Power-grab particles
Particles made from crushed nanotubes can create a current by interacting with an organic solvent.
MIT engineers have discovered yet another use for carbon nanotubes: scavenging energy from the environment to generate a current that could drive chemical reactions or power tiny robots.
Chemical engineer Michael Strano and his students created electricity-generating particles by grinding up carbon nanotubes, forming them into a sheet coated on one side with a Teflon-like polymer, and cutting out pieces 250 by 250 microns in size.
When these particles are submerged in an organic solvent, the solvent adheres to the uncoated surface and begins pulling electrons out of them, forming an electrical current. Each particle can generate about 0.7 volts, and hundreds of them packed together yield enough energy to power alcohol oxidation, an organic reaction important in the chemical industry. Strano’s lab is also building micro- and nano-scale robots that could someday use this energy to serve as diagnostic or environmental sensors.
“This mechanism is new, and this way of generating energy is completely new,” Strano says. “This technology is intriguing because all you have to do is flow a solvent through a bed of these particles. This allows you to do electrochemistry, but with no wires.”
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora
The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.
Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language
A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.