Nanotechnology News

2008-07-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

15 Ways Nanotechnology is Making Life Better Today

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Nanotechnology is expected to a $2.6 trillion market by 2015. At the heart of this big new sector is something very small—molecules. To understand how and why nanotechnology—which is defined as the manipulation of matter at the molecular level—matters, you can begin at home.

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The Writing is Off-the-Wall

Behr and others are now using nanoparticles to produce anti-mildew paints and anti-graffiti paints. Another company is perfecting a nano-enhanced wall paint that blocks cellphone calls and, longer-term, researchers expect to create a nano-solar paint that can turn your wall and even your house into a giant solar cell.

Scratch-Free

BASF has developed a nanoceramic material that is three times more resistant to scratching. It is already being employed on kitchen tabletops and car exteriors. The company hopes to have self-healing materials on the market in the near future.

Wipe Away Your Worries

Pilkington's "Activ" glass uses nanoparticles of titanium dioxide to create self-cleaning windows; while Eddie Bauer, Tommy Hilfiger and Brooks Brothers all sell clothes that contain tiny "nano-whiskers" and make pants, shirts and ties resistant to stains of every kind. Upholstery and carpet are up next.

Wrap Your Head Around This: The New Flat Will Be Round

Nanostructured polymer films are being used in next-generation OLED (organic light emitting diode) lights. The benefit is that the lights are ten times more energy-efficient than regular lightbulbs and can be wrapped around poles. Super-thin, flexible electronic television screens that can be curved to create a more immersive experience are on the drawing board.

A Germ-a-phobe's Dream

Nano-silver particles and nano-silver coatings—which have amazing anti-bacterial properties—are being used to control germs, mold and fungus and are now in refrigerators, air conditioners, humidifiers and food-storage containers.

Another Reason to Despise Cloudy Days

A new solar fabric embedded with nanocrystals has helped turned tents into solar collectors. The real pay-off will come when the fabric in your clothing can help power your cellphone. The army is already investigating this possibility and commercial products are expected by 2010.

Get Some Skin in the Game

L'Oreal employs nanotechnology to deploy tiny capsules of Vitamin A to the optimum level under the skin. The effect? Fresher-looking skin and fewer wrinkles.

Less is More

Shemen Industries, a small Israel company, is deploying 30 nanometer capsules of phytosterol—a natural ingredient that helps lower cholesterol—in a variety of food products.

So Long Skunky Beer?

Miller Beer uses clay nanoparticles in its plastic beer bottles. The minute particles make it difficult for carbon dioxide molecules to escape and help keep the beverage fresher longer.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Starkey, Inc., an Eden Prairie-based company, uses a nanotechnology switch in its Destiny nFusion hearing aid to deliver high quality of sound to the user.

No Blood Money

Apollo Diamond uses a process called chemical vapor deposition to grow two-carat diamonds virtually overnight. Not only are Apollo's diamonds are molecular identical to natural diamonds, they less expensive; don't take billions of years to form; are more environmentally friendly; and no one is exploited in the mining or manufacturing process.

Nano, Nano

The iPod Nano contains flash memory chips made with components measuring less than 100 nanometers. Within a decade, continued advances in nanotechnology are expected to help store all of a family's digital content—photos, songs, videos, TV programs—on a device the smaller than an iPod Nano.

Get in the Game

NanoDynamic has created a nanotech golf ball that reduces the distance a ball hooks or slices; Easton is making a super-strong, superlight hockey stick with carbon nanotubes; and there are even now nano-enhanced fishing rods, fishing lures, ski waxes and bowling balls on the market.

Ice-fishing Just Won't be the Same

Aspen Aerogel's "Toasty Feet" insoles employ an innovative nanomaterial designed to keep a shoe a stable 72 degrees even if the wearer is standing on a block of ice. The company has also developed a new building insulation material that has eight times the thermal insulating properties of the best material currently on the market.

You'll Be On Your Way in No Time

A new nano-titanate material is being used in car batteries. It reportedly allows cars to run for 300 miles on a single charge.

Source information

jumpthecurve.net

Jack Uldrich
612-267-1212

2008-07-02T02:29:00.001-07:00

Legendary Rice professor retiring

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Robert Curl never had a 20-year plan, but his natural curiosity led the way to a Nobel Prize

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Robert Curl never sought the limelight that accompanied the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he won a dozen years ago.

In his quiet way, Curl simply went on teaching, thinking, experimenting and riding his bicycle to Rice University.

Now, after 50 years at Rice, Curl plans to retire Tuesday. With a hint of a smile, Curl, 74, says he doesn't want to turn into "one of these people who hangs on so long that they have become a blithering idiot."

Curl shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Rice's Rick Smalley and a British scientist, Harold Kroto. They discovered a unique form of carbon in which 60 atoms are clustered neatly into a tiny, soccer-shaped ball. They christened their finding a buckyball — or fullerene — after Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic designs the molecules resemble.

The discovery heralded the dawn of nanotechnology, the science of building very small materials with unique properties.

After winning the award, Smalley catapulted to fame, becoming an evangelizer for nanotechnology and bringing funding to Houston for further research. He died in 2005 of leukemia at age 62. Kroto used his fame to further his interest in creating science education programming.

Curl followed a quieter path.

"After winning a Nobel, you can either become a scientific pontificator, or you can have some idea for a new science project and you can use your newfound notoriety to get the resources to do it," Curl said. "Or you can say, 'Well, I enjoy what I was doing, and I want to keep doing that.' "

Throughout his life, Curl often has gone wherever his curiosity has led him.

Like many leading scientists of his age, Curl's passion for research dates to a childhood Christmas, when his parents bought him a chemistry set. Soon, the 9-year-old was mixing chemicals, making gunpowder and blowing things up.

In one memorable event, some nitric acid boiled over onto his mother's porcelain stove, eating away the fine finish. His mother never forgave him, he said, but Curl was hooked on chemistry.

"It was not scientific at all," he said, "but it was sure fun."

His parents were supportive of his interest. His father, Floyd, was a Methodist minister who moved every year or two, as was the church's custom at the time. The family wound up in San Antonio for Curl's high school years after his father earned a senior position in the Southwest Texas Conference.

As acting president of the first Board of Trustees for the Methodist Hospital there in 1955, Floyd Curl helped formulate the plan to open the new facility, which became the nucleus of San Antonio's medical center.

A lack of direction
The family lived on a tight budget, so Rice's no-tuition policy — a dictate of its original endowment from William Marsh Rice — proved irresistible to the young Curl. Rice University of 1950 was a vastly different place, with an administration consisting solely of a president, dean, registrar and bursar.

"I think that made it a little bit easier for the school to afford to have no tuition," Curl said.

Rice's governing board changed the policy of charging no tuition in 1965.

The young scientist liked chemistry, but he lacked direction after earning his bachelor's degree in 1954.

Curl considered graduate programs at Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley. He applied to the latter first because its application lacked a question asked by the others, "What do you see yourself doing 20 years from now?" He didn't know, and before Curl got around to applying to Harvard, Berkeley had accepted him in its chemistry program.

Curl said he felt similarly listless after earning a doctorate at Berkeley and taking a postdoctoral position at Harvard.

"I was getting panicky, I must admit," he said. "When I look back, I'm kind of amazed at the way I just kind of wandered through life. This business about not being able to fill in a 20-year plan actually should have told me something."

Then Rice called him back to Texas.

A lucky turn
One of the school's chemistry professors, George Bird, was leaving for a job at Polaroid. Would Curl be interested? "You bet," he replied.

"It was really a beautiful thing to fall into," he said. "I was doing microwave spectroscopy, and I sort of liked it, but I can't claim to have had any brilliant ideas about what to work on. The guy that was leaving was working on problems that I found really interesting, and he had a working apparatus. He had a brilliant graduate student. It just solved all my problems."

The graduate student was James Kinsey, who eventually would become Curl's boss as dean of Rice's School of Natural Sciences. Like most people asked about Curl, Kinsey credits him with two qualities in particular.

"He's scary smart," Kinsey said. "But he is also an extraordinarily decent human being. A sweet person. What you see is what you get."

Rice's current president, David Leebron, echoes the sentiment: "On top of all the achievement, Bob is one of the kindest and most generous people I know."

Those qualities made Curl a good mentor. He gave brilliant and not-as-brilliant graduate students the same attention and respect, colleagues said.

Surrogate parent
Curl also became ingrained in the Rice culture. He has sat on nearly every imaginable committee, including chairing one that ended the abhorred practice of Saturday classes. He was a college master, meaning he lived on campus with his wife, Jonel, and was essentially a surrogate parent for a few hundred students.

All the while, he diligently worked at elucidating some of nature's most fundamental molecules.

"He has, more than anybody I know, followed his curiosity," Kinsey said.

Curiosity led Curl to a collaboration with Smalley, whom he describes as "by far the most talented constructor of scientific instrumentation I have ever known."

Smalley's machines excelled at studying clusters of tiny molecules, and together the pair were investigating semiconductors when Kroto approached them. He was interested in the properties of molecules found in the barren reaches of interstellar space.

Kroto wanted to investigate the nature of long chains of carbon atoms that astronomers had observed between stars. Were the carbon chains, he wondered, blown into space from stars similar to the sun when, as part of their life-cycle, they had expanded and then violently collapsed before dying?

'Totally unexpected'
Curl and Smalley believed they could approximate the conditions of dying stars, which are rich in carbon, by using lasers to blast a chunk of graphite. At the time, graphite and diamonds were the two known forms of carbon. The scientists hoped to create the long carbon chains seen in interstellar space.

Instead, when they pored over the collected data, they found a blip that turned out to be a spectacular, third form of carbon.

"Our buckyball discovery was a complete piece of serendipity and totally unexpected," Curl said.

"It's kind of embarrassing. Reporters asked us, 'Tell us how you made this great discovery.' Well, it was a stroke of luck. The only credit you can claim is not ignoring your stroke of luck."

Source information

chron.com
eric.berger@chron.com

Red Pill 8 - "Biotechnology and nanotechnology: the hard cell"

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"… In a climate of declining public trust in both government and industry, new approaches to increase the public's technology I.Q. are needed — approaches that can bridge the credibility gap and scale-up rapidly to reach large segments of the population. An innovative word-of-mouth campaign could place nanotechnology into the world of everyday conversation, where messages are built on trust and understanding rather than hype and jargon."

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– David Rejeski, Director, Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, "Hey, Have You Heard About Nanotechnology? Improve Nanotech Awareness through A Word-of-Mouth Campaign" Nanotechology Now

According to David Rejeski from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, what the nanotechnology field needs to fill the credibility gab is a good old-fashioned, word-of mouth marketing campaign built on trust and education. He is, of course, a spokesperson for the industry, and we assume that he is touting the beneficial claims of nanotechnology — that is those applications of the technology that are designed to help fight disease, help in diagnostic work, and perhaps even clean beaches after an oil spill.

But, unfortunately for Mr. Rejeski it must be increasing hard to sell nanotechology and its twin sister, biotechnology, when articles like Ultramicro, nonlethal, and reversible: looking ahead to military biotechnology are so easily found in the public domain.

This article written by Chinese scientists Guo Ji-wei and Xue-sen Yang and published in the July-August, 2005 issue of Military Review explores the many multifaceted, pragmatic uses of biotechnology in future warfare. Here's an example of how these new emerging technologies in the hands of madmen can create Hieronymus Bosch-like nightmares:

"In the final analysis, war is simply human behavior that forces enemies to lose the power of resistance. Biotechnological weapons can cause destruction that is both more powerful and more civilized than that caused by conventional killing methods like gunpowder or nuclear weapons… A military attack, therefore, might wound an enemy's genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and organs, causing more damage than conventional weapons could. However, such devastating, nonlethal effects will require us to pacify the enemy through postwar reconstruction efforts and hatred control."

As far as warfare goes, using nano-bioweapons could be considered more humane than say dropping cluster bombs or phosphorus on Iraqi children or nuking entire cities. Biowarfare is much less messy — no splattered brain parts or entrails to pick up, no clean-up crews needed to hose the blood off the streets, no burning flesh to assault your olfactory sensibilities; it's all very clean, precise and "civilized." All you need is a firm committed group of sociopaths willing to ensure their survival by targeting certain evildoers' genotypes or cells for death or disability.

But, let's not stop here as Guo Ji-wei and Xue-sen Yang are creative geniuses, so you won't want to miss these fanciful fantasies under "Possible Military Uses of Biotechnology":

"From the perspective of military medicine, proteomics, which examines the structure-function relationship at the molecular level, is a bridge between military goals and practical technologies. With the development of proteomics, we can discover and interpret the key proteins in any single human physiological function and the multiple physiological functions any single protein possesses. All of this will provide accurate models for military attack and make it possible to develop small-scale or ultramicro-scale destructive weapons."

And here they give us an example of what they mean by ultramicro-scale destructive weapons:

"… a microbullet out of a 1-[micro]m tungsten or gold ion, on whose surface plasmid DNA or naked DNA could be precipitated, and deliver the bullet via a gunpowder explosion, electron transmission, or high-pressured gas to penetrate the body surface. (10) We could then release DNA molecules to integrate with the host's cells through blood circulation and cause disease or injury by controlling genes."

Lovely. And, how about death and disease by stealth:

"Modern biotechnology makes it possible to combine two or more pathogenic genes and place them inside a susceptible living body to create a multiple-vulnerating effect. In addition, delaying the time required for a causative agent to take effect is possible by using a living body with a relatively longer incubation period or a pathogenic living body that produces no symptoms when inserted into the human body."

What's particularly interesting is that this article is listed under the U.S. Army's Professional Writings Collection and Guo Ji-wei is Director of the Department of Medical Affairs, Southwest Hospital, Chongqing in the People's Republic of China. Does anyone find it odd the U.S Army CGSC is copywriting work from a director of medical affairs from the People's Republic of China?

What's clear is that there is lack of condemnation for this kind of hypothetical warfare on the Army's website, thereby giving the impression that these programs are acceptable to some. And, according to international law professor and bioweapons expert, Francis Boyle, these are exactly the kinds of programs that the DoD would be working on today as they've gotten the nod, and the funding, by the neo-con Bush administration.

"…the Pentagon 'is now gearing up to fight and "win" biological warfare' pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives adopted 'without public knowledge and review' in 2002.

For fiscal years 2001-2004, the federal government funded $14.5 billion 'for ostensibly 'civilian' biowarfare-related work alone,' a 'truly staggering' sum, Boyle wrote.

Another $5.6 billion was voted for 'the deceptively-named 'Project BioShield,' under which Homeland Security is stockpiling vaccines and drugs to fight anthrax, smallpox and other bioterror agents, wrote Boyle. Protection of the civilian population is, he said, 'one of the fundamental requirements for effectively waging biowarfare.' "

–Bush "Developing Illegal Bioterror Weapons" for Offensive Use

Now that we know that these terrible programs are being contemplated and developed by the dark side of humanity, we should consider Mr. Rejeski marketing campaign again. He is right about one thing: we do need an innovative word-of-mouth campaign to inform the public about the threats of nanotechnology and biotechnology.

Pandora's box is open and there is no way to get the lid back on it except by calling for a general moratorium on nanotechnology and biotechnology research and development. Today many scientists familiar with the technology are doing just that (see Size Matters! The Case for a Global Moratorium ).

Let's start our own innovative, word-of-mouth marketing campaign in which we call out the dangers of nanotechnology and biotechnology and call for a moratorium on research and development. All you have to do is email this article to ten of your friends and ask them to forward it to ten more of their friends, and so on and so on. And, the best thing about this, it's viral campaign you can feel good about.

Source information

digitizedrevolution.wordpress.com

NANOTECHNOLOGY USED AS A WEAPON TO FIGHT CANCER

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NEW ORLEANS—June 29, 2008—A novel technique for reducing tumors in rats-using nano-sized, oil-based emulsions may be the latest weapon in fighting cancer.

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The technique, part of the burgeoning field of nutraceuticals, involves creating nanoemulsions, or nano-sized capsules made from oil and water. The emulsions, which are so small they are measured in nanometers—or 1/100 of a meter—are then filled with various antioxidants or anti-cancer fighting compounds, and tests show they can reduce tumors in rats.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell injected rats with neuroblastoma, so they would develop tumors, and then treated them with nanoemulsions containing antioxidants. They found that while the rats fed in the control group continued to develop tumors, the growth rate for those fed antioxidants was actually negative 65 percent, meaning the tumors actually shrank.

"They had about 70 percent total tumor regression," said Professor Robert Nicolosi, director of UMass Lowell's Center for Health and Disease Research.

When researchers exposed melanoma cancer cells to a nanoemulsion containing curcumin, an anti-cancer compound found in turmeric, cancer cell proliferation was greatly reduced, Nicolosi said. And when they used a nanoemulsion containing tamoxifen, a drug used to fight breast cancer, they just about eliminated the ability of the cells to proliferate—at least in a cell culture, Nicolosi said. Nanoemulsion delivery systems have been shown to increase the bioavailablity and efficacy of certain drugs. The advantage, particularly for some of the toxic compounds used in fighting cancer, is that less of that compound is needed to achieve the same effect. That means the patient would suffer fewer damaging side effects.

"There's no question we're reducing the toxicity when we use 10 to 20 times less," Nicolosi said.
Umass has been using Microfluidizer materials processing equipment to develop the nutraceutical products. The equipment has helped standardize the size of the nanoemulsions, making them more commercially viable. Prior to the Microfluidizer, nanoemulsions came out in varying sizes, making them less effective and less likely to gain approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, according to Scott McMeil, director of the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory at SAIC-Frederick, Inc.

"Nanoemulsions have been around for several years, but they weren't very stable. But with a Microfluidizer, it looks like it's overcoming the stability issue," McNeil said.

McNeil, whose company is subcontracted by the National Cancer Institute, said the FDA requires that a compound is stable before it will grant its seal of approval. Before researchers began using the Microfluidizer, the size of the various nanoemulsions might vary from five nanometers to five microns, in one solution, making the solution less stable.

"A company would not move forward with something that was that high risk," McNeil said. "The Microfluidizer has opened up new opportunities, such as nanoemulsions."

In order to create the nanoemulsion, scientists mix water, an emulsifier like lecithin, and an antioxidant or anti-cancer fighting compound, and then pour it into a Microfluidizer processor. The processor then compresses the solution and drives it through tiny microchannels, and then in a reaction chamber, it splits the solution into two streams, which collide with each other at extremely high speeds. The collision creates a nanoemulsion that has a long shelf life.

Researchers, such as UMass are also using the Microfluidizer processors to create foods, beverages, and nutritional supplements that can reduce inflammation or inhibit the intestines ability to absorb cholesterol, thus reducing blood cholesterol levels as well as the risk of heart disease.

Source information

Contacts:
Robert Nicolosi, UMass/Lowell, 978-934-4501
Scott McNeil, SAIC-Frederick Inc., 301-846-6939

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About IFT
Founded in 1939, and with world headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, USA, the Institute of Food Technologists is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 22,000 members working in food science and technology and related professions in industry, academia and government. As the society for food science and technology, IFT brings sound science to the public discussion of food issues. For more on IFT, visit www.ift.org. © 2008 Institute of Food Technologists

Scientists integrate living brain cells into organic semiconductors

Bionics - a word formed from biology and electronics - has become a quickly expanding research field, exploring ways and materials to bridge the interface between electronics and biology. Basically, there are three levels of biocommunications where electronics and biology could interface: molecular, cellular and skeletal. For any implanted bionic material it is the initial interactions at the biomolecular level that will determine longer term performance. While bionics is often associated with skeletal level enhancements, electronic communication with living cells is of interest with a view to improving the results of tissue engineering or the performance of implants such as bionic ears or eyes. Researchers have worked for more than 20 years on interfacing neurons and silicon devices. Analysis of the electro-physiological activity of neurons could one day enable scientists to develop artificial prostheses for bypassing injured zones and restore brain functionality, or to realize neuro-diagnostic tools for monitoring the reaction of biological neurons to selected chemical species or newly developed drugs. Making another step in this direction, researchers in Europe have now demonstrated the possibility of integrating living neural cells and organic semiconductor thin-films made of a few monolayers of pentacene.

2008-06-11T01:55:00.001-07:00

House Passes Legislation to Strengthen Nanotechnology Safety Research

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H.R. 5940, the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments Act of 2008 passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 407 to 6. H.R. 5940 reauthorizes and refines the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), notably strengthening the commitment to environmental and safety research.

Physicists receive big 'nano' grant

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Professor Stephen Hughes (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy) is co-leader of new, $4.2-million nanotechnology research project.

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wo Queen's physicists and their Canadian collaborators will receive almost $4.2 million funding for a new project to develop novel sources of light that will radically change the landscape in secure communications over networks.

Professors Stephen Hughes and James Stotz (Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy) have won a major NSERC-NRC-BDC Nanotechnology Special Opportunity Research Grant. The project is co-led by Drs. Hughes and Robin Williams, a Queen's adjunct professor who works at the National Research Council of Canada. Their project, entitled "Nanostructured Single and Entangled Photon Sources for Quantum Information Processing" was one of only five of the 50 submitted proposals that were funded throughout Canada.

Offered under a new cross-agency collaboration involving the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the National Research Council (NRC), and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), the special funding is designed to foster large-scale, technology-driven partnerships encompassing university researchers, NRC scientists, and commercial interests.

The Queen's led research team will combine unique, "nano-sized" electronic and photonic structures that use single photons (particles) of light for new computing and encryption technologies. "This use of these photons is critical in new paradigms of information technology such as quantum cryptography, which guarantees secure communication over networks, and quantum computers that will be able to solve certain problems exponentially faster than any conventional supercomputer," says Dr. Hughes.

The researchers will make use of recent techniques developed within Canadian government and university laboratories that allow single semiconductor quantum dots - about 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair - to be placed at precise locations within custom-designed nanophotonic crystals.

"These quantum dots behave as artificial atoms that can be tailored to provide photons compatible with current standards in the fibre-optic industry, while the nanophotonic crystal serves to control the storage and emission of the photons," Dr. Stotz explains. The involvement of the BDC in the funding decision demonstrates the potential that the project has to stimulate the creation of new Canadian companies that focus on systems for completely secure communications for data protection, he adds.

Also on the research team are: Jeff Young (UBC); Frank van Veggel (University of Victoria); Gregor Weihs and Hamed Majedi (University of Waterloo); and Pawel Hawrylak, Charles Bamber and Joanne Zwinkels (all from NRC).

This grant is one of two such awards to Queen's researchers. Chemistry professors Suning Wang and Guojun Liu are also NSERC-NRC-BDC recipients. They will work on a team based at Université Laval, studying polymeric/inorganic semiconductor nanocomposite materials for low-cost photovoltaic applications.

NSERC, a federal agency that supports the research and advanced studies of university professors, students and post-doctorial fellows across Canada, has provided Queen's recipients with a total of $20.2 million in funding this year through grants and scholarships.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Queen's University

source...www.nanitenews.com

Sea anemones inspire nanotechnology fabrication of tough nano-containers

The addition of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), both single-walled and multi-walled, to various polymer matrices has produced significant improvements in strength and stiffness. Reinforcing materials based on CNTs could be used to fabricate more complex nanostructures by making them tougher and stronger. As is the case so often, and covered quite extensively here at Nanowerk nature has served as an inspiring source of various morphologies and composite materials for nanotechnology techniques. New work by Spanish scientists demonstrates the fabrication of novel nanostructures that resemble magnificent sea anemones (heteractis magnifica), aiming at increasing the rigidity and the available surface of magnetic and reinforced CNTs-based hollow capsules.

Surprising graphene - honing in on graphene electronics with infrared synchrotron radiation

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Advanced Light Source, from DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at San Diego, have measured the extraordinary properties of graphene with an accuracy never before achieved.

2008-05-26T13:28:00.001-07:00

Pennsylvania Laying Groundwork For Nanotechnology As Economic Driver, DCED Official Says

Pennsylvania is
helping prepare the groundwork for a new nanotechnology economy, a top
Rendell administration economic development official told attendees
yesterday at the "NANO for Business 2008" conference in Breinigsville,
Lehigh County.

Department of Community and Economic Development Deputy Secretary
Rebecca Bagley said an AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association)
report ranked Pennsylvania as the nation's 7th largest "cyberstate." The
commonwealth showed significant growth in high-tech services and employed
210,000 high-tech workers with a total payroll of $15.1 billion in the
reporting period, 2005 - 2006, according to the report.

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6464

2008-05-23T01:36:00.001-07:00

Safeguard on nanotechnology

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Congress must fund safety research for this atom-manipulating industry.

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Nanotechnology is producing exciting products, with one estimate that 15 percent of goods worldwide will involve such molecular engineering by 2014. But that won't come easily if its pioneers don't first address safety concerns.

The perception (true or not) of health and environmental problems, such as often surrounds genetically modified crops, could easily turn off consumers to the many benefits that nano-products offer. The risk of a backlash to this emerging field could delay or even wreck the introduction of revolutionary new products.

Nanotechnology is already out of the lab, with three to four new nano-products entering the marketplace each week, according to the nonprofit Project on Emerging Nanotechnology. More than 600 products boast of nanotech content, PEN says, from teddy bears to cosmetics to the Xbox 360 video-game console.

Substances reduced to nanoscale (1- to 100- billionths of a meter) show unusual properties. They can become much stronger or turn light into heat, for example. But because they expose more surface area to chemical interaction, there are concerns about unknown effects.

Some studies that have been done raise concerns. For example, nanosilver, tiny particles of silver that multiply that substance's known ability to kill bacteria, has already been put into socks and covers the surfaces of washing machines, acting as an antiseptic. One recent study showed that the nanosilver escapes into wash water and from there into the environment. Another study revealed nanosilver could kill helpful bacteria used to clean water at treatment plants.

Earlier this month a coalition of consumer, health, and environmental groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration asking that it ban the sale of products containing nanosilver. More than 200 are already on the market.

Such concerns make a recent move by the US House's science committee all the more puzzling. A few weeks ago that panel approved billions of dollars to develop nanotechnology but failed to fund research into possible environmental, health, and safety (EHS) effects.

Early versions of the bill set aside 10 percent of the funds for EHS research. But opponents successfully removed it, despite support from environmentalists and prominent voices within the industry. It would serve the industry better if that provision were restored.

The bill does establish a watchdog within the White House science office, which would urge close attention to safety research. But that isn't enough.

All this is not to say that any current product necessarily is unsafe. The point is that not enough is known to be sure. Commercialization has outstripped safety studies.

PEN estimates that only about $13 million – less than 1 percent – of the $1.4 billion in federal nano-research funds spent in 2006 paid directly for environmental- or health-related studies. That's a little more than half of what's being spent in Europe.

The industry must also guard against false perceptions. Two years ago in Germany, more than 100 people who used a sealant called "Magic Nano" fell ill. The product was not created by nanotechnology but simply used the name.

Before fear outpaces science and society loses out on new products, Congress and the industry must speed up safety research.

source...
www.csmonitor.com

High cost of nanotechnology means manufacturers miss out

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The food industry is failing to take full advantage of nanotechnology because it is too expensive, according to a recent review.

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The food industry is failing to take full advantage of nanotechnology because it is too expensive, according to a recent review.

The review was conducted by Campden & Chorleywood Research Association and AZ-Tech Consulting Services. "Nanotechnology, defined as the use of material at the nano-scale, such is the case of nano-coatings, has been used by packaging scientists for many decades," said the report, A great small change. Nano-additives in food packaging. "But, the manipulation and understanding of engineered materials at the nano-scale is more recent and offers much for potential developments in food packaging."

Silver nano-particles, or silver cations bonded to a nano-composite, could provide anti-microbial properties, claimed the report. It noted that silver had been incorporated into socks and underwear that stay fresh longer, and that there was an opportunity for it to be used in food packaging. "Sharper Image and BlueMoonGoods.com in the USA, Quan Zhou Hu Zeng Nano Technology in China, and A-DO Global in South Korea, sell such products," noted the study. "These companies claim that the particles provide anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties that keep food safer, fresher, healthier, and tastier."

Nano-particles of zinc oxide also showed potential. "Studies at Leeds University have indicated that these could be used in packaging as an anti-microbial as the anti-bacterial activity on E. coli was found to increase with particle concentration," stated the report.

Meanwhile, evidence showed that silicon oxide nano-particles had been added to the inside of containers to increase their barrier properties, said the paper. "For example, SIG Cormoplast's Plasma Impulse Coating Vapour Deposition system applies a silicon oxide coating of less than 100 nanometres inside PET [polyethylene terephthalate] bottles. According to the company, it raises the shelf-life for 12oz carbonated soft-drink bottles almost three-fold to more than 25 weeks."

But despite the many opportunities for nano-particles in food packaging, the report stated that cost was the main barrier to use. "With the exception of some materials such as nano-clays, the costs of manufacturing and using such nano-particles is too great compared to the advantages achieved in the final commercial pack," claimed the study. "Consequently, most packaging incorporating nano-particles is currently receiving attention at the research stage rather than in commercial applications."

Consumer perception was also an issue, claimed the report. "Several studies in the UK have indicated that consumers have concerns over the applications of new technologies, including nanotechnology. This has been likened to the reluctance of European consumers to accept GM [genetic modification] technologies."

source...
www.foodmanufacture.co.uk

The role of surfactants in carbon nanotube toxicity

Synthesized carbon nanotubes, especially single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), are in the form of bundles with other impurities such as catalyst particles and amorphous carbon debris. In order to be useful for many types of applications, for instance in nanoelectronic devices or biomedical applications, SWCNTs need to be purified and dispersed into individual nanotubes. One method to do this is by surfactant stabilization of the hydrophobic nanotube surface, which overcomes the van der Waals forces among the nanotubes and results in suspensions of individual SWCNTs. Researchers have now investigated the cytotoxicity of SWCNTs suspended in various surfactants. Their experimental results show that the conjugates SDS/CNT and SDBS/CNT are toxic to astrocytoma cells due solely to the toxicity of the SDS and SDBS molecules, which administered alone are toxic to the cells even at a low concentration of 0.05 mg per ml within 30 min. However, the proliferation and viability of the astrocytoma cells were not affected by SWCNTs and the conjugates SC/CNT and DNA/CNT.

2008-05-19T14:16:00.001-07:00

Selah Technologies lands $1.5M for nanotech materials

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GREENVILLE, SC—Selah Technologies, a company making advanced nanotechnology materials, has closed on a $1.5 million Series A private financing round. The company says the funding will help it commercialize it's core nanomaterial platforms.

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The company has also received support and a $200,000 investment from SC RA and SC Launch.

Selah, founded in 2006, makes Selah Dots and Selah Tubes. Selah Dots are carbon-based quantum dots that can be used for various applications, including life sciences, solar cells and anti-counterfeiting, among others. One potential application is in cancer treatment.

Selah Tubes, enriched carbon nanotubes, have a number of applications due to their impressive electrical conductivity properties. That includes potential for use in LCD screens, HDTVs, and other electronics.

"We are grateful for the confidence our investors have shown in our company. We appreciate the investment they have made and recognize the important responsibility we have to remain good stewards of that investment and their trust," says Michael Bolick, CEO of Selah Technologies.

The company's Web site says its growth strategy is to leverage relationships with market leading companies to establish joint research and development agreements that provide it with working capital such as personnel, equipment and materials or cash from licensing fees.

Selah moved into lab space in the Clemson University incubator facility in Pendleton, SC in Janurary. The company licensed its intellectual property on nanotech from Clemson.

On the Web: www.selahtechnologies.com

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6407

Nanotechnology revolution

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Dr Ali Mohammad

Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the nanoscale. Traditionally, the nanoscale has been defined as involving miniscule particles that measure between 1 and 100 nanometers where one nanometer is equivalent to 10-9 meters or smaller than 1/10,000 of the thickness of the average human hair! Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary field, which involves physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine. Still newer, more efficient methods are being developed which will rely on the creation of sophisticated biomaterials. However, the challenge lies in interfacing these biomaterials with existing technologies, and creating the required infrastructure needed for mass manufacture.
Nanotechnology manufacturing has a promise of producing new materials a hundred times stronger than steel, and more efficient and cheaper to produce as compared to the existing production techniques. Mind boggling examples of some of these products include: very small devices that can be implanted under the skin, and pincers that can be injected in the veins to perform medical procedures; self - contained portable factories ready to make cheap products efficiently at the molecular scale; and development software that can process enormous amounts of data involving diverse sources of science.
Other benefits may include: 1. Molecular manufacturing would greatly reduce water requirements, and also cheaply run greenhouses would be a means of saving water, land, and food. 2. The efficient and inexpensive generation of electricity, using solar and thermal power, will make electric power available to basically everyone in the world. 3. Faster, cheaper, and more powerful computers will be available that could help improve information and communication systems even in the remotest areas. 4. Manufacturing of new technologies will be self - contained and clean, and will have less of an environmental impact. 5. Cheap and advanced equipment for medical research and health care will make improved medicine widely available. It will be feasible to restore human organ engineered tissue while simple products will greatly reduce infectious diseases prevailing in many parts of the world. 6. Nanotechnology will enhance capabilities in space ventures and operations.
However, while nanotechnology has a promise of great benefits to the future, there are some very serious risks. Imagine, for example, weapons that could be packed in a small match box, but carrying enough lethal material that is capable of wiping out the entire population of a major city. Other risks include: 1. The stakeholders — manufacturers, salesmen, and marketing agencies — will have to revise their investment plans to survive involving tens of trillions of dollars spent on everything from basic necessities to communication devices, recreation, and our environment. Huge monopolies, command over unprecedented wealth, and control of employment and product prices, enjoyed by the manufacturers could lead to anti-competitive practices and Schumpeterian creative destruction — the process by which a new product, or new production techniques, replace existing products and techniques resulting in the replacement of one monopolist by another. 2. Criminals and terrorists equipped with stronger, more powerful, and more compact devices can cause unimaginable harm to society.
Deadly chemical and biological weapons with remote - control devices will be easier to conceal. Moreover, black market and "home factory" operations in manufacturing and marketing of these products could flourish. The government agencies could use supercomputers for constant surveillance that could lead to abuse of individual freedom. 3. From the military point of view, nanotechnology weapons are more dangerous then nuclear weapons and, therefore, could further destabilize the world. For examples: Lighter and high - performing aerospace hardware will be much harder to spot on radar systems.Embedded computers and improved robots would allow remote activation of any weapon. Moreover, they can be developed much more rapidly due to faster, cheaper prototyping. Reduced ability of powerful nations to "police" the international arena.
In sum, the emerging technologies are capable of fundamentally transforming science, technology, and society. They can revolutionize human life and the consumption patterns. Moreover, they can have great implications for the economy, the society, social infrastructure, the environment, ethical and legal systems, and war and peace. On the other hand, some of these developments could be dangerous to stability and peace while others technologies could threaten the very existence of the human race. Also, tremendous opportunities for huge profits may lead to large - scale fraudulent practices. Most importantly, declarations or regulations may not have much effect on covert programs that are intended to develop products for military uses. Thus, it is imperative that all nations cooperate in finding effective solutions, which take into consideration the needs and sensitivities of the rich and the poor alike.
For Pakistan, it is crucial that its policy - makers, scientists, and industry must understand the implications of nanotechnological developments on the country's security and prosperity. The Pakistani nation must not miss an opportunity for developing useful nano products for the future generations. The leadership must develop a clear R & D policy towards nano technology in various fields from agriculture to electronics, from consumers' products to defense uses, from searching water and mineral resources deep down in the earth to exploring outer space, and from medical uses to advanced engineering feats. On their part, multidisciplinary teams, professional societies and organizations, industry, and educational institutions must work not only in the development process but also to inform and educate the general population about scientific developments and social and economic impact of nanotechnology. These institutions must also provide the students with ample experience in nanoscale fabrication, manipulation, and characterization techniques.

source...
http://pakobserver.net

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6406

2008-05-19T14:14:00.001-07:00

Saudi Arabia to obtain insider info on nanotechnology water treatment from Japan

Saudia Arabia's Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) has started a joint research project with the Japanese Water Recycling Center focusing on integrating high-tech nanotechnology water treatment in the current process of distillation operations.

link: http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=5748.php

2008-05-12T05:18:00.001-07:00

Nanotechnology for 'smart' soldier uniforms

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Nanotechnology is not one single thing. It's a number of different areas which examine both materials and physics on the nanometer-length scale.

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Paula Hammond: Nanotechnology is not one single thing. It's a number of different areas which examine both materials and physics on the nanometer-length scale.

That's Paula Hammond on engineering materials at scales one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair. Hammond's a professor in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She said there's more to nanotechnology than just making springier golf clubs and tennis rackets.

Paula Hammond: We can also engineer materials that are extremely sensitive and can therefore detect something that might cause disease. We might be able to generate biomedical sensors that are extremely accurate.

Hammond and colleagues are developing "smart" uniforms for soldiers, clothes that respond to changes in light and heat, and can even seal themselves from a chemical or biological attack.

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6355

Cabot Aerogel and Birdair Announce Nanogel Fabric Membrane Roof Installation

Cabot Aerogel, a business of Cabot Corporation and Birdair, Inc., a global leader in tensile fabric roofing systems, announced the first installation of their new energy-efficient fabric tensile roofing product, Tensotherm with Nanogel aerogel.

link: http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=5672.php

2008-05-12T05:13:00.001-07:00

Nanotechnology: Towards Reducing Animal Testing - conference details released

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Scientists from all over the world will meet in London on 28th and 29th May 2008 to discuss how nanotechnology can contribute towards reducing testing on animals.

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Scientists from all over the world will meet in London on 28th and 29th May 2008 to discuss how nanotechnology can contribute towards reducing testing on animals. The application of nanotechnology is currently revolutionizing medicine and this twoday conference, the first of its kind in Europe, will examine the role nanotechnology could also play in improving or refining the development of alternatives to animal testing whilst maintaining safety.

Animal testing is costly and there is a great deal of research on finding viable and effective alternatives (new methods that refine existing tests by minimizing animal distress, reducing animal usage, or replacing whole animal tests). Despite large reductions in animal testing since the early 1980s due to improved in vitro methods, levels remain high (over 3 million procedures in 2006) and results cannot always be extrapolated to humans.

Presentations from:

Dr Sandra Coecke, IHCP-ECVAM; Samantha Dozier, PETA; Béatrice Schaak, CEA Grenoble - DSV/ iRTSV; Dr Kelly BéruBé, Cardiff University; Dr J Malcolm Wilkinson, Kirkstall Ltd; Professor Ken Donaldson, University of Edinburgh; Dr John Haycock/ Professor Sheila McNeil, University of Sheffield; Dr. Fanqing Frank Chen, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory; Dr Anna Price, European Commission JRC; Dr Katy Taylor, BUAV; Ulrich Krühne, Teknologisk Institut; Peter Ertl, Austrian Research Centers (ARC) GmbH; Dr Antonio Garcia, Arizona State University; Dr Nirmala Bhogal, FRAME; Dr Rosemary Gibson, Health & Safety Laboratory; Professor Shervanthi Homer-Vanniasinkam, Consultant Vascular Surgeon, Leeds General Infirmary Professor of Translational Vascular Medicine, Leeds Medical School; Arianna Ferrari, Darmstadt University of Technology; Dr Andy Bennett, FRAME.

Sessions will cover Toxicology and Drug Design; Tissue Engineering, Other Novel Models and Testing Strategies; Imaging and Diagnostics; Regulatory and Legal Issues.

For further information please contact Gemma McCulloch, gemma.mcculloch@nano.org.uk, on +44(0)1786 458020. Alternatively please visit http://www.nano.org.uk/events/ionevents.htm#animals.

The Institute, a registered charity, was one of the first organisations to raise awareness of nanotechnology and its applications, and is now a world leader in the field. It disseminates information through its website, http://www.nano.org.uk; organises events for industry on a variety of topics; supports new start-ups; and is involved in EU-funded projects. For more information on the Institute and its activities, contact Dr Mark Morrison, Institute of Nanotechnology, Tel: +44 (0) 141 303 8444; or email: mark.morrison@nano.org.uk

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6358

2008-05-07T13:27:00.001-07:00

Graphene-based gadgets may be just years away

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Researchers at The University of Manchester have produced tiny liquid crystal devices with electrodes made from graphene - an exciting development that could lead to computer and TV displays based on this technology.

Article body

Writing in the American Chemical Society's journal Nano Letters, Dr Kostya Novoselov and colleagues from The School of Physics and Astronomy and The School of Computer Science, report on the use of graphene as a transparent conductive coating for electro-optical devices - and show that its high transparency and low resistivity make it ideal for electrodes in liquid crystal devices.

Graphene was discovered at The University of Manchester back in 2004, by Professor Andre Geim FRS and Royal Society Research Fellow Dr Kostya Novoselov. This incredible one-atom-thick gauze of carbon atoms, which resembles chicken wire, has quickly become one of the hottest topics in physics and materials science.

"Graphene is only one atom thick, optically transparent, chemically inert, and an excellent conductor," says Dr Novoselov, from the Manchester research team.

"These properties seem to make this material an excellent candidate for applications in various electro-optical devices that require conducting but transparent thin films. We believe graphene should improve the durability and simplify the technology of potential electronic devices that interact with light."

Prof Geim said: "Transparent conducting films are an essential part of many gadgets including common liquid crystal displays (LCDs) for computers, TVs and mobile phones.

"The underlying technology uses thin metal-oxide films based on indium. But indium is becoming an increasingly expensive commodity and, moreover, its supply is expected to be exhausted within just 10 years.

"Forget about oil - our civilisation will first run out of indium. Scientists have an urgent task on their hands to find new types of conductive transparent films."

The Manchester research team has now demonstrated highly transparent and highly conductive ultra-thin films that can be produced cheaply by 'dissolving' chunks of graphite - an abundant natural resource - into graphene and then spraying the suspension onto a glass surface.

The resulting graphene-based films can be used in LCDs and, to prove the concept, the research team have demonstrated the first liquid crystal devices with graphene electrodes.

Dr Novoselov believes that there are only a few small, incremental steps remain for this technology to reach a mass production stage. "Graphene-based LCD products could appear in shops as soon as in a few years", he adds.

A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany recently reported in Nano Letters how they had used graphene-based films to create transparent electrodes for solar cells (1).

But the German team used a different technology for obtaining graphene films, which involved several extra steps.

The Manchester team says the films they have developed are much simpler to produce, and they can be used not only in LCDs but also in solar cells.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by The University of Manchester

source...
www.nanitenews.com

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6317

Feds seek help applying nanotech to defense

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Federal agencies and large defense contractors are looking for small businesses with good ideas and the technical expertise to pull them off.

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The goal is to solve homeland security problems and other issues ranging from defense to public health and infrastructure safety, participants learned earlier this month at the Arizona Nanotechnology Cluster Symposium.

The third annual symposium attracted more than 350 businesspeople and academics for a day to the campus of Scottsdale Community College. All had an interest in nanotechnology, the scientific field focusing on materials and devices as small as atoms and molecules.

"We've got all kinds of challenges, and we also have all kinds of opportunities," Brad Buswell, deputy undersecretary for science and technology at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told the group. "We don't know where the next good ideas are coming from, but we want to harvest them for the protection of the country."

The Department of Homeland Security has divided its science and technology portfolio into three levels, Buswell said.

About half of its spending goes for "transition" projects, or applied science that closes gaps between existing technologies. Higher-risk, higher-payoff projects fall into the "innovation" area, such as prototypes of devices that try to solve what the transition projects can't. DHS also allocates funds for basic research, such as that done at universities and national laboratories.

Some of the department's investments have come in nanotechnology, Buswell said. The technology is being applied to next-generation X-rays and to ways to neutralize chemicals and detect liquid explosives. Nanoparticles are even being tested in high-performance concrete to make infrastructure such as dams less vulnerable, he said.

The agency solicits new ideas twice a year through its Small Business Innovation Research program. In its most recent round, projects included one that seeks to prove that a person's pupils dilate when he or she intends to deceive others, and another to develop miniature sensors to detect chemical, biological or explosive materials nearby.

The first, Buswell said, might help tell whether the anxious person racing through the airport has nefarious intentions or is merely late for a plane.

The second might result in sensors small enough to fit into Americans' ubiquitous cellphones and give authorities an early warning of chemical or biological attacks.

Millions of dollars in research grants are available to small firms through SBIR and follow-on Small Business Technology Transfer programs at DHS and other federal agencies. The Phase 1 grants run up to $100,000, while Phase 2 grants top out at $750,000.

But there are some tricks to winning them, panelists said.

Raytheon Co., whose Tucson division makes missiles, is helping defense agencies define their needs under the program, said John Waszczak, director of advanced technology and SBIR/STTR. It therefore pays to partner with a big company that is looking for small firms' technology to fill gaps, he advised.

"They're very anxious to see it get into our products," Waszczak said. "And we're looking for technologies to provide discriminators and give us a competitive edge."

John Lombardi, whose Ventana Research Corp. in Tucson develops new materials and compounds, praises the SBIR program as an alternative to seeking venture capital.

"It gets you out of the garage and into a real research endeavor," he said.

But Grant Anderson of Paragon Space Development Corp. in Tucson cautioned that simply getting the funding should not be a small company's goal. Gaps between grant cycles are common, and the topics the government is interested in are rarely exact matches for what a company does, he said. He advised looking at SBIRs as a long-term process of taking something from prototype to commercialization, and getting to know the people within agencies so they ask for your company's technologies.

Ray Friesenhahn of Montana State University's TechLink Center also advocated planning for commercialization. His organization scouts small businesses for new technologies and works with Defense Department labs to evaluate and ultimately license them.

The center has started working with Arizona businesses that may be innovative but lack the experience or connections of working with the Defense Department.

"This involves a lot of partnerships for proving you can get to market," he said.

source...
www.azcentral.com

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6282

Reading, writing and nanotechnology

Short description

Albany High students to gain inside track on burgeoning industry. Nanotechnology is a hot topic on college campuses. Now it has arrived at high schools. Up to 400 students at Albany High will get an introduction to the emerging science in a program designed to encourage minorities to acquire skills needed for the Capital Region's burgeoning nanotechnology economy.

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The school district was one of 20 nationwide selected to establish an Academy of Engineering by the National Academy Foundation, a New York City philanthropic organization that funds programs in public high schools.

The foundation will train teachers this summer and send advisers to help the district. They will work for 15 months with a team of 30 school employees and community members to establish its program, which is slated to start in September 2009. Ninth-graders that year will be recruited for the program's first 75 to 100 slots. Another class will be added every year for four years.

Students in the Academy -- a school within a school -- will take a core curriculum of math and science courses along with their regular courses. They will prepare for college and careers by interning at local nanotech businesses.

The initiative will make an underrepresented population of Albany students top candidates for higher paying local jobs, said Jackie Carrese, the district's instructional supervisor for science.

"Science is advancing so fast, we can't keep up with it," she said. "We can't find the workforce to keep up with these jobs."

She added: "Our kids can do it. We have to open the workforce to them."

The district has made an effort to connect its students to the nanotechnology industry, which is cooperating with the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Two introductory nanoscience courses already offered at Albany High independent of the new program may be a national first for a public school, and an advanced course will start next year.

Concepts in nanoscience -- the study and development of technology on the atomic and molecular level -- are currently taught to Albany sixth-graders. The district recently received $200,000 in grants from the state Department of Education and the Society for Manufacturing Engineers to establish nanotechnology programs for seventh- and eighth-graders.

Superintendent Eva Joseph said the city district's focus on nanotechnology is modeled on other districts around the country that directly link students to local industries. She said it is the district's responsibility to open the doors to future local jobs for its graduates.

"We would be remiss if we weren't connecting ourselves to the opportunities here for our children," Joseph said.

Scott Waldman can be reached at 454-5080 or by e-mail at swaldman@timesunion.com.

link: http://www.nanovip.com/node/6281

2008-05-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Nanotechnology Produces New Electronic Materials

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STONEY BROOK, NY - The nanotechnology of engineering atomic layer interfaces to produce desired properties, called "improper ferroelectricity" reportedly holds promise for a technological revolution that may compare to the development of modern electronics.

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According to an article in the April 10th issue of Nature, a new artificial material is has been created that may mark the beginning of a revolution in the development of materials for electronic applications.

The new material, called a superlattice, which has a layered structure composed of alternating atomically thin layers of two different oxides (PbTiO3 and SrTiO3) takes on properties radically different than either of the two materials by themselves. According to the article, these properties are a direct consequence of the artificially layered atomic structure, and the interactions at the atomic level interface between the layers.

As stated in the article, Ferroelectrics are useful functional materials, with applications ranging from non-volatile computer memories, to micro-electromechanical machines or infrared detectors. "Improper ferroelectricity" is a kind of property that occurs only rarely in natural materials, with effects that are typically too small to be useful. This new superlattice material shows improper ferroelectricity (a property in neither of the original oxides) at a magnitude around 100 times greater than any naturally occurring improper ferroelectric, creating options for many more real world applications.

According to on of the material's researcher, Dr. Matthew Dawber, "Besides the immediate applications that could be generated by this nanomaterial, this discovery opens a completely new field of investigation and the possibility of new functional materials based on…interface engineering on the atomic scale."

Transition metal oxides are a class of materials that provoke great interest because of the great range of functional properties that they can present (dielectrics, ferroelectrics, piezoelectrics, magnets or superconductors) and the possibilities for integration into numerous devices. The majority of these oxides have a similar structure (referred to as 'perovskite') and recently, researchers have developed the ability to build these materials atomic layer by layer, to attempt to produce new materials with exceptional properties.

source...
Philip Buonpastore
http://pcdandf.com

Researchers create the first 'nanotrees'

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Since scientists learned to make nanowires, the tiny wires have taken many forms, and now U.S. researchers have accidentally learned how to grow nanotrees.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Song Jin and graduate student Matthew Bierman accidentally made some pine tree shapes one day and, in doing so, opened a new chapter in nanotechnology.

The scientists subsequently discovered their nanotrees are evidence of an entirely different way of growing nanowires. Until now, most nanowires have been made with metal catalysts, which promote the growth of nanomaterials along one dimension to form long rods. While the branches on Jin's trees also elongate, growth of the trunks is driven by a screw dislocation in their crystal structure.

Dislocations are fundamental to the growth and characteristics of all crystalline materials, Jin said. But this is the first time they've been shown to aid the growth of one-dimensional nanostructures.

We think these findings will motivate a lot of people to do this purposefully, to design dislocation and try to grow nanowires around it, Jin said.

The research that included Albert Lau, Alexander Kvit and Andrew Schmitt appears in the online journal Science Express.

source...
http://it.moldova.org

Self-perfection in nanomanufacturing

In the past, random defects caused by particle contamination were the dominant reason for yield loss in the semiconductor industry - defects occur in the patterning process (so-called process defects) when contaminants become lodged in or on the wafer surface. Trying to prevent such fabrication defects, chip manufacturers have spent much effort and money to improve the fabrication process, for instance by installing ultra-clean fabrication facilities. With the semiconductor industry's move to advanced nanometer nodes, and feature sizes approaches the limitation of the fabrication method used, particles are no longer the only problem for chip manufacturers. In a nanoscale feature-size fabrication environment, systematic variations, such as metal width and thickness variations or mask misalignment, are also major contributors to yield loss. Rather than perfecting a nanostructure by improving its original fabrication method, researchers at Princeton University have demonstrated a new method, known as self-perfection by liquefaction (SPEL), which removes nanostructure fabrication defects and improves nanostructures after fabrication.

link: http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=5568.php

2008-05-02T13:58:00.001-07:00

Nanotechnology studied in heat transfer

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The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $7 million grant to a University of Michigan-led team to apply nanotechnology to problems involved in heat transfer.

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"The processes by which heat is transferred at interfaces between different materials are poorly understood," said Assistant Professor Kevin Pipe, who is leading the study for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. "But in many systems, the ability to either efficiently transfer or block heat flow from one material to another is critically important to performance and reliability."

The research group includes nine scientists and engineers from the University of Michigan, Brown University and the University of California-Santa Cruz.

Pipe said his group will use ultrafast lasers in a special X-ray technique developed by University of Michigan Associate Professor David Reis that allows researchers to watch the vibrations of the atoms that carry heat energy across an interface.

Using nanotechnology, Pipe and his colleagues will re-engineer the surfaces of materials to regulate the flow of heat.

In addition to Pipe, the team includes Professors Rachel Goldman, Roberto Merlin, Humphrey Maris, Arto Nurmikko and John Kieffer; Assistant Professor Max Shtein; and Associate Professors David Reis and Ali Shakouri.

source...
www.upi.com

n-Surf Image Processor - Free evaluation

Short description

n-Surf is a new generation of software for analyzing and processing of images of surfaces obtained by Scanning Probe or Atomic Force Microscopes (SPM/AFMs).

Article body

n-Surf Image Processor.
n-Surf is a new generation of software for analyzing and processing of images of surfaces obtained by Scanning Probe or Atomic Force Microscopes (SPM/AFMs). This application was developed for high-quality visualization and easy processing of all types of images. To date, support for Veeco/DI, NT-MDT and MPRI files has been implemented.

Owing to the virtual main frame and other unique features, multidocument interface allows to work easily and concurrently with a variety of images.
You will enjoy freedom in manipulating different views of your document in the n - Surf environment.

This application uses all modern facilities of Windows 2000/XP, such as Thumbnails, Clipboard, Float toolbars, Contexts Help and others.

Superior printing quality will fit every user's requirements.

The basic concept of n-Surf is presentation of all images in the form of three views, namely, 2D, Bump and 3D, each having strengths and weaknesses. However, you have freedom in choosing the most workable one to solve your specific problems.

Researchers can use a lot of facilities and processing methods offered:

* Variety of filters such as Arithmetic mean, Median, Laplacian, Gaussian, High-pass, Low-pass, Sharpening, Prewitt, Scharr, Sobel, Roberts and others.
* Dilate and Erode morphological operations.
* Fourier transform and Autocorrelation.
* Roughness analysis, Height histogram and Bearing curve.
* Profiles.
* Special operations such as Jump elimination, Flatting and Plane fitting.

This list is by no means complete and will undergo replenishment in the future. At present n-Surf is constantly under development. Therefore there is always a room to implement specific suggestions of its customers. I would be happy to receive your remarks and proposals as to modification of this software.

Feel free to download the n-Surf 1.0 beta evaluation version.
http://www.n-surf.com/download.html

Contact information

http://www.n-surf.com/index.html

2008-05-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

Global Nanocomposites Market to Reach 989 Million Pounds by 2010, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

Short description

Nanocomposites play a significant role in one of the most promising technologies known as nanotechnology. Worldwide demand for nanocomposites is increasing rapidly in packaging, automotive, electrical, and other applications due to their superior thermal, electrical conductive and other properties. Development of industry related nanocomposites with enhanced features and expanding research activities in development of new nanocomposites are some of the factors that would drive nanocomposites market in the coming years.

Article body

Nanocomposites display enhanced physical, thermal and other unique properties, which assist in achieving high-level performance across various applications. They have properties that are superior to conventional microscale composites and can be synthesized using simple and inexpensive techniques. Continuous demand from different end-use sectors, development of advanced and superior nanocomposites would stimulate their growth. Need for new and better nanocomposites by end users is one of the major reasons expected to drive the development of new array of nanocomposites. Identifying potential markets, intensifying research activities, and government funding for R&D operations constitute major factors in the commercialization of nanocomposites. A few nanocomposites have already reached the marketplace, while a few others are on the verge, and many continue to remain in the laboratories of various research institutions and companies.

Global nanocomposites market is projected to reach 989 million pounds by the end of the decade, as stated in a report published by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. United States and Europe dominate the global nanocomposites market, with a collective share of over 80% of the volume sales for 2008. The markets are also projected to witness rapid growth, driven by enhanced volume consumption of nanocomposites in various applications. Research institutions and companies are engaged in the exploration of efficient methods for developing nanocomposites in large volumes, and at lower cost.

Applications of nanocomposite plastics are diversified, with automotive and packaging accounting for a majority of the consumption. Increased R&D activities and advent of innovative materials is expected to widen the application areas for nanocomposites. Packaging segment represents the largest end-use market for nanocomposites in the world, with consumption estimated at 284 million pounds for 2008. Automotive segment is projected to generate the fastest demand for nancomposites during the period 2001-2010. Rise in demand and easy accessibility of nanocomposites would lead to their extensive usage in a wide range of applications.

Nanocomposite research is widespread and is conducted by companies and universities across the globe. Several global plastic suppliers have already commercialized products based on nanocomposite materials, with majority of the efforts focused on either nylons or polyolefins. Other industries are also optimistic about the future role of these novel materials, attributed to the growing volume of research studies being conducted across the world. The development of innovative nanocomposite polyolefins, and an array of other resin matrixes and nanofillers is also expected to bolster the market scenario. Technological advancements would reduce manufacturing costs, enabling the development of low-cost nanocomposites.

Major players profiled in the report include 3M ESPE, Arkema Group, BASF AG, Cabot Corporation, Cyclics Corporation, DSM Somos, Du Pont (E.I) De Nemours & Company, Elementis Specialties Inc, eSpin Technologies Inc., Evonik Degussa GmbH, Foster Corporation, Hybrid Plastics, Industrial Nanotech Inc, Inframat Corporation, InMat Inc, Nanocor Incorporated, Nanodynamics Inc, Nanoledge SA, Nanophase Technologies Corporation, Nanova LLC, Powdermet Inc, Showa Denko K.K., Rockwood Additives Ltd, TNO, Unitika Ltd, and Zyvex.

The report titled "Nanocomposites: A Global Strategic Business Report" published by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. discusses the prevailing trends, issues, demand forecasts, and activities that affect the industry. The nanocomposites market is analyzed over the period 2001-2015 for United States, Europe, and Rest of World.

For more details about this research report, please visit http://www.strategyr.com/Nanocomposites_Market_Report.asp

About Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Global Industry Analysts, Inc., (GIA) is a reputed publisher of off-the-shelf market research. Founded in 1987, the company is globally recognized as one of the world's largest market research publishers. The company employs over 700 people worldwide and publishes more than 880 full-scale research reports each year. Additionally, the company also offers a range of over 60,000 smaller research products including company reports, market trend reports, and industry reports encompassing all major industries worldwide.

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IBM. Taiyo Nippon Sanso and Matheson to collaborate on future CMOS

2008-04-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Specialty Gases Supplied by Matheson Tri-Gas to Enable Semiconductor Advances Armonk, NY and Basking Ridge, NJ -- April, 28, 2008 -- International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) and Matheson Tri-Gas Inc., the largest subsidiary of Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation, Japan, announced today that they have signed a unique, four-year agreement to jointly develop new manufacturing materials and processes that will enable the next generation of semiconductor technology for 32nm and beyond.

The agreement marks the first time Matheson Tri-Gas/Taiyo Nippon Sanso and IBM have collaborated on semiconductor technology. As the semiconductor industry transitions from one technology generation to the next, manufacturers must rapidly develop new approaches to manage shrinking device circuitry. In order to continue to innovate at the transistor level in successive technology generations, IBM will collaborate with Matheson Tri-Gas/Taiyo Nippo Sanso to research and develop new high purity gas molecules and new delivery systems for the manufacturing of atomic-scale semiconductors. Engineers from the two companies and Matheson Tri-Gas' parent company, Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation, will conduct joint research and development at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's Albany NanoTech Complex. "Taiyo Nippon Sanso Group including Matheson Tri-Gas' cutting-edge source gases and advanced purification equipment, when integrated with IBM's state-of-the-art CMOS research capabilities, enables both companies to accelerate the pace of semiconductor innovation," said Bernie Meyerson, Vice President Strategic Alliances and Chief Technical Officer for IBM Systems & Technology Group.

"In our business model where we pool individual research strengths and intellectual property, we are able to reduce the significant costs associated with the research required to create the next generation of chip technology." "This relationship between Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation, Matheson Tri-Gas, and IBM sends a clear message to the global semiconductor community that the collaborative model that IBM and its partners have chosen is attractive for partners specializing in material, chemical and gas based solutions to technical challenges of the twenty-first century," said Bill Kroll, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Matheson Tri-Gas. "This relationship with IBM will enable the Taiyo Nippon Sanso Group to position itself as a leading edge material supplier in the semiconductor material market beyond 32nm," said Mike Hara, Senior Managing Director of Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation. Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc. is a single source for industrial, medical, specialty and electronic gases, gas handling equipment, high performance purification systems, engineering and gas management services, and on- site gas generation with a mission to deliver innovative solutions for global customer requirements. Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc. is the largest subsidiary of the Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation Group, one of the five largest suppliers of industrial, specialty, and electronics gases in the world.

Magnetic Bacteria

2008-04-28T05:50:00.000-07:00

Magnetic or “magnetotactic” bacteria were first discovered in the 1960s, and naturally organize themselves in the direction of Earth’s magnetic field, as shown in this video:

Video by Melbynfm

Inside these bacteria there is a row of iron-containing crystals aligned with the long axis of the cell, giving them the equivalent of an internal magnetic compass needle (Molecular mechanisms of magnetosome formation. Ann Rev Biochem 2007 76: 351-66). Such bacteria can sense and align themselves relative to the earth’s magnetic field. Magnetotactic bacteria are major constituents of many natural microbial communities, especially in aquatic habitats. There is a broad range of shapes and groups of magnetic bacteria. However, cultivation of these organisms in the laboratory is often difficult and only few strains of magnetotactic bacteria have been isolated in pure culture, a tiny minority of the vast diversity of naturally occurring populations from largely unexplored natural habitats such as the marine environment.

So why would bacteria want to be magnetic? Leaving aside the possibility that they are magnetic by accident, e.g. as a consequence of some metabolic byproduct, the truth is that we really don’t know the reason. However, the most likely explanation lies not in north-south alignment, but in up and down. The magnetotactic bacteria we know about require low but very precise levels of oxygen to survive, and must live in sediments where the oxygen concentration is just right for their needs. Over much of the globe, the Earth’s magnetic field actually points down towards the centre of the planet, so by following these lines of magnetic flux, they are able to ensure that they bury themselves in the sediment, which is exactly where they want to be. Thus the majority of magnetotactic in the Northern Hemisphere are north seeking, and those in the Southern Hemisphere are south seeking.

So, just one of nature’s curiosities then? Possibly not. One of the hottest areas of scientific research at present is nanotechnology, the fabrication of devices with dimensions on an atomic or molecular scale. By understanding how these bacteria construct the internal magnetosomes which give them their unique properties, we may be able to learn how to use this knowledge in a range of engineering and biotechnological applications (Molecular analysis of magnetotactic bacteria and development of functional bacterial magnetic particles for nano-biotechnology. Trends Biotechnol 2007 25: 182-8).