The secret to better solar panels just might be in a big magnet.The industrial-strength magnet is inside a roomful of experimental work on New Haven’s Hillhouse Avenue, where it makes ultra-tiny “nanowires” all stand up in one direction.

For Yale engineering professor Chinedum Osuji and his colleagues, this is a breakthrough: It allows energy to travel through channels in a polymer matrix, rather than meandering about. The end result is more energy produced, since less is lost in the chaos of disorganization.

Think about the Mason Lab activities this way: Osuji’s efforts look like a multi-lane highway, while the older scenarios resemble a Plinko board from the television game show “The Price Is Right.”

“We’re overcoming the bottlenecks,” Osuji said.

That’s a promising development for people looking to solar panels and other renewable energy sources to help solve our dependence on foreign oil. It’s also a rare ray of hope. Despite the promise of everything from Osuji’s nanowires to flexible “power plastic” solar panels, nano-enabled energy isn’t ready to provide a full alternative to our thirst for fossil fuels.

Gwyneth K. Shaw Photo

Osuji (pictured) and his colleagues recently published their work, which took more than a year to complete. It could make a big contribution to overcoming a challenge that’s a constant source of vexation for developers looking to expand the world’s capacity to generate and store solar energy: Efficiency.Big, heavy, hard panels made of silicon are the standard in solar power. But they’re expensive and need to be carefully installed to maximize their ability to produce energy, making them impractical for many people and uses. That’s why scientists and manufacturers are looking to nanotechnology for solutions for solar and other energy applications, seeking answers in the often-unique properties of ultra-tiny materials.

But interviews with leading nanotechnology researchers and corporate leaders suggest that, at least for now, nano-based applications are niche-fillers at best.

So if nano-energy isn’t heralding the transformative advent of “green energy” that’s being sought—and subsidized—by governments around the world, what can it do?

Solar Hype, Or Reality?

The question is more pointed now, in the wake of the controversial federal loans to the now-failed solar company Solyndra. That debacle has highlighted the difficulties of funding innovation in a field that’s still really in its infancy.

Ian Illuminato, a health and environmental campaigner for the advocacy group Friends of the Earth, worked on a scathing report that questioned the practical value of nano-based energy efforts. The report found more hype than reality.

Some examples, according to the report: Nano-based solar panels are less efficient than their bigger, silicon-based cousins. Super-light carbon nanotubes may make wind turbines more durable, but the energy needed to produce them nullifies some of the energy they generate. And the end of the useful life for these products may create new disposal problems.

“Through my research, it was hard for me to pinpoint factual details that led me to believe this is something that’s actually going to have a big impact,” Illuminato said.

Then there are the potential effects of some nanomaterials on people, animals and the environment. While the small size of these particles—a nanometer is a billionth of a meter—makes them exciting, it can also create problems. Carbon nanotubes, which add strength with almost no weight to composite materials, circuits and other products, are insulating and conducting, but may be hazardous when inhaled.

The U.S. government finds itself in a strange spot with this and other emerging technologies: Funding its development while scrambling to research the possible downsides. In the interim, few laws specifically govern nano-enabled products.

“I think that’s the biggest issue—we’re kind of walking blindly here,” Illuminato said. “There’s no laws, and nobody wants to enforce this.”

For now, though, the focus is mostly on what these new materials can do to help wean the human race off fossil fuels, even as we use more and more energy.

Emphasis On “Mini”

Konarka Photo

When a customer comes to Ken McCauley, senior vice president of sales, marketing and business development at Konarka Technologies, Inc., looking for megawatts of power, he tells them they’ve got the wrong company. Konarka, based in Lowell, Mass., makes flexible, customizable solar panels in an old Polaroid film factory. The panels, which the company calls “power plastic,” can be incorporated into a wide array of objects, from window glass to laptop cases, making mundane surfaces mini-generators.But the emphasis is on the “mini.”

“That’s not our business,” McCauley said of the capacity to generate bigger amounts of electricity. “We’re more about putting renewable energy into small spaces, and kind of the overarching view that I have is I think renewable energy will become so ubiquitous at some point in the not too distant future that we’ll tend to not think of it at all.”

The company’s technology is simple, McCauley said: “Basically, it’s a plastic that makes electricity when the sun hits it.”

The big difference from silicon-based photovoltaic, or PV, panels is that it doesn’t use metal. Instead, polymers conduct the electricity. That’s why Konarka’s products can be small and flexible.

Konarka’s panels are being used on the roofs of bus shelters in San Francisco, deriving enough energy from the sun to power not just the LED nighttime lights, but WiFi connections as well, McCauley said. Adding the company’s film-like solar panels to window glass can reduce the load on air-conditioning systems while generating some of the power needed to run them.

“About 40 percent of the energy used in this country is by buildings,” McCauley said. “The more we can reduce that, the better off we’ll be.”

MIT professor Gang Chen, who is also the director of a U.S. Department of Energy-funded research center on solar-thermal energy conversion, is bullish on the nano-energy field. Even small gains are important, he said, and nanotechnology is transforming the field of batteries and other products that use small circuits.

“People don’t quite appreciate that energy is a very difficult field,” he said. “Your competition is from coal, which is very cheap.”

Chen also said that thinking just in terms of “nano” gives an incomplete picture of what’s going on. Lots of batteries and other products might have a nano-sized component, but if it’s not marketed as “nanotechnology,” it’s discounted, he said.

“Nobody knows what’s inside—it’s nano, but actually at the end, your interface is at the macro level,” he said. “So normally, people would not pay attention.”

Chen praised the Obama administration, and in particular Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Chen said the administration has been open and positive on all kinds of alternative energy ideas, and research money is flowing in ways that reflect a real commitment. But much more needs to be done before the U.S. is competitive on a global level, Chen said.

“In general, if you compare what the U.S. is doing to other countries—Germany is a good example—we are far behind in terms of the government trying to really push and stimulate,” he said.

But Illuminato argues that some of that support may be going to the wrong places.

“What we found is a lot of governments … were supporting nanotechnology research to find and extract more oil and gas,” Illuminato said. “That’s not really a green application.”

In addition, Illuminato said, the process of engineering nanomaterials—mostly for other applications—is often energy-intensive. Carbon nanotubes, for example, are made in a giant furnace, and require lots of water to process. Purifying other substances, like nanogold, for medical uses can also eat up precious resources. And nano-enabled energy products aren’t making up the difference.

“What we’re really seeing on the market is nano-strengthened golf clubs,” Illuminato said. “These products aren’t offering any environmental savings, and these products are the ones that really outnumber the products that really could offer energy savings.”

Illuminato said he does think that nano-enabled energy will eventually make a difference in concert with a number of other developments—and efforts by people to simply change their behavior. He hopes companies, and the U.S. government, will stop making claims and open up the process, so everyone can see what’s possible, what’s not and what is going into these newfangled products.

“When it comes down to it, we just need to acknowledge these issues and we just need to be honest,” he said.

That honesty includes expecting breakthroughs from “nanotechnology,” when the actual chemistry isn’t that different from what’s been happening in laboratories for decades. Both Osuji and Yale professor Hur Koser said they often marvel at the expectations engendered by the term.

“Nanotechnology really has been worked on for more than a century—it really is chemistry,” Koser said.

It was a hot topic, especially when it came to grant funding, when the government wanted a “decade of energy,” fueled by innovations using super-small materials.

“There was an era in the early 2000s when you just could not get funded without ‘nano’ in the title,” he said.

Such trends aren’t unusual, Osuji said.

“I think nanotechnology’s like everything else—it suffers from hype or marketing,” he said.

“The truth is, it’s been ages that people have been studying small particles,” Osuji added. The trick now is converting those particles into applications that can go beyond the lab—where his group’s work is—and into commercial production. He’s confident the process of getting the nanowires to go vertical and stay there, using the magnet, is a “scalable” development, meaning it can be reproduced easily in a large capacity.

As those scale-ups happen, will the science of safety keep up? Illuminato said the answer to that question should come from a society that’s grappling with the tradeoffs associated with its deep hunger for energy.

“I think nanotechnology, and the root of where it’s coming from … is going to have an impact on the world, and I think it’s up to us to choose what kind of impact it’s going to have,” he said. “I think the positive elements of this technology are going to come out of transparency, and making sure the money, especially that taxpayers are putting into this, is not just another way to make another buck.”

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While receiving minimal regulatory scrutiny or public attention, nanotechnology is becoming an increasingly prevalent practice for developing the next generation of ingredients in a wide range of consumer products. Generally defined, nanotechnology is the practice of manipulating matter on an atomic or molecular level to produce materials between 1 and 100 nanometers (nm) in size. A nanometer is equivalent to one billionth of a meter and a typical human hair measures approximately 50,000 nm in width. The extreme reduction in size that nanomaterials undergo imparts many novel properties including greater strength, mobility and richness of color as well as increased conductivity and elasticity. These characteristics have raised concerns that nanomaterials may become highly reactive and toxic and, once released into the environment, impossible to contain or monitor.

The original 2006 petition directed FDA to address concerns about nanomaterials within two areas under its jurisdiction. First, it requested that FDA issue a formal opinion characterizing the known and potential risks of nanomaterials related to their toxicity and mobility and establish overarching definitions and regulations for handling such materials. Second, the petition requested that FDA reverse its 1999 decision that nano-sized ingredients used in sunscreens, including titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, are not functionally different from the larger-sized particles previously approved as human drugs. Finding otherwise would have required sunscreen formulators seeking to use the nano-sized ingredients to conduct and submit safety and efficacy studies as part of a new human drug approval review. The petition questions how the nano-sized ingredients could be sufficiently novel to receive patents, yet are not functionally different from the ingredients already in use. Citing the lack of required safety and efficacy studies, the petition requests that FDA declare any sunscreen products containing nanomaterials to be an imminent hazard to human health and order manufacturers to cease production.

“Nano means more than tiny; it means materials that have the capacity to be fundamentally different. Yet more and more novel nanomaterials are being infused into new consumer products every day, while FDA sits idly by,” said George Kimbrell, ICTA attorney. “The agency’s unlawful delay unnecessarily places consumers and the environment at risk.”

FDA is not the only federal agency to act precipitously in approving the use of nanomaterials before completing its pre-marketing regulatory review. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has conditionally registered a pesticide product containing nanosilver as a new active ingredient. The antimicrobial pesticide product, HeiQ AGS-20, a silver-based product for use as a preservative for textiles to help control odors, is being granted registration despite a long list of outstanding studies that have yet to be submitted and reviewed by EPA. As a testament to EPA’s flawed registration process, the agency will now require additional data on the product after it has entered the marketplace to confirm its assumption that the product will not cause ‘unreasonable adverse effects on human health or the environment,’ the general standard for registration under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

At its October 2010 meeting, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) passed a recommendation to prohibit engineered nanomaterials in certified organic products as expeditiously as possible. The NOSB, the expert citizen advisory panel set up by Congress to advise the USDA on organic policy, reviews materials and provides recommendations to the National Organic Program (NOP) on what should be allowed and prohibited in organic agriculture and processing, as materials and methods change over time. Organic advocates, members of the organic industry, and the NOSB expressed concern that engineered nanomaterials could contaminate organic food and fibers.

Sources: ICTA Press Release, beyondpesticides.org

This can become a problem when a patient appears whose symptoms could represent a bad flu, but could also be indicative of cancer. In the absence of proper equipment from which many urban doctors benefit, rural patients can be misdiagnosed or mistreated due to the impracticality of running the gamut of tests on them.

Linda Pilarski, a University of Alberta oncology professor and Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Nanotechnology, has been working since 1998 to change this.

Researchers have made great strides in diagnostic tools for detecting the genetic abnormalities that lead to or signal cancers, but many of these remain solely the province of experimental labs because of practical impediments like the cost of equipment.

Aiming specifically to make clinical medicine easier and less expensive to conduct, Pilarski and her team have created a microfluidic chip about the size of a thumbnail that can test for up to 80 different genetic markers of cancer.

“Most of the things we were doing were much too complicated to do in a clinical lab,” Pilarski said. “Their technology has to be far more regulated than what we’re doing in the lab. It may be feasible [to use current experimental tests] in a big research hospital, but not in Stony Plains, in our little health care centre, for example.

“And with tests that are feasible, they’re feasible only because they study many samples at once.”

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, for example, is a rare cancer that mostly affects children. When detected and treated early enough, it has an exceptionally high cure rate. But if left untreated, it can prove fatal in as little as a few weeks.

The equipment to test for this kind of cancer is typically only at centrally located labs, and 100 or 200 samples from different patients need to be tested using current technology.

“There might not be 100 cases [of the disease] in all of Canada in a year,” let alone at one time in one area, Pilarski said.

This was part of the thinking that led her and her team to work on a way to test individual samples, and for several different possible cancers at once. They have reversed the normal procedure, studying several samples for one disease, in the hopes of making tests easier to do in more remote locations.

There are about 80 small posts attached to a glass chip, and each post carries out a different test for a different mutation. Unlike the currently used larger equipment, Pilarski says these chips should allow clinicians to perform the tests within an hour, and rather than make patients wait a nerve-wracking few days for their results, they can find out before they leave the lab.

While Pilarski’s work has focused on cancer, the chip she has developed could be used to test for any number of illnesses, which is precisely what medical equipment company Aquila Diagnostics plans to do with Pilarski’s technology.

“Some of the first things to come out might not be for cancer but for infectious diseases,” Pilarski said.

The microfluidic chip technology could be used to quickly rule out several infectious diseases when a patient appears at an emergency room with a fever, which could, for all attending physicians know, be anything from a mild flu to the West Nile virus, which is much more dangerous.

In addition to ERs in the developed world, a small, transportable chip would be immensely useful in areas with more patchwork health facilities, which can often also be places where infectious diseases run rampant. Pilarski mentioned sub-Saharan Africa specifically, where nearly 11 million children die every year. Major causes are pneumonia and diarrhea, which are treatable, and malaria, which causes 16 per cent of the deaths of children under five, and which is also treated easily.

Pilarski said she expects the chip to be ready for field-testing in the next year. These will not be clinical trials, which take place shortly before a technology is approved for widespread use, but simply trials outside the research lab.

NVE Corp., an Eden Prairie company that makes magnetic nanotechnology products for computer memory, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court charging a competitor with infringing on three of its patents.

NVE alleged that Everspin Technologies Inc. of Chandler, Ariz., used three of NVE’s patents to make what are called Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory products, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.

Executives for Everspin were traveling and could not be reached for comment Tuesday, a company spokeswoman said.

In conventional computer Random Access Memory, computer memory is stored using electrical charges in a semiconductor, such as silicon.

But Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory uses spintronics, a nanotechnology that depends upon magnetic forces to harness spinning electrons. The spinning electrons hold data, saving battery power and eliminating long software boot-ups because the memory is always on.

“We have invested significant resources in research and development over the years, and we are defending our rights to protect these investments,” NVE Chief Executive Daniel Baker said in a statement Tuesday.

NVE filed the patents in 2001 and 2002, according to the lawsuit.

In its lawsuit, NVE asked the court to enjoin Everspin from making and selling products that infringe upon the patents.

NVE also asked the court to make Everspin pay treble damages for willful infringement. NVE did not specify a damage amount,

Popper, an agronomist with vast experience in the produce industry in Chile and abroad, has formed a portfolio of technological solutions for agribusiness under the umbrella of company Bello Sur S.A.

Popper has partnered up with C-TEC Ltd, which is the first Chilean company dedicated to developing nanotechnology products and solutions, formed by Fabián and Marcos Orellana in 2007. The pair had previously worked for American and Japanese companies involved in the platform, while their creation C-TEC is also engaged in consultancy based on good manufacturing practices for nanotechnology.

The joint partnership between C-TEC and Bello Sur offers the product TI-CLEAN, which provides an unseen nanocoating made up of active polymers that cover the surfaces of any product that needs cleaning, but doesn’t change its physical properties.

The use of these nanopolymers on the applied surface, or substrate, makes it easier to clean by having better control of microorganisms. This allows for the reduction or elimination of toxic chemicals or pollutants in the cleaning process, making sure that the grime doesn’t stick.

Popper tells www.freshfruitportal.com that the function works following the Lotus Effect, named after what occurs naturally with the lotus flower, whereby water is not able to remain on leaves and when sliding down it drags dust particles and dirt with it.

Alberto Popper

Popper says the technology provides several benefits to agribusiness when applied to sanitization processes for faciliites and the protection of equipment.

Unlike traditional cleaning methods, where chemicals are applied that can be toxic or contaminating, nanotechnology usually has no or few residual effects in the control of microorganisms, bringing self-cleaning to the substrates and permanent biological control.

This allows for significant savings in time, energy, labor and water in the washing and cleaning processes of agriculture, facilitating water flow and preventing the formation of salt and carcareous crust. The process also prevents corrosion and the accumulation of dirt.

He says the industry currently washes surfaces by disinfecting with chemicals to remove microogranisms including chlorine and ammonium compounds. This is applied with liquids and then removed, whereas nanotechnology solutions are an ongoing form of biological control.

Popper points out that the applied coating is not toxic with a good food safety grade.

Implementation

He says the technology has already been implemented in several fruit packaging and processing plants, as well as facilities for various kinds of food production such as meat, where microbiological control requirements are paramount.

The cleaning product can be used in all sorts of areas, from food handling and processing to health facilities.

Popper say he is developing a line of products and services for institutional and domestic use, which are on the verge of going to the market.

www.freshfruitportal.com

ItN Nanovation is a portfolio company of Germany’s Nanostart (ETR:NNS, PINK:NASRY), a leading nanotechnology investment company. Nanostart has nine portfolio companies including previously profiled Magforce. It seeks to identify the most promising nanotechnology companies from around the world, providing capital and management expertise. The size of each investment ranges from between one and ten euro per deal with the goal of successful exits through a trade sale or initial public offering. Nanostart has thus far invested around €7 million in ItN Nanovation (ETR:I7N) and holds a 19% stake in the company.

ItN Nanovation joins the growing ranks of nanotechnology companies following scientific breakthroughs in the 1990s. It was formed in 2000 and went public in 2006. The Nanostart portfolio company produces high-performance ceramic water filters for industrial customers with nanoparticles as building blocks. These ceramic filters are more efficient than standard products, allowing for both energy and cost savings. The ceramic material’s high stability opens up an array of possible uses for the filter including municipal sewage and wastewater treatment, pretreatment of sea water for desalination, the beverage industry, and separation of oil contaminants from water. ItN also uses its technology to create ceramic coatings as protective layers and catalysts with utility in industries ranging from aluminum foundries to coal-fired power plants.

On October 20, Nanostart-holding ItN announced the finalization of a joint venture with Saudi-Arabian partner Juffali and a consortium of German industrial investors. A preliminary agreement from the previous year had been fully hashed out after intense negotiations. The new venture will be called Saudi Water Nanovation LLC and will distribute ItN Nanovation’s ceramic flat membranes, or CFM Systems along with corresponding accessories in the Middle East and North Africa.

The deal calls for the establishment of a dedicated CFM manufacturing facility with production to occur locally in Saudi Arabia. Final construction is expected in 2014 while production may start by 2013. Once complete, ItN’s capacity will be increased three fold.

Nanostart-held ItN will have an initial 17.5 percent stake in the joint venture and recognize $2.35 million in income as advance payment for a limited contribution of production expertise. Two-thirds of this payment will be used to acquire its initial stake. Once the business license for this venture has been granted by the Saudi government, ItN will recognize the payment as other operating income. A license is expected by the end of 2011. The contract also gives ItN the option to increase its stake to 40% if exercised by 2015.

Furthermore, ItN will receive revenue-based royalties and share in the earnings from the operation. CFM Systems produced under the Saudi Water Nanovation venture will be used for pre-filtration as part of the reverse osmosis process in the treatment of drinking water.

The Middle-East and North Africa represents a core market for water filtration due to its arid environment and lack of surface fresh water. Nanostart-holding ItN Nanovation’s new joint venture gives it a local presence with production facilities and an improved ability to address this important region. The collaboration provides additional validation of ItN’s ceramic technology. At the same time, it allowed the company to ramp up mass production of the CFM Systems.

Benefits of the joint venture go both ways. Dry Saudi Arabia has virtually no natural surface lakes or rivers, while annual precipitation is around 10 cm. Nearly all drinking water comes from deep underground wells; the initial quality of this water is poor and not suitable for consumption due largely to a high salt content. With a large and growing population, the Kingdom is in constant need of clean drinking water.

Salt removal is done through a process called reverse osmosis whereby semi-permeable membranes are used to trap salt molecules. Because these membranes are extremely delicate and expensive, a pre-filtration step used to remove larger particles such as dissolved metals. Nanostart’s portfolio company has developed a technique to precipitate these large particles into a sludge, then filter them off with the ceramic flat filters. The high quality filters protect and prolong the life of the reverse osmosis membranes.

A nine month pilot study by ItN Nanovation demonstrated its filters to be superior to both conventional polymer and simple sand filters. It withstood the harsh conditions of Saudi Arabia’s high temperature, high-salt well water showing a much longer lifetime while at the same time requiring less maintenance. And unlike other filters, the ItN filters can be back-flushed. According to the company, efficiency is four and a half times better than products from competing top manufacturers.

While we in Western society take fresh water for granted, it is truly a commodity in much of the world. It is estimated a billion people suffer from water shortages. Water filtration products from Nanostart-held  ItN Nanovation can be part of the solution.

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http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/21225/nanostarts-investment-in-itn-nanovation-starting-to-show-real-potential-21225.html

Most smartphone users worry about getting their handset wet and often use a protective case to make sure their device remains dry if dropped in liquid by accident. However come the future those water resistant smartphone cases may become a thing of the past thanks to nanotechnology from HzO.

In the video Calyson dunks a Samsung Galaxy S II that has been coated HZO’s nanotechnology into a bowl of water, the “nano-scale film barrier” is surrounding the electronics inside the handset and the exterior of the device and allows the device to continue to operate under water.

The Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone even rings normally when Clayson rings the device. According to Clayson the “vapour-coating technology” also works on other materials such as paper, as he shows in the video by dropping a business card in the water as well.

Clayton says in the footage that the water is actually getting inside the handset but the electronic assembly is completely surrounded by the tech and so still works.

Could this be the future of waterproofing on smartphones, and brings with it the demise of the waterproof smartphone case? One can only wait and see if the new tech takes off, but personally I think it is a great new tech, anyway head on down to mash that play button and check out the demonstration…enjoy.

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http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2011/11/17/future-smartphone-tech-hzo-nanotechnology-water-proofing/

Using nanoscale light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, computer engineers at Princeton have found a way to transmit information via microchips using much less electricity that current methods, which typically rely on lasers. “Nanophotonics is key to the technology. In the heart of their device, the engineers have inserted little islands of the light-emitting material indium arsenide, which, when pulsed with electricity, produce light.” The new device was first announced in the journal Nature Communications.

What’s the Big Idea?

Computer engineers have worried that the growth of computer power is limited by the increasing amounts of electricity needed to transmit ever-larger amounts of data. When too much electricity is used, chips simply overheat and shut down. But Princeton’s new LED-powered microchips are 2,000 times as efficient as other devices currently in use, says Jelena Vuckovic, who led the research team. By using very little electricity, the development may help sustain Moore’s Law, which has predicted the exponential growth of computer power.

Read it at Science Daily

NanoKTN want to bring the ICT and healthcare sectors closer together

NanoKTN, the knowledge based network for micro and nanotechnologies, want to bring the miniaturisation of ICT technology to the healthcare market.

By WKTV News