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2010-05-11
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nanomercado.com
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Strong response to the ENIAC Joint Undertaking third call results in 26% more R&D
Brussels, 11 May 2010
The submission of R&D project proposals in response to the third call issued by the ENIAC Joint Undertaking came to closure on 30 April 2010, showing a 26% increase with respect to the previous call. The selected projects shall contribute to the competitiveness and sustainability of the European nanoelectronics industry by sparking progress in the miniaturisation and enhancements in device functionality, driving and being driven by important societal applications in communication and computing, transportation, health care and wellness, energy and environmental management, security and safety, and entertainment.
Dr. Andreas Wild, the Executive Director of the ENIAC Joint Undertaking, said: The strong response to the third call convincingly demonstrates that the ENIAC Joint Undertaking takes public-private partnerships to the next level by federating national and European resources. The total requested funding exceeds more than 4 times the available budget, confirming the strong innovative character of R&D in the nanoelectronics sector and providing a solid basis for future increases in public financial support.
The rigorous selection process begins now with a review of all proposals by a panel of experts who will provide valuable feedback to consortia in support of the preparation and submission of Full Project Proposals. The projects will then be ranked according to technical merit and to their anticipated impact on priority areas defined by R&D actors and approved by Public Authorities.
The process will be concluded by funding decisions in favour of the highest ranked proposals. In previous calls, Public Authorities selected 18 projects carried out by 239 innovative companies, research institutes and Universities - more than 40% of the participating entities are small and medium-sized enterprises. Over six years, the ENIAC Joint Undertaking shall commit public funding for projects with an estimated value of 3 billion Euros. Since the beginning of May 2010, the ENIAC Joint Undertaking fully operates as an autonomous legal entity. This confirms that the European Commission successfully executed its statutory mandate to establish and run initial operations.
About the ENIAC Joint Undertaking
Status: The ENIAC Joint Undertaking is a legal entity established by the European Council Regulation (EC) 72/2008 as a European Union body with the mission to implement the Joint Technology Initiative in nanoelectronics as defined in the Specific Programme Cooperation of the Seventh Framework Programme.
Mission: Until 2013, the ENIAC Joint Undertaking shall allocate public funding contributed by the Member and Associated States and by the European Commission to cooperative R&D projects in order to enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of the European nanoelectronics industry. The total estimated value of the R&D activities reaches 3 Billion Euros. The ENIAC Joint Undertaking shall function until the end of 2017 accompanying the
projects to their completion.
Organisation: The operations of the ENIAC Joint Undertaking are managed by an Executive Director and a secretariat under the supervision of a Governing Board including Public Authorities and representatives of AENEAS, the association of the R&D actors in nanoelectronics. The Annual Work Programmes are elaborated by the Industrial and Research Committee and approved by the Public Authorities Board.
For more information, please contact:
Christine Plissonneau
Tel: +33 1 40 64 45 73
Mobile: +33 6 70 05 94 87
Email: plissonneau@aeneas-office.eu
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2010-03-09
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nanomercado 2010
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MIT researchers discover new way of producing electricity - Nanotech
Phenomenon causes powerful waves of energy to shoot through carbon nanotubes.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. A team of scientists at MIT have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say.
The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare, says Michael Strano, MITs Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, who was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings that appeared in Nature Materials on March 7. The lead author was Wonjoon Choi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering.
Like a collection of flotsam propelled along the surface by waves traveling across the ocean, it turns out that a thermal wave a moving pulse of heat traveling along a microscopic wire can drive electrons along, creating an electrical current.
The key ingredient in the recipe is carbon nanotubes submicroscopic hollow tubes made of a chicken-wire-like lattice of carbon atoms. These tubes, just a few billionths of a meter (nanometers) in diameter, are part of a family of novel carbon molecules, including buckyballs and graphene sheets, that have been the subject of intensive worldwide research over the last two decades.
A previously unknown phenomenon
In the new experiments, each of these electrically and thermally conductive nanotubes was coated with a layer of a reactive fuel that can produce heat by decomposing. This fuel was then ignited at one end of the nanotube using either a laser beam or a high-voltage spark, and the result was a fast-moving thermal wave traveling along the length of the carbon nanotube like a flame speeding along the length of a lit fuse. Heat from the fuel goes into the nanotube, where it travels thousands of times faster than in the fuel itself. As the heat feeds back to the fuel coating, a thermal wave is created that is guided along the nanotube. With a temperature of 3,000 kelvins, this ring of heat speeds along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The heating produced by that combustion, it turns out, also pushes electrons along the tube, creating a substantial electrical current.
Combustion waves like this pulse of heat hurtling along a wire have been studied mathematically for more than 100 years, Strano says, but he was the first to predict that such waves could be guided by a nanotube or nanowire and that this wave of heat could push an electrical current along that wire.
In the groups initial experiments, Strano says, when they wired up the carbon nanotubes with their fuel coating in order to study the reaction, lo and behold, we were really surprised by the size of the resulting voltage peak that propagated along the wire.
After further development, the system now puts out energy, in proportion to its weight, about 100 times greater than an equivalent weight of lithium-ion battery.
The amount of power released, he says, is much greater than that predicted by thermoelectric calculations. While many semiconductor materials can produce an electric potential when heated, through something called the Seebeck effect, that effect is very weak in carbon. Theres something else happening here, he says. We call it electron entrainment, since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.
The thermal wave, he explains, appears to be entraining the electrical charge carriers (either electrons or electron holes) just as an ocean wave can pick up and carry a collection of debris along the surface. This important property is responsible for the high power produced by the system, Strano says.
Exploring possible applications
Because this is such a new discovery, he says, its hard to predict exactly what the practical applications will be. But he suggests that one possible application would be in enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices for example, devices the size of grains of rice, perhaps with sensors or treatment devices that could be injected into the body. Or it could lead to environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air, he says.
In theory, he says, such devices could maintain their power indefinitely until used, unlike batteries whose charges leak away gradually as they sit unused. And while the individual nanowires are tiny, Strano suggests that they could be made in large arrays to supply significant amounts of power for larger devices.
The researchers also plan to pursue another aspect of their theory: that by using different kinds of reactive materials for the coating, the wave front could oscillate, thus producing an alternating current. That would open up a variety of possibilities, Strano says, because alternating current is the basis for radio waves such as cell phone transmissions, but present energy-storage systems all produce direct current. Our theory predicted these oscillations before we began to observe them in our data, he says.
Also, the present versions of the system have low efficiency, because a great deal of power is being given off as heat and light. The team plans to work on improving that
Source: Choi W, Hong S, Abrahamson J, Han J, Song C, Nair N, Baik S and Strano M S. Chemically driven carbon-nanotube-guided thermopower waves. Nature Materials. 7 March 2010.
Funding: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Science Foundation
Source: web.mit.edu/press/2010/thermopower-waves.html
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2010-02-27
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nanomercado.com
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How to study for a career in nanotechnology
Posted by Nanowerk Nanotechnology Spotlight .
Eric Drexler attempts to answer the question on how students should prepare for a career in nanotechnology. His advice centers on fundamentals, outlining areas of knowledge are are universally important, and offering suggestions for how to approach both specialized choices and learning in general. It includes observations about the future of nanotechnology, the context for future careers. However, as you might imagine, providing a good answer is challenging. 'Nanotechnology' refers to a notoriously broad range of areas of science and technology, and progress during a student's career will open new areas, and some are yet to be imagined. Choices within this complex and changing field should reflect a student's areas of interest and ability, current background, level of ambition, and willingness to to accept risk - there is a trade-off between pioneering new directions and seeking a secure career path.
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2010-01-20
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nanomercado.com
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Nanoscale: Robot Arm Places Atoms and Molecules With 100% Accuracy
Schematics (a) and Atomic Force Micrographs (b) of the Origami Arrays and Capture Molecules. Panel i of (a) illustrates the origami array containing slots for the cassettes and a notch to enable recognition of orientation; the slots and notches are visible in the AFM in (b). Panels ii show the cassettes in place; the color coding in (a) used throughout the schematics is green for the PX state and violet for the JX2 state; the presence of the cassettes is evident in the AFM image in (b). Panels iii illustrate the PX-PX state which captures a triangle pointing towards the notch in the schematic (a) and in the AFM image (b). Panels iv illustrate the PX-JX2 state (a), containing a triangle that points away from the notch, which is evident in the AFM image (b). Panels v illustrate the JX2- PX state which captures a diamond-shaped molecule (a); its shape is visible in the AFM image (b). Panels vi show the linear molecule captured by the JX2-JX2 state, both schematically (a) and in the AFM image (b).
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Until the mid-1990s, the term "nanotechnology" referred to the goal of creating vast arrays of nanoscale assemblers to fabricate useful human-scale products from scratch in an entirely automated process and with atomic precision. Since then, the word has come to mean anything from stain-resistant pants to branches of conventional chemistry ? generally anything involving nanoscale objects. But the dream of a new Industrial Revolution based on nanoscale manufacturing has not died, as demonstrated most vividly by the work of NYU professor of chemistry Dr. Nadrian Seeman.
In a 2009 article in Nature Nanotechnology, Dr. Seeman shared the results of experiments performed by his lab, along with collaborators at Nanjing University in China, in which scientists built a two-armed nanorobotic device with the ability to place specific atoms and molecules where scientists want them. The device was approximately 150 x 50 x 8 nanometers in size ? over a million could fit in a single red blood cell. Using robust error-correction mechanisms, the device can place DNA molecules with 100% accuracy. Earlier trials had yielded only 60-80% accuracy.
The nanorobotic arm is built out of DNA origami: large strands of DNA gently encouraged to fold in precise ways by interaction with a few hundred short DNA strands. The products, around 100 nanometers in diameter, are eight times larger and three times more complex than what could be built with a simple crystalline DNA array, vastly expanding the space of possible structures. Other nanoscale structures or machines built by Dr. Seeman and his collaborators including a nanoscale walking biped, truncated DNA octahedrons, and sequence-dependent molecular switch arrays. Dr. Seeman has exploited structural features of DNA thought to be used in genetic recombination to operate his nanoscale devices, tapping into the very processes underlying all life.
The advances in DNA nanotechnology keep coming, and many observers are wondering if this will be the path that leads us to the next Industrial Revolution. Only time ? and many more experiments ? will tell.
Source: hplusmagazine.com/articles/nano/nanoscale-robot-arm-places-atoms-and-molecules-100-accuracy
Written By: Michael Anissimov
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2009-12-07
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nanomercado..com
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NANOTECH - FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT MEMORY
Imagine taking all of the data on a Blu-ray disk, adding 40 times more information and shrinking it down to the size of a dime. Imagine that disk having enough memory to record an entire human life.
Sandipan Pramanik, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is developing a new way of storing memory that will dramatically alter entire industries. Pramanik's ambitious vision has won the first annual Disruptive Technology Challenge sponsored by TRLabs, a national high-tech research consortium based in Edmonton.
Pramanik is researching what amounts to the Holy Grail of computer engineering-a universal memory circuit that will render static and dynamic random-access memory used in PCs and laptop computers as well as hard disc drives, compact discs and flash memory, obsolete.
Using present technology, selecting one of these types of memory systems always involves a trade off in speed, cost, storage density, power consumption and durability or volatility, says Pramanik.
Pramanik is taking a unique approach to the problem, applying nanotechnology and spintronics. Simply put, Pramanik is fastening carbon nanotubes onto a pitted surface. The electrical resistance of each nanotube-weak or strong, represents a "zero" or "one" as a single bit of information.
Because he is working at the nanoscale, Pramanik's memory circuit can be shrunk to unprecedented levels. Pramanik envisions a single universal memory chip with a storage capacity of 1,000 gigabytes in an area of one square centimetre, compared to approximately 25 gigabytes for a Blu-ray disc (and 5 gigabytes for a normal DVD) that typically occupies 100 square centimetres.
The Disruptive Technology Challenge is designed to nurture information and communications technology innovation that has the potential to disrupt or create markets, disrupt current thinking in a field, or provoke new avenues of research with strong commercialization potential. The award Pramanik received will help fund three PhD student scholarships for three years.
Pramanik said winning the award is an honour.
"It is really great. This project has several technological challenges, and this award enables us to assemble a team of researchers, build the necessary infrastructure, and address these problems in a systematic manner," he said. "At present we are anticipating hiring three PhD students."
Pramanik is optimistic about reaching his goals. There are challenges "but we have plans on how to tackle those issues, and if everything goes well we are hoping to develop a prototype by the end of this funding period."
(Photo: U. Alberta)
Source: University of Alberta
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2009-10-16
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nanomercado.com
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High-performance artificial muscles from spider silk can be powered by humidity only
Spider silk is a fascinating biopolymer that is stronger than steel and more elastic than rubber. Most of the world's 40,000 species of spiders produce a silken thread that possesses a unique combination of mechanical properties: strength (its tensile strength is about five times as strong a steel of the same density), extensibility (up to 30%) and toughness (its ability to absorb a large amount of energy without breaking). Researchers are experimenting with spider silk to design better adhesives; advanced materials that are both stretchy and strong; and to get clues for protein engineering. Yet the impressive performance of spider silk is not limited solely to tensile mechanics. Researchers have now shown that silk also exhibits powerful cyclic contractions that are precisely controlled by changes in humidity, allowing it to act as a high performance mimic of biological muscles.
Source: feedproxy.google.com/~r/NanowerkNanotech...
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2009-09-24
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nanomercado.com
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Immortality only 20 years away says scientist
The 61-year-old American, who has predicted new technologies arriving before, says our understanding of genes and computer technology is accelerating at an incredible rate.
He says theoretically, at the rate our understanding is increasing, nanotechnologies capable of replacing many of our vital organs could be available in 20 years time.
Mr Kurzweil adds that although his claims may seem far-fetched, artificial pancreases and neural implants are already available.
Mr Kurzweil calls his theory the Law of Accelerating Returns. Writing in The Sun, Mr Kurzweil said: "I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies' stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.
"Ultimately, nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.
"Within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen.
"Heart-attack victims who haven't taken advantage of widely available bionic hearts will calmly drive to the doctors for a minor operation as their blood bots keep them alive.
"Nanotechnology will extend our mental capacities to such an extent we will be able to write books within minutes.
"If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening.
"So we can look forward to a world where humans become cyborgs, with artificial limbs and organs."
Source: telegraph.co.uk
Image: cyberartsweb.org
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2009-08-03
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Nanomercado.com
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Growing flying carpets with carbon nanotubes
(Nanowerk News)
With products that range from carpets to kites, youd think Rice University chemist Bob Hauge was running a department store.
What hes really running is a revolution in the world of carbon nanotechnology.
In a paper published this month in Nano Research, Hauge's Rice University team describes a method for making odako, bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) named for the traditional Japanese kites they resemble. It may lead to a way to produce meter-long strands of nanotubes, which by themselves are no wider than a piece of DNA.
Hauge, a distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry at Rice's Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and his co-authors, graduate students Cary Pint and Noe Alvarez, explained the odako after which the bundles are named are gigantic kites that take many hands to fly, hence the many lines that trail from them.
In this case, the lines are nanotubes, hollow cylinders of pure carbon. Individually, they're thousands of times smaller than a living cell, but Hauge's new method creates bundles of SWNTs that are sometimes measured in centimeters, and he said the process could eventually yield tubes of unlimited length.
Large-scale production of nanotube threads and cables would be a godsend for engineers in almost every field. They could be used in lightweight, superefficient power-transmission lines for next-generation electrical grids, for example, and in ultra-strong and lightning-resistant versions of carbon-fiber materials found in airplanes. Hauge said the SWNT bundles may also prove useful in batteries, fuel cells and microelectronics.
To understand how Hauge makes nanokites, it helps to have a little background on flying carpets.
Last year, Hauge and colleagues found they could make compact bundles of nanotubes starting with the same machinery the U.S. Treasury uses to embed paper money with unique markings that make the currency difficult to counterfeit.
Hauge and his team -- which included senior research fellow Howard Schmidt and Professor Matteo Pasquali, both of Rice's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; graduate students Pint and Sean Pheasant; and Kent Coulter of San Antonio's Southwest Research Institute -- used this printing process to create thin layers of iron and aluminum oxide on a Mylar roll. They then removed the layers and ground them into small flakes.
Heres where the process took off. In a mesh cage placed into a furnace, the metallic flakes would lift off and fly in a flowing chemical vapor. As they flew, arrays of nanotubes grew vertically from the iron particles in tight, forest-like formations. When done cooking and viewed under a microscope, the bundles looked remarkably like the pile of a carpet.
While other methods used to grow SWNTs had yielded a paltry 0.5 percent ratio of nanotubes to substrate materials, Hauges technique brought the yield up to an incredible 400 percent. The process could facilitate large-scale SWNT growth, Pint said.
In the latest research, the team replaced the Mylar with pure carbon. In this setup, the growing nanotubes literally raise the roof, lifting up the iron and aluminum oxide from which theyre sprouting while the other ends stay firmly attached to the carbon. As the bundle of tubes grows higher, the catalyst becomes like a kite, flying in the hydrogen and acetylene breeze that flows through the production chamber.
Hauge and his team hope to follow up their work on flying carpets and nanokites with the holy grail of nanotube growth: a catalyst that will not die, enabling furnaces that churn out continuous threads of material.
If we could get these growing so they never stop so that, at some point, you pull one end out of the furnace while the other end is still inside growing then you should be able to grow meter-long material and start weaving it, he said.
Source: nanowerk.com/news/newsid=11916.php
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2009-07-14
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nanomercado.com
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Desertec - a nanotechnology-enabled bold vision for an energy revolution
A very ambitious idea that has been kicked around for the past couple of years has gained a lot of momentum over the past few months.
The vision that, if realized, would be a true energy revolution, is called Desertec and would amount to the biggest solar energy project of all times.
The project, if realized, will cost 400-500 billion euros ($550-700 bn) and deliver its first energy in about 10 years. The basic idea is to install a huge network of concentrating solar-thermal power plants in the Sahara desert and build a network of High-Voltage Direct Current transmission lines to carry the electricity to Europe.
The Desertec concept describes the perspective of a sustainable supply of electricity for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa up to the year 2050. By then, it could satisfy as much as 15 percent of the European Union's power needs. It shows that a transition to competitive, secure and compatible supply is possible using renewable energy sources and efficiency gains, and fossil fuels as backup for balancing power. Also, the technology exists today - it's the scale of the vision that's revolutionary.
Source: nanowerk
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2009-07-09
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Nanomercado.com
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Nanotechnologies Against Cancer
Scientists from the Institute pf Gene Biology (Russian Academy of Sciences) currently work on nanotransporters, which will deliver anti-cancer treatment to tumors. These nanotransporters are capsules, made of a special polymer, which provide delivery of a treating agent directly to the target cell, and to the cell part, in which it will show maximum efficiency.
Many treating agents haven't got any specificity to cells, in other words, they get inside any cell, whether it is cancer cell or healthy cell, and damage it. This is the reason why many oncological patients suffer, when they take chemotherapy, which is not effective enough (no significant gain in health) for the same reason. Many side effects can be reduced or even eliminated, when treating agent is delivered directly to nuclei of cancer cells. In the case, when nanotransporters are used for drug dlelivery, the treatment becomes several tens of times more effective.
Development of nanotransporters takes place in the laboratory of molecular genetics of intracellula transport, which holds a world priority in this field of science. Research is supervised by professor Alexander Sobolev. The laboratory is equipped with the up-to-date facilities, which allow studying processes, which take place inside a cell without damaging or destroying it. Scientists also have equipment, which helps cutting labour costs in research activities, for instance, a device, which can separate different cells inside cell culture, isolate wanted cells by means of a laser and eject them to tubes. Therefore, each tube will contain cells of one type, which can later be studied separately. No other laboratory in Russia can boast such equipment, the scientists claim. However, modern and expensive hardware cannot gurantee any discoveries. Today outstanding scientific achievements can result only from the union of modern research facilities and advanced ideas, both of which mantioned laboratory has, according to its employees.
In the nearest future the scientists plan to shift from studying cell cultures to testing nanotrasporters on animal models, and clinical trials are expected to follow soon. Recently performed (together with Dutch researchers) tests of the technology on laboratory animals showed that treating agents become much more effective - animals, who suffered from cancer, cured. Next step will be preclinical trials, and then - clinical trials, if previous tests would be a success.
Researchers believe that studying damaged cell is like exploring the railway from Moscow to St. Petersburg by means of studying only cross ties or only rails - the whole porcess is lost in this case. The cell is not a tube with a solution, but a very complicated structure, where moleules, espcielly large ones, move by means of special transport systems.
Transporters, which are currently developed for direct drug delivery, are almost universal, a kind of a platform. These structures can deliver vaious treating agents, thus curing various diseases, including cancer.
Source: Vechnayamolodost.ru
Kizilova Anna
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2009-06-10
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nanomercado.com
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Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference - September 21-23, 2009
Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference
September 21-23, 2009
Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center
Portland, Oregon
Presented by:
Oregon Nanoscience and
Microtechnologies Institute
and Washington Technology Center
In these turbulent economic times, one thing remains unchanged: innovation driven productivity advances are the only basis for prosperous, high-wage regional economies, and commercialized scientific research is the best and most durable source of innovation advantage. More than ever before, the Pacific Northwest region needs to gather to advance 'science, commercialization and networking for the micro- and nano-tech innovation economy.
Who should attend:
If you are involved in the transformation from discovery and development to commercialization of products this conference is for you.
* Scientists
* Engineers
* Entrepreneurs
* Venture Capitalists
* R&D Managers
* Administrators
* Product Development Managers
* Government Officials
* Policy Makers
* Non-Government Organization Officials
* Students
* Technology transfer specialists
* Strategic Planners
* Business Development Managers
* Product Development Professionals
* Investors
* Investment Analysts
* Proposal Writers
* Legislators
* Academicians
* Legislative Assistants & Analysts
* Intellectual Property Managers
Presentations on:
* Advanced MEMS devices and applications
* Sensors and systems, e.g. for motion control
* Nanoelectronics and biolectronics
* Nanoscale patterning and fabrication processes
* Printed and solution-processed devices and systems
* Nanomaterial design, synthesis and scale-up
* Nanomaterials for clean-tech applications
* Nano-bio technologies
* Micro-energy and chemical systems
* Nanoscale imaging and chemical analysis
* Nanomedicine and cancer therapies
* Nano-optics and optoelectronic technologies
Full Day Seminar & Short Courses Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2009:
Solar Energy Symposium: 8am - 5pm
Cost $100 (not included in conference registration fee)
Nanotechnology 101: 1pm - 5pm
(Included in conference registration fee)
Nanotechnology Commercialization: 1pm - 5pm
(Included in conference fee)
Arrayed Microchannel Technology Industry Forum: 1pm - 5pm (Included in conference fee)
Source: oregonstate.edu/conferences/MNBC/
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2009-06-09
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nanomercado.com
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High yield fabrication of fluorescent nanodiamonds
Developed originally for the surface finishing industry, diamond nanoparticles are now finding new and far-reaching applications in modern biomedical science and biotechnologies.
Researchers have already demonstrated that nanodiamond particles possess several unique features including facile surface modification, long-term photostability, and no fluorescence blinking that makes their detection and long-term tracking in living cells not only possible but practical (read more: Single fluorescent nanodiamonds as cellular biomarkers). Two of the biggest advantages of using nanodiamonds in biomedical applications is that they are not toxic and their fluorescence related to color centers is absolutely stable.
The importance of novel markers for microcopy cannot be underestimated. Such markers can provide novel information about functioning of protein in cell. Owing to their unlimited photostability diamond nanoparticles can be used for long-term monitoring of intracellular processes.
Diamond nanoparticles also appear to be ideal candidates for ultra microscopy techniques like STED (see: STED microscopy reveals crystal colour centres with nanometric resolution).
Furthermore, nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamond have non-zero spin in the ground state. This allows their use as markers for magnetic resonance imaging with very high sensitivity (see: Nanoscale imaging magnetometry with diamond spins under ambient conditions).
To date, few methods exist to produce diamond nanoparticles containing color centers (c-diamond), but they are only laboratory-scale. The most common, large-scale nanodiamond production method, detonation, produces diamond nanoparticles which do not contain any color centers but impurities such as surface-or lattice-aggregated nitrogen and metals in significant amounts.
A German-French research team has now developed a high yield method for the large-scale production of fluorescent nanodiamonds. They have reported their findings in a recent edition of Nanotechnology (High yield fabrication of fluorescent nanodiamonds).
Their technique allows for the fabrication of isolated ultrasmall quasi-spherical diamond nanoparticles with dimensions less than or equal to 10 nm. These nanodiamonds present the following features: they are made of c-diamond nanocrystals with controlled size, shape and composition, a very high crystallinity and little impurity but selected doping heteroatoms such as isolated substitutional nitrogen.
Potential applications of nanodiamonds for biology depend critically on our ability to attach diamond nanoparticles to proteins. Therefore it is of crucial importance to show that important functional groups like biotin can be reliably linked to the surface of diamond nanocrystals.
"Our starting material is a highly crystalline high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) micron-sized diamond and our method is based on milling these bigger diamonds," Fedor Jelezko, a researcher at the 3rd Physical Institute at the University of Stuttgart, tells Nanowerk. "We have achieved a production yield of 15% (w/w) of the initial microdiamond converted into ? 10nm nanodiamonds for a 24 hour milling time. This yield is several orders of magnitude higher than the ones for current production methods of c-diamonds."
In this work, Jelezko and his University of Stuttgart colleagues worked wit scientists from the Université dEvry-Val dEssonne and the Nanomaterials Research Group at CNRS in Belfort, both in France, also show that very small nanocrystal (smaller than 10 nanometers) show stable and bright luminescence.
The production process for these c-diamonds contains five steps: First, nitrogen-vacancy creation is obtained by 10 MeV electron irradiation of raw HPHT microdiamond followed by annealing at 800 °C under vacuum. Then, milling of the fluorescent microdiamond is performed in two steps, micronization and nanomilling. Third, purification includes a hot HF/HNO3 treatment followed by a series of centrifugation steps. After completion of the acid treatment, an excess of Milli-Q ultrapure water was added to the sample which was then mechanically dispersed before centrifugation. The diamond sample precipitates under these acid conditions, which allows easy recovery from the acid. Supernatants obtained by three subsequent centrifugations are pooled and desalted by ultrafiltration.
"The observations we made in our work will be useful to adjust at will nanodiamond properties with minimal loss in crystallinity for any of these specific applications and needs particle size, shape, composition: nitrogen-vacancy content, nanoparticle doping with selected heteroelements, surface functionalization," says Jelezko. "The industrial scale production of ultrasmall nanodiamonds represents a breakthrough toward these objectives."
By Michael Berger. Copyright 2009 Nanowerk LLC
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Regulate nanotechnology industry: ACTU
Australia's expanding nanotechnology industry must be regulated to protect the health of both workers and consumers, the ACTU says.
Citing Scottish research showing some nanomaterials - as minute as one billionth of a metre - might be as deadly as asbestos particles, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is calling for a mandatory national register of who is importing, manufacturing, supplying and selling the materials.
The ACTU has also recommended products containing nanomaterials be appropriately labelled with regular monitoring of the health of local workers involved in the nanotechnology industry.
"With animal tests showing some nanomaterials share the same characteristics and reactions as asbestos fibres, governments and business must not repeat the painful lessons of the past and allow another tragedy to occur again," ACTU assistant secretary Geoff Fary said in a statement on Monday.
"Until we know more about nanomaterials, we should regulate as if it is dangerous to human health."
Nanotechnology is already used in more than 8,000 everyday items, including some sunscreens, cosmetics, bed sheets, building materials and paints.
Mr Fary said regulations should be introduced by the end of the year to coincide with the start of Australia's new nationally-harmonised health and safety laws.
Source: news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/r...
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Nanotechnology miracle drug for weight loss
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Not surprisingly, it has been scientists in The Netherlands - a country that has long been conducting large-scale and long-term field studies on the benefits of certain plants to mental and physical health (scientists refer to this effort as the "great coffee house smoke screen studies") that have come up with a nanotechnology discovery that could well revolutionize many consumer products from food to toys.
In a report released today, April 1, the Dutch scientists report that a nanoparticulate substance found in Cannabis sativa, also know as marijuana, has an amazing ability to kill fat cells in the human body.
"After we discovered these amazing nanoparticles, which we tentatively have termed "splifferenes", we ran a series of tests to identify the most beneficial uptake route into the human body," Arry van Dope tells Nanowerk. "We were a bit surprised that splifferenes retain their full effectiveness to destroy both white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT) only in aerosol form. This means that inhalation appears to be the most effective way of benefiting from this amazing substance."
Finally, it´s safe to say that the commercial success for splifferenes is as good as guaranteed now that these nanoparticles even find approval among the otherwise techno critical crowd. Activist groups, ranging from Fans of the Earth to Treehuggers United, after having visited Dr. van Dope's laboratory in Amsterdam for a live demonstration, are united in their praise for the new substance. "Who would have thought that nanotechnology is so, like, exiting," said a spokeswoman. "It opens up totally unexpected new perspectives and experiences. This stuff is great " never seen colors that clear! No need to chill. Not only is the wow-factor surprising but we are not talking creepy nanobot stuff here. This is, like, a totally natural substance."
By Michael Berger. Copyright 2009 Nanowerk LLC
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2009-03-16
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By Michael Berger - Nanowerk
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Brain implants improved by nanotechnology coatings
(Nanowerk Spotlight) In previous Spotlights we have addressed the numerous benefits that nanotechnology materials and applications could bring to the field of neural engineering and neural prostheses (see for instance: Nanotechnology to repair the brain). Different biomedical devices implanted in the central nervous system, so-called neural interfaces, already have been developed to control motor disorders or to translate willful brain processes into specific actions by the control of external devices.
Examples of existing brain implants include brain pacemakers, to ease the symptoms of such diseases as epilepsy, Parkinson's Disease, dystonia and recently depression; retinal implants that consist of an array of electrodes implanted on the back of the retina, a digital camera worn on the user's body, and a transmitter/image processor that converts the image to electrical signals sent to the brain.
As promising as these new devices are, the reliability and robustness of neural interfaces is a major challenge due to the way brain tissue responds to the implant.
Mohammad Reza Abidian, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan, says the reliability of today's brain-penetrating microelectrodes often begins to decline after they're in place for only a few months.
Abidian, together with David Martin, professor of macromolecular science and engineering and biomedical engineering, has established methods for the fabrication of multifunctional nanobiomaterials that can be used for coating neural microelectrode arrays that increases their biocompatibility and performance, and is also capable of controlled drug release.
This coating is made of three components that together allow electrodes to interface more smoothly with the brain. The nanobiomaterial consists of a special electrically-conductive nanoscale polymer (PEDOT); a natural, gel-like buffer (alginate hydrogel); and biodegradable nanofibers loaded with a controlled-release anti-inflammatory drug.
"The process includes electrospinning of dexamethasone (DEX)-incorporated biodegradable nanofibers, encapsulation of these nanofibers by an alginate hydrogel layer, and then electrochemical polymerization of the conducting polymer PEDOT on the electrode site, around the DEX-loaded nanofibers, and within the hydrogel matrix" Abidian explains to Nanowerk. "We have shown that electrical properties of neural microelectrodes have been significantly improved with these coatings."
The two researchers have reported their findings in the January 29, 2009 online edition of Advanced Functional Materials (Multifunctional Nanobiomaterials for Neural Interfaces).
Abidian describes the three components of their hybrid nanostructured neural interface:
1) The PEDOT in the coating enables the electrodes to operate with less electrical resistance than current models, which means they can communicate more clearly with individual neurons.
2) The biodegradable, drug-loaded nanofibers fight the 'encapsulation' that occurs when the immune system tells the body to envelop foreign materials. Encapsulation is another reason these electrodes can stop functioning properly. The nanofibers fight this response well because they work with the alginate hydrogel to release the anti-inflammatory drugs in a controlled, sustained fashion as the nanofibers themselves break down.
3) The hydrogel, partially derived from algae, gives the electrodes mechanical properties more similar to actual brain tissue than the current technology. That means coated neural electrodes would cause less tissue damage. "These hydrogel coatings provide a mechanical buffer layer between the hard silicon-based probe and the soft brain tissue, a scaffold for growing the conducting polymer within the hydrogel matrix, and a diffusion barrier for controlling drug release," says Abidian.
Especially the last point is of importance since Abidian and Martin demonstrated that alginate hydrogel coatings could decrease the burst effect of the drug (DEX) release for controlling the long-term release patterns. According to Abidian, this controlled release should reduce the risk of exposure to high systemic doses of DEX that are associated with serious side effects such as diabetes, hemorrhagic ulcer, skin atrophy, and osteoporosis.
"We believe that our method provides a generally useful means for creating soft, low impedance, high charge density, controlled releasing for neural prostheses, and other biosensor applications" says Abidian.
By Michael Berger. Copyright 2009 c
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Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference - Nanotechnoloy
Micro Nano Breakthrough Conference
September 21-23, 2009
Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center
Portland, Oregon
Presented by:
Oregon Nanoscience and
Microtechnologies Institute
and Washington Technology Center
In these turbulent economic times, one thing remains unchanged: innovation driven productivity advances are the only basis for prosperous, high-wage regional economies, and commercialized scientific research is the best and most durable source of innovation advantage. More than ever before, the Pacific Northwest region needs to gather to advance 'science, commercialization and networking for the micro- and nano-tech innovation economy.
Contributors of presentation abstracts will be asked to identify which category they are submitting for.
www.micronbc.org
2009 Conference Manager
Skip Rung, President and Executive Director
ONAMI
Email - skip@onami.us
Telephone - 541.231.4883
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Aramco gets top oil award for nano-robot
RIYADH Saudi Aramcos Expec research center Expec Arc has won for the first time the prestigious New Horizons Idea Award at the 2008 World Oil Awards.
The award was granted for the research and innovation of Resbots (reservoir robots). Resbots, introduced by Expec Arc in 2007, are nanorobots, less than 1 100th the size of the human hair, that can move through the reservoir.
They will be deployed as a microscopic army with injected water into the reservoir. During their journey, they will analyze reservoir pressure, temperature and fluid type, and store that information in onboard memory. They will then be picked up from the produced crude at the producing wells to download that information and tell us everything about the reservoir they have encountered during their journey, thus effectively mapping the reservoir.
Each time I visit Expec Arc and learn about their initiatives and accomplishments, I leave feeling energized and confident of the future, Khalid Al-Falih, Aramcos executive vice president of operations, was quoted as saying by Saudi Aramcos website on Wednesday. He was speaking during a visit earlier this month to Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center - Advanced Research Center (Ecpec Arc), which is located in Dhahran.
The research center is responsible for upstream oil and gas technology development.
It has approximately 200 scientists from various disciplines, spread across six technology teams which tackle various aspects of oil and gas exploration, development, and production.
These teams are: Geophysics Technology, Geology Technology, Reservoir Engineering Technology, Computational Modeling Technology, Production Technology, and Drilling Technology.
World Oil is considered the leading oil and gas upstream journal.
It has been published for more than 90 years and has a worldwide circulation of 35,000 readers. Every year, it bestows its awards on the top companies in the industry.
The winner of the award symbolizes how the industry will operate in the future and will serve as a guidepost to the next generation of leadership entering todays upstream energy sector.
The awards are judged by an independent advisory board composed of 15 leading figures in the industry and academia. SPA
Font: saudigazette.com.sa
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Barack Obama & nanotubes
Peering into the micro world
A team of University of Michigan researchers has recently created a set of electron microscope images of carbon nanotube structures depicting images of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. John Hart, leader of the research team says it wasn't a political statement, but an attempt to draw attention to what is possible these days with nanotechnology, and imaging at the very small scale.
(REUTERS/John Hart, Sameh Tawfick, Michael De Volder, and Will Walker/University of Michigan/Handout)
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2008-11-13
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By Michael Berger - Nanowerk
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Nanotechnology in Europe - ethical, legal and social aspects
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Europe is a key player in nanotechnology. The European Commission alone, not counting the investments made by individual countries, in 2007 has invested some 560 million (about $720 million) into European nanotechnology projects. In contrast to the U.S., much of the science and technology policy in Europe is guided by the Precautionary Principle (see: Late lessons from early warnings for nanotechnology), although critics argue that this contributes to the high level of bureaucracy and red tape that prevents European companies from speedily translating the continent's leading-edge nanotechnology research into commercial products.
Activities concerning the research on environmental, health and safety (EHS) aspects of nanotechnology deal with potential risk issues and are aimed at decreasing uncertainty about potential risks and benefits on the basis of scientific knowledge, for instance research on the toxicity of nanomaterials and manufactured nanoparticles. Since developments in science and technology do not take place independently from society, European policy makers see it as important to support a dialogue on benefits and risks of nanotechnology, including ethical, legal, societal aspects (ELSA) and governance, involving great parts of the public and basing on informed judgment.
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Safety fears over nanocosmetics
Nanotechnology is being used to make transparent sunscreen
Cosmetics containing tiny "nano" particles are being used widely despite unresolved issues surrounding their safety, a consumer watchdog warns.
Many skin care products, including sunscreens and wrinkle creams, contain this technology to make them easier to apply and invisible on the skin.
But experts are concerned about their possible long-term effects on the body, Which? reports.
Which? wants more safety checks and tighter regulation of their use.
It says, at the moment, consumers cannot tell which products use nanomaterials as many fail to mention it.
...
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European efforts to determine potential nanotechnology impact on food safety
(Nanowerk Spotlight) The European Commission current assessment of nanotechnology applications to the food chain range from the almost certain (e.g., membranes, antibacterials, flavors, filters, food supplements, stabilizers) through to the probable (e.g., pathogen and contaminant sensors, environmental monitors, coupled sensing and warning devices, and remote sensing and tracking devices) to the improbable (e.g., 'creating unlimited amounts of food by synthesis at the atomic level').
The European Commission has now decided that it would like to address the possible safety issues arising from nanoscience and nanotechnologies in a stepwise fashion, thereby facilitating the establishment of a roadmap for future actions in the area of food and feed safety and the environment.
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Low-cost nanotechnology substitute for gold and silver in printable electronics
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Ink-jet printing of metal nanoparticles for conductive metal patterns has attracted great interest as an alternative to expensive fabrication techniques like vapor deposition. The bulk of the research in this area focuses on printing metal nanoparticle suspensions for metallization. For example, silver and gold nanoparticle suspensions have been inkjet printed to build active microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), flexible conductors and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Nobel metals like silver and gold are preferred nanoparticles for ink-jet formulations because they are good electrical conductors and they do not cause oxidation problems. However, gold and silver still are too expensive for most high volume, ultra low-cost applications such as RFID tags with required unit costs below one cent.
In order to print metals one needs to prepare a metal ink, or, in terms of materials engineering, it requires matching the properties of small metal particles with an ink-jet base fluid. Furthermore, for large-scale and low-cost industrial applications, the ink needs to be rugged and stable against air and humidity.
Although copper would be an obvious choice to replace gold and silver, like other non-noble metal nanoparticles it tends to oxidize spontaneously when in contact with ambient air. A new technique developed in Switzerland uses flame spray synthesis in combination with a simple in-situ functionalization step to synthesize graphene coated copper nanoparticles which are air-stable and can be easily handled at ambient conditions.
This work illustrates graphene's potential as a protective shell material for nanoparticles, enabling control and design of the chemical reactivity of non-noble metals.
"We have demonstrated that copper as a low-cost non-noble metal can resist oxidation under ambient conditions if coated by graphene bi- or tri-layers," Norman Lüchinger tells Nanowerk.
Lüchinger, a PhD student in Wendelin Stark's Functional Materials Laboratory at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, is first author of a recent paper in Nanotechnology ("Graphene-stabilized copper nanoparticles as an air-stable substitute for silver and gold in low-cost ink-jet printable electronics") that describes the suitability of graphene coating for the broader use of non-noble metal nanoparticles. According to the scientists in Zürich, carbon coatings offer an economically attractive route to the broader use of metal nanoparticles for ambient conditions.
"Our present example using copper as a substitute for silver or gold ink-jet printing demonstrates a first step in the development of commodity metal nanoparticle applications" explains Stark. "Though currently inferior to the conductivity of printed gold or silver, the direct one-step synthesis of our carbon-coated copper particles and the use of well-established ink chemistry allowed us to use the metal ink in off-the-shelf ink-jet printers. This makes metal printing available to virtually any laboratory without the need for special equipment."
The scientists point out that controlling the oxidation and corrosion of the technically most important non-noble metals through the controlled deposition of graphene coatings will enable a much broader use of common transition group metals in the form of nanomaterials.
Potential applications for instance include RFID tags which have to be ultra-low cost for a broad application in industrial and consumer applications.
The copper metal dispersions synthesized in Stark's group are deep black, stable for several weeks and have a viscosity similar to classical ink-jet formulations. They can be directly filled into a commercial ink-jet printer?s cartridge and processed using a standard low-cost ink-jet printer.
One issue that needs to be improved is the conductivity of the printed lines, which needs to be increased to become competitive with the conductivities of gold and silver.
"The current non-optimized patterns have a relatively low, but sufficiently high, electrical conductivity to operate light-emitting diodes that were directly put onto the copper lines printed on a flexible polymer foil substrate" says Lüchinger. "Once we have sufficiently improved the conductivity, basically any application is imaginable where cost is a factor."
By Michael Berger.
Font: Nanowerk LLC
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Nanofilter Cleans Water in Disaster Zones
Posted on: Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 18:00 CDT
By Luntz, Stephen
A nanomaterial coating on silica particles could offer the solution to one of the world's oldest and most destructive health challenges: how to remove bacteria and other pollutants from drinking water. In disasters like the Burmese cyclone, many of the deaths come from the destruction of water supplies. Flying in a few tonnes of food may keep thousands alive temporarily, but many times as much clean water is still usually inadequate.
However, Prof Peter Majewski of the University of South Australia's School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering foresees a day when aid agencies could bring in coated sand and pour even the most polluted water through the equivalent of a coffee filter to obtain clean water. The nanomaterial on the surface of the silica would trap the cholera bacteria or Cryptosporidium parasites so reliably that the water could be drunk in safety.
Furthermore, Majewski believes that these nanofilters should be possible to produce at an affordable price. "We're using water, which is still not expensive, silica and a surfactant," he says. Majewski and his PhD students have experimented with quartz sand, priced at around $20 per tonne, for their silica and are also testing more upgraded silica from chemical industries.
Even the surfactant is not so expensive for use in the developing world, where 6000 people die each day due to a lack of clean drinking water. Furthermore, Majewski says it may be possible to reuse the filters after washing them in a slight acid. Alternatively, the pollutants and nanomaterials could be burnt off and the silica reused.
Majewski says it is not yet clear if the process is suitable for the vast purification plants of the developed world, but there are many other markets that may have potential. For example, the filtration system could prove suitable for removing bacteria from home swimming pools or to treat the waste from industrial plants such as pulp mills.
It even offers a way of desalinating seawater without electricity, although Majewski does not think this will be commercially viable on a large scale.
Source: Australasian Science
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Nano-foods
Nano-foods: something else to worry about
Reuters
Consumers already worried about genetically engineered or cloned food reaching their tables may soon find something else in their grocery carts to furrow their brows over - nano-foods.
Consumer advocates taking part in a food safety conference in Orlando, Fla., this week said foods produced by using nanotechnology are quietly coming onto the market, and they want U.S. authorities to force manufacturers to identify them.
Companies using nanotechnology say it can enhance the flavour or nutritional effectiveness of food.
U.S. health officials generally prefer not to place warning labels on products unless there are clear reasons for caution or concern. But consumer advocates say uncertainty over health consequences alone is sufficient cause to justify identifying nano-foods.
"Nanotechnology is the new genetic engineering ... and it's moving so fast," Jane Kolodinsky, a consumer economist at the University of Vermont, said at the conference.
New consumer products created through nanotechnology are coming on the market at the rate of three to four per week, according to an advocacy group, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN), based on an inventory it has drawn up of 609 known or claimed nano-products.
Nano-products in common use today include lightweight tennis rackets and bicycles, and sunscreens containing clear, nonwhite versions of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.
thegazette.canwest.com
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Brussels, 11 May 2010 
