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Tough, Strong, and Sticky
Some of the year's coolest new materials were made possible by mimicking the nanoscale features of natural structures. For years, researchers have been trying to make materials that are as tough as nacre, the material that lines abalone shells, with limited success. This year, materials scientists created a new ceramic that's better than nacre; it could eventually be used as a structural material for buildings and vehicles. Like nacre, the new ceramic is a composite of a hard material and a gluey one. Researchers have also finally outdone the gecko, which uses arrays of nanoscale hairs on its paws to scale walls and ceilings. Arrays of carbon nanotubes with two layers--one vertically aligned, the other tangled--mimic gecko-foot structures but are 10 times as sticky.
Super-Resolution Imaging and a $10 Microscope
Metamaterials are usually lauded for their potential to direct light around an object, completely hiding it. This year brought the first designs for acoustic metamaterials, which will shield objects from sound. But the earliest application of metamaterials, usually made up of metals carefully structured on the nano- or microscale to tailor their interactions with light, is likely to be in super-resolution imaging. Light microscopes with resolutions on the scale of biological molecules will help biologists understand not just what proteins are at work in diseased cells, but also how they interact with other molecules to cause disease. Nicholas Fang of the University of Illinois is using metamaterials made up of metals structured on the nanoscale to make superlenses, which increase the resolution of biological light microscopes by an order of magnitude.
Other groups are taking a different approach to super-resolution imaging, developing new fluorescent probes and new optical systems to make the inner workings of cells visible. The highest-resolution 3-D light microscope ever made allowed researchers to see the inner workings of the metabolizing mitochondria, the subcellular organelle that powers cells, for the first time.
Meanwhile, a $10 microscope developed this year at Caltech uses cheap starting materials, including microfluidics and the same light-sensing chips found in digital cameras. Its imaging quality equals that of conventional microscopes. If integrated into a PDA, it could bring sophisticated imaging technology to rural doctors.
Biomaterials
This year, researchers at Tufts University demonstrated that they can use proteins from silkworm cocoons to make biodegradable optical devices. They hope that their devices will eventually be implanted during surgery and used to monitor patients for signs of recovery.
The year also saw advances in materials for tissue engineering. It's been difficult to mimic the structures of the heart, liver, and other tissues in the lab. A stretchy polymer developed at MIT can withstand the mechanical stresses of beating heart tissue, and its honeycomb structure encourages heart-muscle cells to orient naturally, which makes for heart-tissue patches that contract like real heart muscle.
New materials harnessed hamster power, and researchers made carbon nanotubes practical.
Materials made from nanotubes could lead to conformable computers that stretch around any shape.
Particles the size and shape of bacteria could more effectively deliver medicine to cells.
EBAY Store now selling graphene nanoplatelets
http://stores.ebay.com/Nano-Science-Resources Graphene nanoplatelets are as stiff and strong as carbon nanotubes ( 1 TeraPascal tensile strength) but they are shaped like flat plates of ultra thin graphite. These nanoplatelets have 25 micron diameter and 5-10 nanometer thickness. They can be used to improve the properties of a wide range of polymeric materials, including thermoplastic and thermoset composites, natural or synthetic rubber, thermoplastic elastomers, adhesives, paints and coatings. They blend easily with monomers and polymers. They been found to: Increase electrical conductivity, increase thermal conductivity and thermal stability. They improve barrier properties, permit reduced component weight. They increase stiffness, increase toughness (impact strength), improve appearance, including scratch resistance and they have flame retardant properties. They are under research as a result of their novel properties; The have been used to make transparent electrically conductive coatings on solar cells, nano transistors that withstand much more heat than silicon transistors, materials to store hydrogen in fuel cell vehicles, anodes in lithium ion batteries and thousands of other possible uses. They can add strength and impact resistance to model rockets, boats and airplanes when they are mixed into airplane glue.
- $40.00 per gram. Contact for bulk discounts.
http://stores.ebay.com/Nano-Science-Resources
Re: EBAY Store now selling graphene nanoplatelets
If anyone was considering buying these "nanoplatelets", they would be wise to do a little web search on protn7. Look for Neil Farbstein, or Vulvox. Be warned, don't drink while you do this, or you may choke laughing
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
This document is part of the “How-To Guide for Most Common Measurements” centralized resource portal. This tutorial provides a detailed guide for measurement and device considerations to take temperature measurements using thermocouples. Get an introduction to thermocouples, which are inexpensive sensing devices widely used with PC-based data acquisition systems. Also review some specific thermocouple examples and learn how thermocouples work and ways to integrate them into a data acquisition measurement system.
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erbium
340 Comments
Looks like lots of uses for this
material, esp when it gets cheaper in mass production. One obvious one is add it to concrete? They'd have to research what shapes cut pieces of graphene or what size carbon nanotubes gives concrete specific properties, but looks like could increase strength drastically. If this becomes widespread, would sequester a good chunk of carbon.
And how about tailored multi-layers? Should be even stronger than carbon fiber sheets now in use. Then we'd feel comfortable using this as our primary light weight and incredibly strong building material.
How about 'growing' buildings with a bio-reactor 'cap' similar to self-raising forms in use now for concrete, that rise on hydraulic jacks after the concrete pours.
The bio-reactor cap would substitute for the concrete pour, with a suitable carbon solution piped in. Perhaps even via tubes built into the structure that when done could be used as pipes.
The bio-cap would add new structure to the top of columns and structures like the growing tips of plants. They can grow up, sideways, split into new growing tips with branches and buds.
Nature provides TONS of different templates that large structures could grow to. If you leave off the leaves, assuming you wouldn't want to put solar collectors where the 'leaves' would be, then you'd want to look at leafless desert plants.
You could grow round buildings like barrel cactus - similar to those concrete domes created with balloons that are becoming popular, columnar like saguaro - equivalent to skyscrapers, or clumps of smaller columns together like many smaller branching cacti, each 'column' would allow one large room per floor, giving each office a 360o view! The possibilities are endless.
The fiber building bio-processes in the human body allow the fiber to be destroyed also. So the building could be removed quickly when you don't need it anymore or recycled into a new structure.
Steel is heavy, expensive to mine and process and spews tons of CO2 into the air for each ton made. There's alot more carbon, and if alot of carbon was used directly in buildings, it would be an increase from the amount used now in the form of lumber. Possibly this process might start with innovators creating 'grown' lumber like we do with recycled plastic lumber now.
Specific increased structural properties would give this an advantage over lumber, in the same way they make bikes out of carbon fiber but not too many out of wood.
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