost the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) systems while reducing their size, weight and mechanical complexity.

The new 3D solar cells capture photons from sunlight using an array of miniature "tower” structures that resemble high-rise buildings in a city street grid. The cells could find near-term applications for powering spacecraft, and by enabling efficiency improvements in photovoltaic coating materials, could also change the way solar cells are designed for a broad range of applications.

“Our goal is to harvest every last photon that is available to our cells,” said Jud Ready, a senior research engineer in the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). “By capturing more of the light in our 3D structures, we can use much smaller photovoltaic arrays. On a satellite or other spacecraft, that would mean less weight and less space taken up with the PV system.”

You caught how the 3D nature of the little solar towers catches more of the light, right? Not only is there more surface area to absorb the photons, but the grid "traps" the light, rather than letting it bounce off the surface, as occurs now with standard solar panels. Light can bounce within the towers, allowing the new system to capture more of the photons--"virtually all of the light that strikes them." The towers also absorb sunlight coming from any angle, so the sun doesn't have to be directly overhead for peak efficiency. In fact, according to Ready, these towers become more efficient when the Sun's light isn't coming directly at them.

Satellites could see a major upgrade as a result of this directional versatility. Since their solar panels would no longer have to face the light directly, the mechanisms wouldn't have to be in place to turn them all day long, like a giant photon-collecting rotisserie. This is a big improvement. The Air Force, aware of the advantage this new system could provide, has been funding some of the research related to this project. Satellites that don't need extra bells and whistles to keep their solar collectors turned to where the Sun shines could be smaller, lighter, and cheaper than their ancestors. ("Smaller, lighter, cheaper" is the carbon nanotube addendum to "better, stronger, faster.") All of the above applies to other Sun-fueled spacecraft as well. Probes, cameras, space stations, commercial spaceliners and space hotels could all benefit from harvesting more of those useful photons emanating from the Sun.

Space isn't the only place where this technology could improve photon collection. Earthly solar panels could get a big boost from the improvement to their efficiency. According to Maria Surma Manka, at Green Options, the new way of structuring solar cells could up their juice output significantly--"These three-dimensional panels produce about 60 times more current than regular solar cells. " Wow. 60 times more current? That could give solar power a much higher usefulness quotient, don't you think? All those panels mushrooming on the roofs of Californians might soon get a whole lot more effective at powering the houses below them. It might even make the mushrooming spread to other territories. I wonder if the nano-enhancements would make solar power have potential even in soggy places like Oregon? (Don't mushrooms like it damp?) Wouldn't that be an incredible feat? A solar-powered Oregon. Only carbon nanotubes could pull that off.

God did a good thing when He invented carbon nanotubes.

Hat tip: Green Options, via Bill Hobbs at Ecotality

Nanotubes And The Inkjet Printer

My abiding love for carbon nanotubes only deepens with time. Every new advance impresses me more with the unlimited capacity that these tiny building blocks seem to have to turn our world into a science fiction adventure. I would like to live in a science fiction adventure--one of the nice ones, like Star Trek TNG, or Stargate SG 1, but without the built-in bad guys. My life has enough problems without adding in Romulans, Borg, or evil alien symbiotes. Cloaking devices, food replicators, and transporters, on the other hand, could be awfully useful. Anyway, I've got another nanotech breakthrough to report, so let's get to it.

One question I'm sure we've all got nagging at us regularly is, "What would take nanotech one step closer to ubiquity?" Answer: An easier method of fabricating nanotech devices, of course! Science Daily has a report from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which says that a group of scientists at Rensselaer (with campuses in Troy N.Y., as well as Hartford, Conn.), along with other researchers working in Finland, have come up with a new way to make nanotube electronic devices. How, you ask? (I'm so glad you did ask, otherwise this post would have to be a lot shorter. Very anticlimactic.) They suspended carbon nanotubes in a water solution, filled an ink cartridge with them, plugged it into a commercial inkjet printer, and viola--instant nano printing press. The nanotubes are printed on the paper, just like ink, except they are such excellent electrical conductors, that the result is basically printed nanocircuits.

So, what does this mean in real life terms? The article at Science Daily quotes "...Robert Vajtai, a researcher with the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute":

"Printed carbon nanotube structures could be useful in many ways," Vajtai said. "Some potential applications based on their electrical conductivity include flexible electronics for displays, antennas, and batteries that can be integrated into paper or cloth." Printing electronics on cloth could allow people to actually "wear" the battery for their laptop computer or the entire electronic system for their cell phone, according to Vajtai.

That sci fi enough for you? But wait, there's more. How would you like a newspaper that you keep from day to day? Now, you're not going to keep it because you really like that article from May of 2002, but because every day the words change, thanks to the conductive nano-ink. Same paper, new articles. (Don't ask me how it works; it's all part of the nanotech miracle.) Cool, huh? Of course, they better come out with something a little sturdier than standard newsprint, don't you think? (It also wouldn't hurt if they could get the journalism part a little more up to snuff, if you ask me.) Needless to say, we would all miss the other functions that newspapers serve. Birdcages will still need lining. Fish will still need wrapping, and moving might never be as easy again without something on hand that's convenient for wrapping breakables. However, I'm sure the moving part will stop being a problem once they invent that transporter. We'll eliminate the need to wrap things at all. We'll just beam them to their new location.

There are myriad advantages to this inkjet method of producing conductive surfaces:

The approach is simple, versatile, and inexpensive, which makes it superior to other methods for producing conductive surfaces, according to Vajtai. "A great advantage of our process is that the printed patterns do not require curing, which is known to be a limiting factor for conventional conductive ink applications," he said. "And since our ink is a simple water-based dispersion of nanotubes, it is environmentally friendly and easy to handle and store."

According to the article, while it's already cheap, this method will be getting cheaper as carbon nanotubes become more widely used, and thus more widely manufactured. As the article states, this nano-ink is environmentally friendly, which is always a plus with electronics, and not easy to come by, as our recent forays into Greenpeace rankings for electronics manufacturers demonstrated. Another thing that should keep the cost down is that most of the components used in printing with the nano-ink are standard off-the-shelf items: printer, cartridges, and even the paper and plastic used as the printing surface. The only specialty item are the water-soluble nanotubes. The scientists at Rensselaer made their own, but it looks like future entrepreneurs will be able to skip this step. You know how it works in free markets. Where there's a demand, there's usually a supply.

So, if you're going to be wearing your cell phone, or laptop battery as a piece of clothing, you'll want to have multiple fashion options, right? Not everyone looks good in basic black. Well, right now the fashion-friendly scientists at Rensselaer are working on chemical modifications so that their nano-ink can come in a variety of colors. Isn't that thoughtful of them? Colored nano-ink could have so many uses. Pretty soon, I'm sure I'll be writing in the Meow about some new trend in nano-art--a field not yet invented to my knowledge, but sure to be coming to a future near you. It will produce wonders of incredible usefulness and functionality, combined with a rare beauty, all because scientists found a way to make nano-ink in lots of pretty colors. What that nano-art will be I can't even imagine right now. I can't, but you can bet someone else will.

The whole flexible electronics idea makes me wonder if someday we'll be able to roll up the TV, and the laptop, and tuck them in our luggage when we're heading out on vacation, say to a remote cabin in the mountains. We won't have to worry about a power supply way out in the wilderness. We'll be wearing it.

Hat tip: Futurismic

Nano Power

If you read the Meow at all, you know I'm completely enamored with all things nano: carbon nanotubes, nanoparticles, nanobots, nanotech. There's just something magical about them. These incredibly tiny workhorses (the width of a few atoms) do such an amazing array of things. Carbon nanotubes can deliver minuscule amounts of cancer fighting chemo medicine to exactly the spot where cancer lies in the body. They're working on nanobots that will act as an in-body monitoring system to diagnose and display individual health stats through the equivalent of "arm TV." Nanotubes can regrow bone, and reconnect severed nerves, and let's not forget that they are the miracle on which we're pinning our hopes for a space elevator. There are more applications of nanotech than I can even begin to list, and more being thought up every day.

A comment on the "Cool and Interesting" post from yesterday brought up another nano miracle; a nanofiber battery, which doesn't use chemicals to store and release energy. No using chemicals hopefully means less pollution, eh? This got my curiosity up and led me to do a little research this morning, and guess what I found? Nanotech earns another blue ribbon at the "cool and interesting" fair. According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's News Office, researchers at MIT are charging ahead (pardon the pun) with work on this battery breakthrough:

Work at MIT's Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) holds out the promise of the first technologically significant and economically viable alternative to conventional batteries in more than 200 years.

Joel E. Schindall, the Bernard Gordon Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and associate director of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems; John G. Kassakian, EECS professor and director of LEES; and Ph.D. candidate Riccardo Signorelli are using nanotube structures to improve on an energy storage device called an ultracapacitor.

Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, making them more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Ultracapacitors are capacitor-based storage cells that provide quick, massive bursts of instant energy. They are sometimes used in fuel-cell vehicles to provide an extra burst for accelerating into traffic and climbing hills.

However, ultracapacitors need to be much larger than batteries to hold the same charge.

The LEES invention would increase the storage capacity of existing commercial ultracapacitors by storing electrical fields at the atomic level.

Okay, quick and easy: Ultra capacitors have some advantages and disadvantages over regular batteries. They have "--a 10-year-plus lifetime, indifference to temperature change, high immunity to shock and vibration and high charging and discharging efficiency." Those are the advantages. However, they traditionally also have "...an energy storage capacity around 25 times less than a similarly sized lithium-ion battery." This makes them pretty impractical for putting in your portable radio. MIT's article goes into the particulars of why the ultracapacitors have to be so big, but suffice it to say that the materials used before now made them too big to be practical for cell phones and iPods. Enter the nanotubes--nanotubes are minuscule, and very organized. They conduct electricity extremely well. Aligning them in the ultracapacitors gives the battery a whole lot more surface area, which means they can hold a whole lot more energy. The nanotube ultracapacitors can be made in all the battery sizes we have now. All of this sums up to a best of both worlds scenario. What's on the horizon is a small "battery", that's based on electrical fields rather than chemicals, is durable, works in heat or cold, has more power than your lithium-ion rechargeables, and lasts for ten years.

Nanotubes are so cool.

p.s. Thanks Sioux Lady!!

Carbon Nanotubes--What Will They Think Of Next?

Carbon nanotubes are turning into the miracle cure for all problems scientific. Wikipedia says they "are cylindrical carbon molecules with novel properties that make them potentially useful in a wide variety of applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics, and other fields of materials science. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat." I've read about them as the best hope for super-strong, super-lightweight cabling for space elevators, possibly enabling mankind to reach space without the pesky problems of lift-off and g-forces. Scientists are exploring their potential for use in medical applications, such as forming minuscule latticework for rejoining/regrowing severed nerves, and such out-there concepts as making nanobots to clean our blood. They are also considered one of the keys to the future extreme miniaturization of electronics (as if we need electronics to get much smaller--I can barely dial my cell phone now.)

Today's examination of the wonders of carbon nanotubes centers around this article I read at Livescience.com. At the University of California in Riverside they're working on carbon nanotube bone grafts, structures upon which the body would grow new bone and fuse it to existing bone. There are new advancements being made in the nanotube bone graft arena by virtue of a new purification process that removes the heavy metals from the nanotubes--heavy metals that are harmful to living tissue. This is apparently necessary because the bone grafts would be permanent, and the nanotubes would stay in the body. This differs from the piece I read about advances in reconnecting severed nerves in the brain. In that case, after the nerves regrow, the lattice of nanotubes breaks down and is flushed from the body through the urinary system.

In both of these scenarios, though, the whole concept is amazing. Imagine someone who has lost some portion of their bone to an accident, or because they had to have a tumor removed. Now think of them being able to regrow their own bone to replace the lost section, not donor bone, but theirs, without the rejection factor. Imagine a person who's had to have brain surgery not losing brain functionality due to nerve damage, because doctors are able to use nanotubes to make the nerves reconnect. It really is an exciting time to be observing the strides the scientific community is making. I wonder what's next.

Update: More coolness. Here's one answer to the "what's next" question. From Physorg.com--"Thin films of carbon nanotubes deposited on transparent plastic can also serve as a surface on which cells can grow. And as researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and Rice University suggest in a paper published in the May issue of the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, these nanotube films could potentially serve as an electrical interface between living tissue and prosthetic devices or biomedical instruments." They're talking about making prosthetic devices that can be controlled by nerve impulses, and send sensory data the other way. Wow.