Había una vez (Oxigeno)

En el principio de la creación, cuando una colosal explosión libero energía y materia, un compuesto en especial se formo y dirigió a una roca. Aunque solo era el tercer elemento más abundante en el recién creado universo. Demostraría ser vital para el desarrollo de la vida en el planeta tierra.

En ese planeta seria el elemento más abundante, seria esencial para el desarrollo de la vida y los organismos aerobios. Desde las plantas que lo usan para la fotosíntesis hasta los humanos que además de ser vital para vivir, lo usan para mover sus automóviles y aviones, energética sus ciudades y complejos.

Lo maravilloso de esta historia empezaría cuando Joseph Priestley y Carl Wilhmen en 1773 pudieron aislarlo en forma gaseosa y Lavoisier creó su teoría de combustión y corrosión donde el oxigeno forma parte esencial. Los humanos le dieron un número de acuerdo a la cantidad de protones y de acuerdo a su masa total, estos fueron 8 y 16 respectivamente. El oxigeno en la tierra se encuentra en forma de gas, es altamente reactivo y forma una molécula diatomica O2, además también existe el O3 (ozono). Este protege a los humanos de los dañinos rayos del sol, aunque parece que estos no lo agradecen y tratan de destruirla. Existe también algo llamado O4 (tetraoxigeno).

Alguna vez los humanos se interesaron tanto por este elemento que lo hicieron reaccionar y analizar por tantos medio que sacaron muchas interesantes conclusiones. Algunas de estas llamadas propiedades físicas que clamaban que el oxigeno  tenía una densidad de 1.429 kg/m3, un punto de fusión -223°C y un punto de ebullición de -183°C. Tan fascinados estaban con él oxigeno que pudieron medir valores de entalpia, valores termodinámicos y estructura electrónica.

Los humanos desarrollaron algo llamado química que pretendía descubrir como la naturaleza hacia que las cosas fueran como eran. El oxigeno junto con otros elementos que fueron coleccionados en una tabla de elementos tenía una cierta capacidad de reacción. Las reacciones biológicas por organismos como las algas y cianobacterias eran las que usaban la energía solar para crear oxigeno, por algo llamado fotosíntesis, estos mismos organismo proporcionaban el 70% del oxigeno en la tierra. Este oxigeno era aprovechado por especies como los vertebrados que después de respirarlo los transportaban a unos órganos especializados llamados pulmones que los distribuían a través junto con la sangre a todo el cuerpo. Esto le permitió a especies como la humana a desarrollar capacidades cerebrales y manuales que lo llevaron hasta donde llego. 

Pero no siempre existió oxigeno en el planeta tierra, antes de la aparición de las algas,  en una escala medible entre 1600 y 2500 millones de años, el oxigeno se combino primero con el hierro, un metal y compañero de tabla periódica del oxigeno. Esto los llevo a formar hierro bandeado donde el océano empezaría a desprender oxigeno, tan solo para cubrir el 10% de la atmosfera. En esos días había una lucha entre organismos anaerobios y aerobios, los anaerobios necesitan el oxigeno al contrario delo aerobios. Finalmente y gracias a la respiración pulmonar, los organismos anaerobios ganaron la batalla y cambiaron la historia de la tierra.

Conforme las especies evolucionaron, la humana que había desarrollado un cerebro muy capaz, empezó a experimentar y a preguntarse qué era eso que los mantenía con vida. Filon de Bizancio al invertir un recipiente sobre una vela prendida, y rodearlo con agua, observo que el agua era absorbida y supuso que algunas partes del oxigeno de transformaban en fuego. Muchos siglos después Leonardo Da Vinci observo que la combustión y corrosión absorben una cierta cantidad de oxigeno. Esto fue comprobado por Sir Robert Boyle siglos después.

Finalmente el farmacéutico Carl Wilhelm produjo oxigeno gaseoso calentando mercurio y otros nitratos, este envió su artículo que fue publicado en 1777. Mientras tanto el británico Joseph Priestley condujo un experimento donde enfocaría un haz de luz sobre oxido de mercurio en el interior de un tuve, este libero una gas. Este gas prendía más vivamente una vela o un ratón en un frasco. Pero fue Antoine Lavoisier quien comprobó que lo que los dos anteriores habían descubierto no era más que un elemento químico. En su trabajo dijo que el aire que respiramos no es más que una mezcla de dos cosas, una es el oxigeno dimolecular que sirve para la oxidación y corrosión. El otro es un gas que no sirve para ninguna de las dos cosas. Este sería nombrado nitrógeno posteriormente. 

Los humanos después de comprender esto, encontraron un método para crear oxigeno de manera masiva. Uno de estos métodos es por destilación fraccionada, que consiste en licuar aire en sus dos componentes principales O2 y N2. El otro método es mediante la electrolisis del agua donde se usa una corriente continua para descomponer el agua en Oxigeno y Hidrogeno. También aprendieron a usar métodos químicos y a través de membranas de cerámicas basadas en dióxido de zirconio. 

Los humanos usaron el oxigeno en producción de acero, que fue un metal importante en sus desarrollo como especie. Alguna vez lo usaron en la industria médica con métodos que parecerían hilarantes como el de la oxigenoterapia. La aplicación más importante durante los siglos 20s fue el de combustible para poder llegar a lugares donde nunca imaginaron llegar. Lo usaron para llegar a las montañas más altas, a los océanos más profundos y a los planetas más lejanos. Aunque finalmente terminarían desarrollando nuevos y mejores métodos de energía y materiales, el oxigeno seguía presente en la vida en la industria y vida de los seres humanos. Hasta el final de sus días.

Referencias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen

 

Precisely Placed Atoms Used to Create World's Smallest Movie

Scientists from IBM today unveiled the world's smallest movie, made with one of the tiniest objects in the universe: atoms. Named "A Boy and His Atom," the Guiness World Record winning movie used thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action.

"A Boy and His Atom" depicts a character named Atom who befriends a single atom and goes on a playful journey that includes dancing, playing catch and bouncing on a trampoline. Set to a playful musical track, the movie represents a unique way to convey science outside the research community.

"Capturing, positioning and shaping atoms to create an original motion picture on the atomic-level is a precise science and entirely novel," said Andreas Heinrich , Principle Investigator, IBM Research. "At IBM, researchers don't just read about science, we do it. This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world while opening up a dialogue with students and others on the new frontiers of math and science."

Making the Movie

In order to make the movie, the atoms were moved with an IBM-invented scanning tunneling microscope.  "This Nobel Prize winning tool was the first device that enabled scientists to visualize the world all the way down to single atoms," said Christopher Lutz , Research Scientist, IBM Research. "It weighs two tons, operates at a temperature of negative 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies the atomic surface over 100 million times. The ability to control the temperature, pressure and vibrations at exact levels makes our IBM Research lab one of the few places in the world where atoms can be moved with such precision."

Remotely operated on a standard computer, IBM researchers used the microscope to control a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to "feel" atoms. Only 1 nanometer away from the surface, which is a billionth of a meter in distance, the needle can physically attract atoms and molecules on the surface and thus pull them to a precisely specified location on the surface. The moving atom makes a unique sound that is critical feedback in determining how many positions it's actually moved.

As the movie was being created, the scientists rendered still images of the individually arranged atoms, resulting in 242 single frames.

The Need to Shrink Big Data

Developing the world's smallest movie is not entirely new ground for IBM. For decades, scientists at IBM Research have studied materials at the nanoscale to explore the limits of data storage, among other things.

As computer circuits shrink toward atomic dimensions -- which they have for decades in accordance with Moore's Law -- chip designers are running into physical limitations using traditional techniques. The exploration of unconventional methods of magnetism and the properties of atoms on well-controlled surfaces allows IBM scientists to identify entirely new computing paths.

Using the smallest object available for engineering data storage devices - single atoms - the same team of IBM researchers who made this movie also recently created the world's smallest magnetic bit. They were the first to answer the question of how many atoms it takes to reliably store one bit of magnetic information: 12. By comparison, it takes roughly 1 million atoms to store a bit of data on a modern computer or electronic device. If commercialized, this atomic memory could one day store all of the movies ever made in a device the size of a fingernail.

"Research means asking questions beyond those required to find good short-term engineering solutions to problems. As data creation and consumption continue to get bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level," continued Heinrich. "We're applying the same techniques used to come up with new computing architectures and alternative ways to store data to making this movie."

Source: http://www.ibm.com/

Nanotubes and Nanowires Hold Potential for Innovative Applications

Nanowires and nanotubes, slender structures that are only a few billionths of a meter in diameter but many thousands or millions of times longer, have become hot materials in recent years. They exist in many forms — made of metals, semiconductors, insulators and organic compounds — and are being studied for use in electronics, energy conversion, optics and chemical sensing, among other fields.

This Scanning Electron Microscope image shows an array of nanowires. (Photo: Kristian Molhave/Opensource Handbook of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology)

The initial discovery of carbon nanotubes — tiny tubes of pure carbon, essentially sheets of graphene rolled up unto a cylinder — is generally credited to a paper published in 1991 by the Japanese physicist Sumio Ijima (although some forms of carbon nanotubes had been observed earlier). Almost immediately, there was an explosion of interest in this exotic form of a commonplace material. Nanowires — solid crystalline fibers, rather than hollow tubes — gained similar prominence a few years later.

Due to their extreme slenderness, both nanotubes and nanowires are essentially one-dimensional. “They are quasi-one-dimensional materials,” says MIT associate professor of materials science and engineering Silvija Gradeèak: “Two of their dimensions are on the nanometer scale.” This one-dimensionality confers distinctive electrical and optical properties.

For one thing, it means that the electrons and photons within these nanowires experience “quantum confinement effects,” Gradeèak says. And yet, unlike other materials that produce such quantum effects, such as quantum dots, nanowires’ length makes it possible for them to connect with other macroscopic devices and the outside world.

The structure of a nanowire is so simple that there’s no room for defects, and electrons pass through unimpeded, Gradeèak explains. This sidesteps a major problem with typical crystalline semiconductors, such as those made from a wafer of silicon: There are always defects in those structures, and those defects interfere with the passage of electrons.

Made of a variety of materials, nanowires can be “grown” on many different substrates through a vapor deposition process. Tiny beads of molten gold or other metals are deposited on a surface; the nanowire material, in vapor, is then absorbed by the molten gold, ultimately growing from the bottom of that bead as a skinny column of the material. By selecting the size of the metal bead, it is possible to precisely control the size of the resulting nanowire.

In addition, materials that don’t ordinarily mix easily can be grown together in nanowire form. For example, layers of silicon and germanium, two widely used semiconductors, “are very difficult to grow together in thin films,” Gradeèak says. “But in nanowires, they can be grown without any problems.” Moreover, the equipment needed for this kind of vapor deposition is widely used in the semiconductor industry, and can easily be adapted for the production of nanowires.

While nanowires’ and nanotubes’ diameters are negligible, their length can extend for hundreds of micrometers, even reaching lengths visible to the unaided eye. No other known material can produce such extreme length-to-diameter ratios: millions of times longer than they are wide.

Because of this, the wires have an extremely high ratio of surface area to volume. That makes them very good as detectors, because all that surface area can be treated to bind with specific chemical or biological molecules. The electrical signal generated by that binding can then easily be transmitted along the wire.

Similarly, nanowires’ shape can be used to produce narrow-beam lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs), Gradeèak says. These tiny light sources might someday find applications within photonic chips, for example — chips in which information is carried by light, instead of the electric charges that relay information in today’s electronics.

Compared to solid nanowires, nanotubes have a more complex structure: essentially one-atom-thick sheets of pure carbon, with the atoms arranged in a pattern that resembles chicken wire. They behave in many ways as one-dimensional materials, but are actually hollow tubes, like a long, nanometer-scale drinking straw.

The properties of carbon nanotubes can vary greatly depending on how they are rolled up, a property called chirality. (It’s similar to the difference between forming a paper tube by rolling a sheet of paper lengthwise versus on the diagonal: The different alignments of fibers in the paper produce different strength in the resulting tubes.) In the case of carbon nanotubes, chirality can determine whether the tubes behave as metals or as semiconductors.

But unlike the precise manufacturing control that is possible with nanowires, so far methods for making nanotubes produce a random mix of types, which must be sorted to make use of one particular kind. Besides single-walled nanotubes, they also exist in double-walled and multi-walled forms.

In addition to their useful electronic and optical properties, carbon nanotubes are exceptionally strong, and are used as reinforcing fibers in advanced composite materials. “In any application where one-dimensionality is important, both carbon nanotubes and nanowires would provide benefits,” Gradeèak says.

Scientists Manage to Control Chirality in Carbon Nanotubes

An ultimate goal in the field of carbon nanotube research is to synthesise single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with controlled chiralities. Twenty years after the discovery of SWNTs, scientists from Aalto University in Finland, A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute RAS in Russia and the Center for Electron Nanoscopy of Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have managed to control chirality in carbon nanotubes during their chemical vapor deposition synthesis.

This image shows the initial carbon cap formation on Co nanoparticles. Credit: Esko Kauppinen

Carbon nanotube structure is defined by a pair of integers known as chiral indices (n,m), in other words, chirality.

Chirality defines the optical and electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, so controlling it is a key to exploiting their practical applications, says Professor Esko I. Kauppinen, the leader of the Nanomaterials Group in Aalto University School of Science.

Over the years, substantial progress has been made to develop various structure-controlled synthesis methods. However, precise control over the chiral structure of SWNTs has been largely hindered by a lack of practical means to direct the formation of the metal nanoparticle catalysts and their catalytic dynamics during tube growth.

We achieved an epitaxial formation of Co nanoparticles by reducing a well-developed solid solution in CO, reveals Maoshuai He, a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University School of Chemical Technology.

For the first time, the new catalyst was employed for selective growth of SWNTs, adds senior staff scientist Hua Jiang from Aalto University School of Science.

By introducing the new catalysts into a conventional CVD reactor, the research team demonstrated preferential growth of semiconducting SWNTs (`90%) with an exceptionally high population of (6,5) tubes (53%) at 500 °C. Furthermore, they also showed a shift of the chiral preference from (6,5) tubes at 500 °C to (7, 6) and (9, 4) nanotubes at 400 °C.

These findings open new perspectives both for structural control of SWNTs and for elucidating their growth mechanisms, thus are important for the fundamental understanding of science behind nanotube growth, comments Professor Juha Lehtonen from Aalto University.

Source: http://www.aalto.fi/

Fast, Easy and Economical Way to Produce High-Purity Samples of Carbon Nanotubes

An old, somewhat passé, trick used to purify protein samples based on their affinity for water has found new fans at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where materials scientists are using it to divvy up solutions of carbon nanotubes, separating the metallic nanotubes from semiconductors. They say it's a fast, easy and cheap way to produce high-purity samples of carbon nanotubes for use in nanoscale electronics and many other applications.

Shown are three examples of partitioning carbon nanotubes in liquid phases. Left: nanotubes partitioned by diameter. Smaller diameters, on the bottom, appear purple. Center: partitioned between semiconductors (amber, top) and metals. Right: A sample with different diameter range partitioned between metals (yellow) and semiconductors. Color differences are due to differences in electronic structure. Credit: Michael Baum, NIST

Carbon nanotubes are formed from rolled-up sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern resembling chicken wire. One of the amazing features of nanotubes is that, depending on just how the sheet rolls up, a quality called chirality, the resulting tube can behave either like a semiconductor, with various properties, or like a metal, with electrical conductance up to 10 times better than copper. One big issue in creating commercially viable electronics based on nanotubes is being able to efficiently sort out the kind you want.

Thinking about how to do this, says NIST researcher Constantine Khripin, brought up the subject of biochemists and so-called "two-phase liquid extraction." "Biologists used this to separate proteins, even viruses," says Khripin, "It's an old technique, it was popular in the 70s, but then HPLC [high-performance liquid chromatography] replaced a lot of those techniques." People use HPLC to partition carbon nanotubes as well, he says, but it's less successful. HPLC divides things by exploiting differences in the mobility of the desired molecules as they travel small columns loaded with tiny spheres, but carbon nanotubes tend to stick to the spheres, reducing yield and eventually clogging the equipment.

The concept of liquid extraction is relatively straightforward. You make a mixture in water of two polymers that you've selected to be just slightly different in their "hydrophobicity," or tendency to mix with water. Add in your sample of stuff to be separated, stir vigorously and wait. The polymer solutions will gradually separate into two distinct portions or "phases," the lighter one on top. And they'll bring along with them those molecules in your sample that share a similar degree of hydrophobicity.

It turns out that this works pretty well with nanotubes because of differences in their electronic structure—the semiconductor forms, for example, are more hydrophobic than the metallic forms. It's not perfect, of course, but a few sequential separations ends up with a sample where the undesired forms are essentially undetectable.

Be honest. It's not that easy. "No," agrees, Khripin, "People tried this before and it didn't work. The breakthrough was to realize that you need a very subtle difference between the two phases. The difference in hydrophobity between nanotubes is tiny, tiny, tiny." But you can engineer that with careful addition of salts and surfactants.

"This technique uses some vials and a bench-top centrifuge worth a couple hundred dollars, and it takes under a minute," observes team member Jeffrey Fagan. "The other techniques people use require an HPLC on the order of $50,000 and the yields are relatively low, or an ultracentrifuge that takes 12 to 20 hours to separate out the different metals from semiconductors, and it's tricky and cumbersome."

"The nanotube metrology project at NIST has been around for a quite a number of years," says senior team member Ming Zheng. "It has been a constant interest of ours to develop new ways to separate nanotubes, cheaper ways, that industry can use in the development of nanoelectronics and other applications. We really think we have a method here that fits all the criteria that people are looking for. It's easy, it's scalable, it's high resolution—all the good attributes put together."

Applications of Metal Carbonyl Precursors for CVD and ALD Processes

Introduction

In chemical vapor deposition process, solid materials such as particles, thin films or nanowires are deposited on a substrate by producing reactive species in the gaseous phase. These reactive species are produced when precursor gases travel over the heated substrate. Different types of CVD processes are employed in present applications and they include low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD), atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD), and metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). In the MOCVD process, metal-organic species are utilized as precursors for making thin films of metals, metallic compounds, metal nitrides, metal oxides, etc.

Typical CVD Reactor

Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a special type of CVD process which makes it possible to control the atomic scale deposition, and as a result helps in creating smooth alternating layers of varied materials that are extremely thick, uniform and have minimum defects. To this end, both ALD and CVD processes offer practical options since they promote the growth of thin films that are uniform and have precise thickness control.

Basic Applications of CVD

Some of the standard applications of CVD include the formation of protective coatings, such as coatings that are resistant to wear, corrosion, and extreme temperatures, as well as the development of thick structural parts, ceramic composites, optical fibers, and innovative powdered and fibrous materials. CVD is suitable for manufacturing optical storage media and is typically utilized for producing semiconductor devices.

General MOCVD mechanism

On the other hand, ALD provides better control during the formation of films and hence is increasingly being used for depositing thin films in a number of applications like ferroelectric memories, integrated circuits, microelectromechanical structures, switches, thin-film capacitors, radiation detectors, etc. ALD is also essential for improving electroluminescent device technology.

Aluminum Oxide (Alumina) - Applications

Nanoparticles are being used more and more often in research and in industry, due to their enhanced properties compared to bulk materials. The benefits of nanoparticles can include increased electrical conductivity, toughness and ductility, and increased hardness and strength of metals and alloys.
This article discusses the properties and applications of aluminum oxide nanoparticles. Aluminum is a Block P, Period 3 element, while oxygen is a Block P, Period 2 element.
The morphology of aluminum oxide nanoparticles is spherical, and they appear as a white powder. Aluminum oxide nanoparticles (both liquid and solid forms) are graded as highly flammable and an irritant that can cause serious eye and respiratory irritation
The key applications of aluminum oxide nanoparticles are listed below:

• In integrate circuit base boards
• Transparent ceramics, high-pressure sodium lamps, and EP-ROM window
• In YAG laser crystals
• As cosmetic fillers
• Single crystal, ruby, sapphire, sapphire, and yttrium aluminum garnets
• High-strength aluminum oxide ceramic and C substrates
• Packaging materials, cutting tools, high purity crucible, winding axle, and furnace tubes
• Polishing materials, glass products, metal products, semiconductor materials
• Plastic, tape, and grinding belts
• Paint, rubber, plastic wear-resistant reinforcement, and advanced waterproof materials
• Catalyst, catalyst carrier, analytical reagents
• Aerospace aircraft wing leading edges
• Vapor deposition materials, special glass, fluorescent materials, composite materials and resins

In cases where aluminum oxide nanoparticles are used in the liquid form such as an aqueous dispersion, the key applications are as follows:

• Plastics, rubber, ceramics, refractory products
• To improve ceramics density, smoothness, fracture toughness, creep resistance, thermal fatigue resistance, and polymer products wear resistance
• Ideal material of far infrared emission

Source: AZoNano

Gastrointestinal Bioavailability of 2.0 nm Diameter Gold Nanoparticles

 

The use of gold nanoparticles as imaging agents and therapeutic delivery systems is growing rapidly. However, a significant limitation of gold nanoparticles currently is their low absorption efficiencies in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract following oral administration. In an attempt to identify ligands that facilitate gold nanoparticle absorption in the GI tract, we have studied the oral bioavailability of 2.0 nm diameter gold nanoparticles modified with the small molecules p-mercaptobenzoic acid and glutathione, and polyethylene glycols (PEG) of different lengths and charge (neutral and anionic). We show that GI absorption of gold nanoparticles modified with the small molecules tested was undetectable. However, the absorption of PEGs depended upon PEG length, with the shortest PEG studied yielding gold nanoparticle absorptions that are orders-of-magnitude larger than observed previously. As the oral route is the most convenient one for administering drugs and diagnostic reagents, these results suggest that short-chain PEGs may be useful in the design of gold nanoparticles for the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Visita: http://pubs.acs.org/journal/ancac3 (ACS NANO)

 

Candice A. Smith , Carrie A. Simpson , Ganghyeok Kim , Carly J. Carter , and Daniel L. Feldheim *

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States

9 materiales del futuro (english)

Fungal Foam - 

Initially conceived as a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and high-performance alternative to Styrofoam, Ecovative Design makes its Mushroom Packaging from agricultural crop waste—plant stalks and rice and wheat husks—bonded together with mushroom roots (called mycelium). The company is now adapting its mushroom material to produce biodegradable alternative to petroleum-based plastic foams used in automotive bumpers, doors, roofs, engine bays, trunk liners, dashboards and seats. Other potential uses include tabletops, surfboards and clothing. 
Courtesy of mycobond, via Flickr

ELECTRIC INK:

 Quantum-electronic magic

 can make strange but useful semiconductors that are insulators on the inside and conductors on the surface. The bulk of the material acts as an insulator that blocks electron flow whereas the surface is a very good, metal-like conductor that allows electrons to travel freely at almost light-speed, unaffected by impurities that normally hinder electron motion through materials. Metal-free conductive inks will play a role in making printed electronic materials used in display screens, sensors and batteries. University of Illinois researchers, for example, have created a silver-based electric ink that leaves a trail of conductive material when it evaporates. The new formulation is easier to make than conventional electronic inks, adheres to many materials and can be printed at a lower temperature using a simple desktop device. 

Courtesy of University of Illinois / S. Brett Walker

WASTE-TO-ENERGY THERMOELECTRICS:

 

Northwestern University and Michigan State University scientists have demonstrated a thermoelectric material that is highly efficient at converting waste heat to electricity. That’s good news if you consider that nearly two thirds of all energy input is lost as waste heat. The inefficiency of existing thermoelectric materials has limited their commercial use. The record-setting, environmentally stable formulation is expected to convert 15 to 20 percent of waste heat to useful electricity, enabling greater industrial adoption of thermoelectrics. Waste-heat recovery systems could be attached, for example, to vehicle tailpipes or could process the exhaust streams from glass- and brick-making factories, refineries, fossil-fuel power plants as well as large transport ships and tankers. 

Courtesy of General Motors

Engineers from the Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, the Colorado School of Mines and elsewhere have designed extreme-duty, iron-based, glassy alloy coatings for industrial drill bits, bores and cutters to make this equipment more resistant to breaking even under heavy loads. NanoSHIELD Coatings—short for Nano Super Hard Inexpensive Laser Deposited Coatings—require a laser to fuse alloy powder to the surface of cutters and other tunnel-boring tools. The coatings cost far less than conventional materials such as tungsten carbide cobalt, and their longer operating life improves the efficiency of the tunnel-boring process. 

Courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory

DESIGNER NANOCRYSTALS:

 

Three University of Chicago chemists have created a new way to assemble what they call “designer atoms” into novel materials with a broad array of potentially useful properties and functions. These designer atoms are nano crystals—tiny crystalline arrays small enough that new quantum phenomena begin to emerge but large enough to provide building blocks for new functional materials and substances that could be useful in harvesting solar energy and delivering quantum computing. Greg Engel, associate professor in chemistry, is pictured here tuning a femtosecond laser system used to dissect couplings between nano crystals. 

Courtesy of the University of Chicago/Chris Strong

MEGA MAGNETS:

 

Rare earth materials are vital to the manufacture of wind turbines, electric and hybrid cars, and consumer electronics due to their powerful magnetic properties. Yet they are also expensive and come almost entirely from one source—China. Whereas electric motors use magnets to transform electrical energy into mechanical energy, sintered rare earth magnets produce incredibly strong magnetic fields at small sizes, allowing manufacturers to build smaller, lighter motors, according to Electron Energy Corp. The firm has teamed up with University of Delaware researchers to develop a manufacturing process that increases sintered rare earth magnets’ electrical resistivity by at least 30 percent. Their goal is to make magnets with increased electrical resistivity that can reduce motor efficiency losses even when motors operate at high speeds. Shown here are blocks of nickel-plated neodymium magnet, one of the most widely used types of rare-earth magnet. 

Courtesy of Images-of-Elements.com, via WikiMedia Commons

CHEAPER, LIGHTER CARBON FIBER:

 

Autos of the future will require strong, lightweight carbon-fiber composite structures to enhance efficiency and driving range, but low-cost fibers will be needed for market success. A consortium of national labs, industry and academia working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’sCarbon Fiber Technology Facility are working to overcome the challenges of making cheaper carbon fiber. The U.S. Department of Energy gave Oak Ridge a $35-million award to build and operate the lab, which will include a pilot plant capable of producing up to 25 tons a year of new carbon-fiber materials. Pictured here is a polymer resin used to make carbon fiber.  

Courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory

ULTRATHIN PLATINUM:

 

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could provide clean transportation in the future, but they remain expensive in part because they use the precious metal platinum to facilitate the chemical reactions that produce electricity within the cell. A new method for quickly and cheaply depositing ultrathin layers of platinum might make it practical to reduce the amount of the metal used in fuel-cell catalysts, thereby lowering their cost significantly. Current methods for applying atom-thick layers of platinum—mainly, atomic layer deposition—are slow and complicated. The new approach is cheap and easy to implement, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Essentially, platinum dissolved in a solution is deposited in single-atom-thick layers by alternately applying positive and negative voltages. Repetition can quickly and easily build layers of any desired atomic thickness. Shown here is a scanning tunneling microscope image of an ultrathin film layer of platinum deposited on gold after five seconds. Darker areas are exposed gold substrate not yet covered by the platinum. 

Courtesy of Gokcen/the National Institute of Standards and Technology

BIO-INSPIRED PLASTIC:

 

Light enough to permit flight and thin enough to accommodate flexibility and strong enough to protect its host, natural insect cuticle—found in the rigid exoskeletons of houseflies and grasshoppers—provides its host protection without adding weight or bulk. Researchers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed a new material calledShrilk to replicate insect cuticle’s strength, durability and versatility. Shrilk—so called because it is composed of chitin commonly extracted from discarded shrimp shells and fibroin protein from silk—could be used to make trash bags, packaging and diapers that degrade quickly. As an exceptionally strong, biocompatible material, it might also be used to suture wounds that bear high loads, such as in hernia repair or as a scaffold for tissue regeneration.   

Courtesy of Wyss Institute, Harvard University