The New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) has awarded a Cornell University professor a $750,000 grant to explore the use of plant and microbial resources to produce biofuels, industrial chemicals, natural products and other consumer goods. Larry Walker, a professor in the Department of Biological... Read more →
For the first time, scientists have manipulated hydrogen atoms into stable sites beneath the surface of a palladium crystal, creating a structure predicted to be important in metal catalysts, in hydrogen storage and in fuel cells. The research, led by Paul S. Weiss at Penn State, will be published in... Read more →
Neutron-scattering image reveals where hydrogen molecules (red-green circles) connect to a metal organic framework (MOF). The ball-and-stick model of the MOF is superimposed on the neutron image. Image: T. Yildirim/NIST Two new papers highlight the potential of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in two different and critical future applications: hydrogen storage and... Read more →
Altair Nanotechnologies (Altairnano), a supplier of advanced ceramic nanomaterials used, among other applications, in lithium-ion battery electrodes, has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Indiana Advanced Energy Technologies Program (AETP) initiative. The Indiana Energy Group has awarded six grants on a competitive basis from this program during 2005. The... Read more →
Transmission Electron Microscope image of aerogel GreenShift Corporation, a business development corporation that invests in emerging companies and technologies which might enable large environmental gains, is taking a 25% position ($500,000) position in Aerogel Composite (ACI), a development-stage company making meso-porous carbon aerogel composites. ACI has patented a process for... Read more →
Ford Motor Company, The Boeing Company and Northwestern University are forming a new alliance to research commercial applications of nanotechnology. The announcement comes at the same time that Ford and Northwestern University are dedicating a new $30-million engineering center on the school’s campus. The research alliance agreement, which is expected... Read more →
Nanostructured materials are the basis for two research projects investigating the solar production of hydrogen and hydrogen storage. Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, the University of Georgia and Nomadics are developing a device that integrates two kinds of solar cells—a photovoltaic cell to produce electricity and a photoelectrochemical cell to... Read more →
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists are predicting that carbon nanotubes “decorated” with titanium or other transition metals can latch on to hydrogen molecules in numbers sufficient for efficient hydrogen storage—a key enabler for long-term efforts to develop affordable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In the model to the... Read more →
GEMZ Corp., a nanotech startup, is set to acquire an exclusive license to a new thermal acoustic process for the production of bucky balls—C60—to be used for the storage of hydrogen. While the technology is still conceptual, and its development is “uncertain and fraught with risk,” according to GEMZ, it... Read more →
Thermoelectric materials—materials that exploit a phenomenon in which the application of heat to combinations of certain metals induces an electric current—are emerging as potentially important systems for increasing fuel efficiency and decreasing emissions...and maybe even as a wildcard solution for propulsion in the future. Thomas Seebeck, a German physicist, first... Read more →
PhysOrg.com. Using a method called magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM), IBM scientists have achieved a breakthrough in nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by directly detecting the faint magnetic signal from a single electron buried inside a solid sample. This achievement is a major milestone toward creating a microscope that can... Read more →
Nanostellar, a startup striving to replace platinum group materials in catalytic converters with efficient, lower-costs nanocatalysts, raised $3 million in first round financing. Conventional catalytic technologies utilize platinum as the main catalyst to control automobile emissions and to generate clean energy power. Nanostellars platinum nano-composite material design technology reduces the... Read more →
One answer to political gridlock over fuel susbidies is, of course, to not to need them. The rapid developments in nanotech and biotech (or nanobiotech) will help in that regard -- that and the increasing price of oil. From the German consultancy Helmut Kaiser: In some countries the costs for... Read more →
Fueling some of the arguments against hydrogen is the energy cost for creating it. In other words, a dirty coal-fired electrical plant generating the power required to create the clean hydrogen through electrolysis reduces the system-wide benefit of hydrogen. There are many approaches currently under investigation for the creation of... Read more →