Volumetric hydrogen uptake for graphene (diamonds), (6,6) carbon nanotubes (squares), pillared material (triangles), and Li-doped pillared (stars) at (a) 77 K and (b) 300 K. Click to enlarge. Credit: ACS Researchers at the University of Crete (Greece) have designed a novel 3-D network nanostructure that almost meets the US Department... Read more →

The nanorods, and capacity compared to commercial powders. Click to enlarge. Credit: ACS An international team led by Dr. Yi Cui at Stanford University has produced free-standing single-crystalline LiMn2O4 nanorods that, when used as a cathode material in Li-ion batteries, show a high charge storage capacity at high power rates... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a $2 million grant to the University of Kentucky (UK) to investigate how the sizes and shapes of nanoparticles affect their ability to enter the brain. This is the largest EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant ever awarded to the University of... Read more →

Ligand-coated platinum nanoparticles (blue and gray balls) nestled amongst the block co-polymers (blue and green strands). The self-assembly of platinum nanoparticles through the use of ligands and polymers is the key first step to a new method for structuring metals developed by Cornell Researchers. Click to enlarge. Image courtesy of... Read more →

FESEM micrograph of the electrospun POM fibers. Click to enlarge. Courtesy of the American Chemical Society Researchers at Tsinghua University in China reported the first successful electrospinning of polyoxymethylene (POM)—a type of plastic widely used in automobiles and electronics due to its properties such as good strength, stiffness, abrasion, and... Read more →

A materials chemist working in the Organic Materials Innovation Centre (OMIC) at The University of Manchester (UK), has won £150,000 (US$296,000) of new funding to explore the use of a special polymer in a catalytic membrane system to capture and recover CO2 from power plants. Dr. Peter Budd’s project, funded... Read more →

The addition of Al or Al2O3 nanoparticles increases the probability of ignition. Click to enlarge. Adding aluminum and aluminum oxide nanoparticles to diesel can improve the fuel’s ignition properties, according to a new study published online in the journal Nano Letters. Arizona State University mechanical engineer Patrick E. Phelan and... Read more →

Modeled snapshots and gravimetric adsorption capacities of hydrogen in the silicon nanotube arrays (SiNT), top; and carbon nanotubes (CNT), bottom. T = 298 K and P = 2, 6, and 10 MPa. Click to enlarge. Researchers at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT) have determined that silicon nanotubes can... Read more →

Honed cylinder coating made from one of the materials (SUNA) under test. Click to enlarge. Ford Research Centre Aachen (Germany) is developing a thermally sprayed nano-coating using a Plasma Transferred Wire Arc (PTWA) process that could replace the heavier cast iron liners that provide the necessary wear resistance of cylinder... Read more →

Computed structures of all-carbon cages of fullerenes filled with hydrogen. Click to enlarge. Researchers at Rice University have modelled fullerene nanocages filled with hydrogen to assess their capacity to store the gas. Among their conclusions are that some buckyballs (a C60 cage) can hold about 8 wt% of hydrogen at... Read more →

A cross-section of nano-crystalline bismuth antimony telluride grains, as viewed through a transmission electron microscope. Colors highlight the features of each grain of the semiconductor alloy in bulk form. Click to enlarge. Image: Boston College, MIT, and GMZ Inc. Researchers at Boston College and MIT have achieved a major increase... Read more →

The new catalyst is a core of ruthenium surrounded by one to two layers of platinum atoms. Click to enlarge. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Maryland (UM) have designed from first principles a new type of chemical catalyst that efficiently oxidizes carbon monoxide (CO). CO is... Read more →

A ZIF structure. Click to enlarge. Researchers led by Omar Yaghi at UCLA have developed a new class of materials—zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs)—that exhibit “unusual” selectivity for capturing carbon dioxide from gas mixtures and “extraordinary” capacity for storing CO2. The work is reported in the 15 February issue of the... Read more →

The cylinder is the carrier of a hybrid membrane: a layer of about 100 nanometer thickness. The insert is a close-up of the layer showing the organic links and pores. From the left of the tube, only water molecules leave the sieve. Click to enlarge. Researchers at the University of... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Calgary (Canada) have developed a new process for capturing and storing gas in metal organic frameworks based on the use of “molecular nanovalves”. The new method of gas storage could yield benefits for capturing, storing and transporting gases more safely and efficiently. Using the orderly... Read more →

AFM images of the same tubes before and after hydrogenation. (a) Before hydrogenation, a SWNT with the diameter of ~1.8 nm; (b) diameter of the tube in panel a increased to ~2.1 nm after hydrogenation; (c) before hydrogenation, a SWNT with diameter of ~1.0 nm; (d) the tube in panel... Read more →

A nano-sized crystalline cage that shows promise as a superior storage material for methane. Click to enlarge. Courtesy of Shengqian Ma, Miami University. Researchers have developed a new metal-organic framework (MOF) material with what they believe to be the highest methane storage capacity yet measured. Methane adsorption studies of the... Read more →

Second-generation prototype Solar Hydrogen Generator with solar concentrator. Nanoptek Corporation, a renewable energy company that produces hydrogen directly from water using sunlight and its proprietary photocatalyst, has closed a $4.7 million Series A equity financing round led by The Quercus Trust, a California fund with multiple investments in clean technology... Read more →

False-color image of Caltech silicon nanowire thermoelectric device. The central green area is the Si nanowire array, which is not resolved at this larger magnification. The four-lead yellow electrodes are used for thermometry. The thermal gradient is established with either of the two Joule heaters (the right-hand heater is colored... Read more →

A team of researchers from California, Mexico and China have combined two nanotech methods for engineering solar cell materials to create a material that performs better than expected. Two methods for engineering solar cell materials that have shown particular promise are the use of thin films of metal oxide nanoparticles,... Read more →

The structure of Nafion, according to the new study. Click to enlarge. Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have developed a new model to explain the structure and function of Nafion proton exchange membranes (PEM) in fuel cells. Understanding Nafion’s structure may enable other scientists to build... Read more →

Molecular model of CaHydI hydrogenase enzyme bound to a SWNT, one of several plausible arrangements. The yellow and green units show the FeS clusters. There are many possible geometries, but the existence of a strong electronic interaction demonstrates that at least one of the FeS clusters must be proximal to... Read more →

A research team led by a University of Pennsylvania mechanical engineer has discovered that friction between two sliding bodies can be reduced at the molecular, or nanoscale, level by changing the mass of the atoms at the surface. Heavier atoms vibrate at a lower frequency, reducing energy lost during sliding.... Read more →

Patented nanometal/polymer hybrid technology using DuPont engineering polymers substrate produces stiff, strong parts. Click to enlarge. Source: DuPont DuPont, Canada-based Morph Technologies Inc., Integran Technologies Inc., and US-based PowerMetal Technologies have formed an alliance to develop and commercialize a nanocrystalline metal/polymer hybrid technology that will be used to manufacture extremely... Read more →

An FESEM image of a Ti-Fe-O nanotube array. Click to enlarge. A research group headed by Professor of Electrical Engineering Craig Grimes at Penn State University is developing an inexpensive and easily scalable technique for water photoelectrolysis—the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen using light energy. In a paper... Read more →

The crystalline structure of boric acid. Boron atoms are shown as blue spheres, oxygen as pink, and hydrogen as brown. Molecular forces that bind the layers in the lattice enable them to slide over one another with very low friction. Click to enlarge. Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s... Read more →

A cross-section after fracture of a paper-material comprising individual and layered sheets of graphene oxide (prepared by Sasha Stankovich). This is a scanning electron microscope image, scale bar is 1 micrometer in length. The inset shows a strip of this graphene oxide paper held with metal tweezers. (Images by Dmitriy... Read more →

A Lin Group nanosphere. Catilin, a start-up funded by Mohr Davidow Ventures, is seeking to commercialize a mesoporous silica nanosphere (MSN)-based catalyst developed by researchers at Iowa State University that could make the production of biodiesel less expensive, faster, and more flexible with respect to feedstock oils. Victor Lin, an... Read more →

(A) Low-magnification SEM image of a platinum tetrahexahedral nanocrystal and its geometrical model. (B) High-resolution transmission electron microscopy image recorded from a platinum tetrahexahedral nanocrystal to reveal surface atomic steps in the areas made of (210) and (310) sub-facets. Click to enlarge. Source: Zhong Lin Wang A research team composed... Read more →

A new cerium-oxide catalyst developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is showing promise for the efficient reduction of NOx emissions in diesel engine exhaust. The technology has been under development for a number of years and has a patent pending. A number of companies have... Read more →

Solar splitting of CO2. Click to enlarge. Chemists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have demonstrated the feasibility of the solar splitting of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. Because their device is not yet optimized, they still need to input additional energy for the process to... Read more →

Scanning electron micrographs of barium titanate (BaTiO3) nanocomposites with polycarbonate (left, top and bottom) and Viton (right, top and bottom) polymer matrices. The images show the dramatic improvement in film uniformity. Click to enlarge. Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a new technique for creating films of barium titanate (BaTiO3)... Read more →

The crystal structure of COF-108. Synthesized only from light elements (H,B,C,O) COF-108 is the lowest-density crystal ever produced (0.17 g/cm3). Click to enlarge. Credit: José L. Mendoza-Cortés Chemists at UCLA have designed new organic structures for the storage of voluminous amounts of gases for use in alternative energy technologies. The... Read more →

Structure of chromium (III) diphenyl dicarboxylate, one of the new crystalline solids, in its crude form following synthesis (middle), with all traces of solvent removed (on the left), and after absorption of solvent and increase in volume (on the right). Click to enlarge. Source: G. Férey, CNRS 2007 A team... Read more →

Earlier results of QSI electrode development. Click to enlarge. QuantumSphere, Inc. (QSI) will present the results of its recent research into increasing efficiencies of electrodes made from compressed nano catalysts for hydrogen electrolysis, as well as a new concept in electrode design it calls Stingray, at the upcoming National Hydrogen... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed an advanced concept in nanoscale catalyst engineering that could bring polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells for hydrogen-powered vehicles closer to commercialization. The Argonne researchers, Nenad Markovic and Vojislav Stamenkovic, published related results last month in Science and... Read more →

Ford Motor Company is collaborating with Boeing and Northwestern University on nanotechnology research focused on lighter weight metals and plastics with greater strength to improve the safety and fuel economy of its vehicles. The three announced their intention to form a research partnership for commercial applications of nanotechnology in October... Read more →

Multi-walled MoS2 nano-octahedron. Click to enlarge. Source: A. Enyashin, TU Dresden German and Israeli researchers have shown for the first time that the shape, as well as the size, of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) used as a catalyst for producing sulfur-free fuels effects the catalytic potential of the material. The results... Read more →

Images of the ceramic. TEM analysis of the ceramic cast from THF after pyrolysis to 1,000°C in ammonia, from left to right: bright field image, elemental B map, elemental N map, and high resolution TEM showing short-range order. Click to enlarge. GE Global Research, the centralized research organization of the... Read more →

The Rice work demonstrates a method for the “prolific” generation of carbon nanotubes of the same type. Click to enlarge. Rice University chemists have revealed the first method for cutting carbon nanotubes into “seeds” and using those seeds to sprout new nanotubes. The findings offer hope that seeded growth may... Read more →

Efficiency of QSI Nano-Electrodes versus DoE 2010 target at different flow rates. Click to enlarge. QuantumSphere (QSI), a manufacturer of nano metals and alloys for applications in renewable energy and other markets demanding advanced materials, has announced the recent filing of another patent relating to the production of hydrogen by... Read more →

SEM micrograph showing the uniform formation of mesoporous MFI zeolites. Korean researchers have developed a new type of zeolite that could serve as an efficient catalyst in refining applications. In a paper published online in Nature Materials, the team led by Prof. Ryoo Ryong at the Korea Advanced Institute of... Read more →

A lithium-coated fullerene (buckyball) as a potential material for hydrogen storage. Yellow represents lithium atoms, and black represents carbon atoms. Click to enlarge. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University have described a potential new hydrogen storage system for vehicular applications based on lithium-coated buckyballs. The new material promises a gravimetric storage... Read more →

The cover image: a high magnification transmission electron microscopy image of VN nanoparticles that exhibit enhanced supercapacitor response. A research team led by Carnegie Mellon University Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering Professor Prashant Kumta has discovered a nanocrystalline vanadium nitride (VN) material that is cheaper, more stable and produces a... Read more →

Nanotechnology holds promise for necessary breakthroughs in a number of critical energy sectors, including solar cells, thermoelectric conversion and transport, hydrogen storage, and electrochemical conversion and storage (i.e., batteries, capacitors and fuel cells), according to scientists participating in the first Energy Nanotechnology International Conference (ENIC2006) held June 26-28 at MIT.... Read more →

QuantumSphere, a manufacturer of nanoscale metals and alloys for applications in energy and other markets, is launching a research initiative to develop a low-cost, more efficient system for the electrolytic production of hydrogen from water. QuantumSphere’s water electrolysis processes will alleviate the current dependence on platinum—used as electrodes in electrolysis... Read more →

Silicon-oxygen nanoparticles aggregate to form zeolites, capturing other atoms and molecules in the process. The resulting minerals have regularly-shaped, intricate pore and channel systems throughout their structures. Credit: Michael Tsapatsis, University of Minnesota Zeolites are porous, sieve-like minerals that have been used for decades in purifiers, filters and other devices.... Read more →

Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have created and are investigating the properties of nanotubes made of cerium oxide. These cerium oxide nanotubes have potential applications as catalysts in vehicle emission-control systems and fuel cells. In a catalytic converter, ceria acts as a buffer, absorbing or releasing oxygen, depending on the... Read more →

SSRL is investigating hydrogen storage in carbon nanotubes for use in vehicles. Researchers at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL, a division of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)) have successfully demonstrated hydrogen storage through chemisorption in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCN) of 5.1±1.2 wt. %—very close to the DOE FreedomCAR target of... Read more →

Nanomix Inc., a nanotechnology company specializing in nanoelectronic sensors for industrial and biomedical applications, has been awarded two additional US patents related to cryosorptive hydrogen storage technology. These follow three earlier patents issued to Nanomix in this field. The patents describe the storage of hydrogen using new nanostructured materials that... Read more →