Stories tagged materials science

Nice spine protector, dude: But can it stop meningitis?
Courtesy jeffedoeWho needs to live their life with crippling paranoia? No one; it was a rhetorical question. It’s time we grab our paranoia by the soft spot, and say, “let’s just be friends, okay?”

Thanks to technology brought to us by the future, in conjunction with the University of South Dakota (and possibly money from the Department of Defense), we may finally be able to take the “crippling” out of “crippling paranoia.” The paranoia will stay with us, of course, because that’s what gives us our strength, but we will live with the confidence that the dangers of the world are actually two steps behind us.

The invention of Kevlar was a coup in the sweaty, awkward wrestling match of crippling paranoia—the high strength fiber assured protection from low caliber firearms and low temperature fires alike. One could strut confidently down the street, swathed in high tech fabric, feeling pretty safe from random gunshots, and flaming sewer explosions, and cougar attacks.

But…what if the cougar’s mouth is full of germs? I mean, it would be, wouldn’t it? Germs are a lot smaller than bullets, and maybe they could penetrate the Kevlar weave… And what if I accidentally licked my armor after a particularly sour sewer explosion?

Crippled. With. Paranoia.

Until now! The future and South Dak… whatever, those things I mentioned above, they’ve made another move in the arms war against paranoia: Germ-resistant Kevlar. By coating the fabric with a chemical called N-Halamine, a Kevlar garment could gain long-lasting anti-microbial properties. What’s more, once it does wear down, the chemical can be reactivated with diluted bleach, which is convenient, because I’m always carrying bleach around anyway (to fight the germs).

This is very exciting. I mean, with armor to best enemies both great and small, what’s there to be worried about? Invisible enemies?

Invisible enemies. Invisible, radioactive enemies…

Tags : Kevlar, armor, materials science, germs

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Boring ol' fashion paper: practically falling apart under its own weight. Get ready for the awesome new generation of paper (your parents probably won't understand how to use it, though).
Courtesy NathanBeachAnd it’s about time, I think.

I keep expecting too much out of my paper, I guess. I can’t fry eggs on it. I can’t tie up bank robbers with it. I can’t construct a balcony out of it. I can’t even write on it (I have powerful and intense handwriting).

In short paper is weak. It’s weak as paper, and I’m sick of it.

No longer. Scientists in Sweden and Japan have developed a new type of paper that has the tensile strength of cast iron. That is to say, its ability to “resist pull before snapping” is like that of iron.

Like normal, milquetoast paper, the new material is primarily composed of cellulose, the tough cell walls of plants. This paper is altered on the nano level, however—its structure is changed on the scale of billionths of a meter by exposing it to certain chemicals.

The creators of the tough nanopaper hope that it might someday be used as strong, lightweight construction material, among other applications.

I’m thinking something along the lines of origami body armor.

Tags : nanotech, paper, materials science

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Popcorn shaped dye particles double cheaper solar cell efficiency

Popcorn-ball design doubles efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells: A close-up of a single ball, taken with a scanning electron microscope. The 300-nanometer sphere is large enough to scatter light. But its insides are made of tiny grains just 15 nanometers across.
Courtesy University of Washington Dye-sensitized solar cells, which are more flexible, easier to manufacture, and cheaper than existing solar technologies just got even better.

By using particles shaped like popcorn, University of Washington researchers were able to increase solar cell efficiencies from 2.4 up to 6.2 per cent. The porosity of the large balls (300nm) allowed light to penetrate into the layers and bounce around between balls increasing absorption. Each balls surface was made of smaller spheres (15nm) increasing the effective surface area. One gram of this material has a surface area of 1000 square feet.

The research used the pigment zinc oxide, which is of lower efficiency than the commercially used titanium oxide, but easier to work with during experiments. Titanium oxide layers are expected to show similar gains. While titanium oxide cells currently have a record efficiency of 11 percent, the researchers hope that by using the new method they can by far surpass this old record, possibly even surpassing silicon cell efficiencies. Such progress could make silicon cells, used for decades, obsolete, replaced by cheaper, more efficient, flexible cells.

Source; University of Washington News

Tags : University of Washington, Tammy Chou, solar, Samson Jenekhe, Qifeng Zhang, nanotechnology, nano, materials science, energy

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