JFIF>CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), default quality C    $.' ",#(7),01444'9=82<.342C  2!!22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222(}" }!1AQa"q2#BR$3br %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz w!1AQaq"2B #3Rbr $4%&'()*56789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz ?( *ãGR˻@ :E]|?t}fiotwپjs_ZxMF*1U-{{QZ,=W'[!]VlZ[ǵ>~wH6δ(IQfcI%g㨮N?zKk4bHu9 ZmF0vf{1lt{N(+9~9{ֺ>z_亮̎(((+gu8Vr#gahWv1'`?1\%\vz_Iu{LjDd$ ;wXLzVj6%.I0R1Ң$n=3ڝ_9*܋Þe<~RZ5մ]M'1TCl,ܴ$#0'3QCkJ/i%%FiD. 9'0xzKմ]2NW 9%sOZֱt3N}YGzw|'ê1-+YZK=+{O^9񎕧uhܼv69qj^LÑv?l+o \j2^vTk%? 4++giUXi:4iOۭݫaYݰ+4 ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( (? Nanotechnology Development Blog | Nanotechnology development news and information

Reports on assessment of the potential risks on using nanotechnology

September 7th, 2010

Although the use of the nanomaterials is continuously increasing in almost all fields ranging from consumer goods to medical applications, however there is a debate in the media/ Internet etc. on the potential risks associated with the use of the nanotechnology. Recently the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has come out the assessment with the form of following three reports.

1.      Delphi Study on Nanotechnology: For this study 100 experts one third each from the nanotechnology applications (food, cosmetics, textiles etc.),  Scientific Institutions ( basic as well application research) and Institutions that deal with the risks of nanotechnology including government organizations, insurance companies and trade unions were asked the potential risks associated with the use of the nanomaterials. As per the study, most of the experts believe that the risk assessment should be done for individual nanomaterial and therefore 9 test criteria were suggested for the present study.

2.      Perception of nanotechnology among Internet users: The study focuses on the perception on the consumer relevant nanotechnology application on internet based discussion boards, forums, and other similar boards. According the users believe that there is a considerable product experience, which has already been gained or likely to be gained in the near future, however the study is not a representative survey unlike the earlier one.

3. Risk Perception of nanotechnology based on media coverage: A number of articles are published from time to time covering the risk/ benefits associated with the use of nanomaterial. For the present study 1696 articles published between January 2000 and January 2007 in the reputed national newspaper. Majority of the articles cover the potential benefits associated with the use of  nanotechnology, however there are few articles that cover the potential risks of the use of the nanomaterials.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | 1 Comment »

One atom thick carbon to be used for visualizing molecular structure

September 4th, 2010

Researchers at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed an innovative technique for visualizing molecular structure.  Researchers used a single sheet of carbon layer for obtaining first direct image of the coating of water on the surface at room temperature. The technique can also suitably used for imaging other molecules including antibodies and other molecules.

Researchers find the molecular study very tough as all the surfaces have coating of water on them and because the water molecules being in constant flux, it takes enough long time in settling water molecule and therefore carrying out measurements. Heath, Professor of chemistry at Caltech and his colleagues developed a technique for pinning down the moving molecule under room temperature.

Researchers accidently saw some nanoscale island-shaped structures trapped in between graphene and mica while studying graphene on a flat surface of mica. Graphene, which should be one layer thick of carbon atom and it also, should be completely flat and layered onto a flat surface. To study the water molecule’s behavior, researchers deposited the graphene sheets at varying humidity levels.

The abnormal water layer were seen on the surfaces deposited under higher humidity, however there were not noticed in surfaces deposited under complete dry conditions. This study leads to the conclusion that the water molecules blanketed by graphene and by examining the details with atomic force microscopy the atomic structures of the molecules were revealed.

While studying water coats surfaces, researchers found that the first layer of water on mica is two molecular thick and its structure is of ice. Similarly upon this first two molecular thick layer another two molecular thick ice layer forms and finally on the top of these layers water droplets are formed. The outcome of the results can be utilized for studying a number of surface properties of the materials including adhesives, lubricants etc.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

NSF grants for $1.9 Million goes to University of Maryland

August 29th, 2010

To study bio-molecular structure at University of Maryland, National science Foundation has granted a fund of $1.9 million to the University. The fund will be utilized in acquiring superconducting 800 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer, which will be highest field NMR spectrometer installed at the College Park campus of the University of Maryland.

The facility will help in investigating biological molecular structure and their interactions. The principal investigator Kwaku Dayie, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry will utilize the facility for understanding the RNA and their possible utilization for drug discovery and drug delivery. RNA (Ribonucleic acid) is biological molecules and play critical role to human life in many diseases and disorders.

Co-principal investigator from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Professor David Fushman and Assistant Professor Vitali Tugarinov will examine protein structure using 800 MHz NMR. Ganesh Sriram, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering will study the metabolic engineering especially the metabolic pathways that can enhance the production of biofuels or pharmaceuticals. A total of 15 researchers from various departments are expected to utilize the facility in the frontier areas of research.

Posted in Investment

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

DOE $6.2 million awards go to Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc

August 27th, 2010

United States Department of Energy (DOE) has approved seven phase II awards to wholly owned subsidiary of Dynasil Corporation of America, Radiation Monitoring Devices (RMD), Inc. Radiation Monitoring Devices is one of the leader in the area of radiation detector material and related instrumentation. The awards for seven projects range from $750,000 to $1,000,000 each for developing state of the art nuclear sensors and related instruments. 

Out of the seven, three awards are for Biological and Environmental research and will focus on some of the area of medical diagnostic equipments. The development will aim at developing high resolution imaging detectors in nuclear medicine and related area and the development will also lead better radiation detection technology that can also be used for weapon detection for defense application and instruments for oil exploration and other industrial applications. 

Rest of the four awards provided by Department of Energy is for the Basic Energy science and will fund the RMD’s (Radiation Monitoring Devices) research. Research in the area of nuclear sensor technology and allied areas at RMD will support the researchers and scientists at DOE’s National Laboratories working in various fields including material science and nuclear physics. The project will also cover nanotechnology based applications such as nanoscale microscopy and nano-particle based detectors.

Posted in Government, Investment

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nano- material could be used for energy conservation

August 25th, 2010

Professor Steven Suib, Chemistry Department, UConn has recently come out with a novel method that could be useful for energy conservation. The nano-size crystalline material could be used a s a catalyst in alternate fuel development. 

The cover story on the basic science research will be published in the September issue of the journal “Small” a nanotechnology journal. The nanomaterial developed by the Professor will be much smaller by so far and will consists of two materials. One material will be a template on which the well-ordered arrays of the nanomaterial are grown. 

The growth on the template can be controlled by various techniques and it uses solar energy and splitting of water into its components i.e. hydrogen and oxygen can be achieved. The material is very useful in solar applications and it can be directly applied to the surface, which acts as catalyst for photocatalysis, a photoreaction in the presence of the catalyst.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

European Union funds clean energy nanotechnology research

August 23rd, 2010

Two research teams from London South bank University (LSBU) have received £ 1.5 million funds from European Union for developing innovative technology and clean energy nanotechnology research. The research projects will enhance the efficiency and will simultaneously reduce the overall environmental impact. 

The first project is about improving the cold storage equipments in Europe (ICE-E) and will be led by Professor Graeme Maidment and Judith Evans, Department of Urban engineering, LSBU. A total of nine partners will work for two year with the aim to increase the use of energy efficiency refrigeration technologies. 

Refrigeration is one of the major energy consuming processes which roughly consumes around 35% of the energy in the food industry and at the same time loss of refrigerants also contributes the climate change and global warming. The research will provide some useful energy efficient usage of the existing equipments and will also provide the know-how to make future cost-effective and energy efficient techniques. 

The next project is about manufacturing and applications of nanostructured materials and the project will led by Professor Davis Gawne of Surface Engineering, LSBU. Nanotechnology and nanostructured materials are being used in almost all the applications including energy, medicine, electronics, refining etc., however in Europe there is slow intake of the nanotechnology. 

The project will find out the focus on developing new nanomaterials that can find applications in battery, solar cells and energy sectors. The project team will also ensure that the nanotechnology goes out of research centre and applies into the industry.

Posted in Investment

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Carbon Nanotubes for defense applications

August 21st, 2010

SouthWest Nano Technologies Inc is one of the leading manufacturers of specialty multi-wall and single wall carbon nanotubes and its specialty multi-wall carbon nanotubes are being used by nanoRidge Material Inc. for defense applications. The body armor manufactured by NanoRidge will use South West Nano Technologies SMW100 for improving the protection to the soldiers. 

The new hybrid armor will be much stronger, lighter and will resist the impact and simultaneously will reduce the penetration of the bullet fired on the security personnel. The armor has been selected by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Program Agency) for vigorous trial and will be assessed for the damage caused by the most destructive small arms fire. 

The SMW100 is produced by South West nano Technologies using CoMoCAT, a patented process that provides the desired size and quality carbon nanotubes for various applications including the current application. The new hybrid armor once found suitable in the field trial will protect the law enforcing agencies and at the same time it will be lighter and less costly than the presently available armor.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

V-shape Transistors for probing of the interiors of the cell

August 14th, 2010

A new device as described in the journal Science, has been developed by the scientists and engineers at the Harvard University. The new device is a V-shaped transistor made up off nanowire that is even smaller than many viruses can suitably be used for sensitive probing inside the cell. At present much bulkier probes, which are nearly as large as cell and therefore the chances of damaging the cell using the newly developed transistors are much lower.

The newly made device is known as nanoscale field effect transistors or nanoEFT, which is the first new electrical measurement technique used for measuring the intracellular activities. Researchers are hopeful to measure ion- flux and electrical signals and neurons using nanoEFT technique.

The research team led by Charles M. Leiber when coated  the structure by phospholipid bilayer , the same material cell membrane are made of, found that the nanoEFT devices are easily pulled into cell via membrane fusion. The nanoEFT  probes are therefore can easily be inserted and removed from the cell and therefore not at all traumatic as the existing electrical probes are.

The nanoEFT probe being being in the range of 50 nanometer is much smaller than the human cells which range from 10 to 50 microns. The current electrical probes are of the order of 5 microns and while inserting these probes to human cells, can cause the damage to the cell as well as are much traumatic also.

Lieber and his coworkers also introduced 120 degree joints in the nanowire. The two 120 degree angles in cis orientation perfectly create a V-shape, 60 degree angle nanoEFT with sensor at the tip of V. Now joining the two open ends of the nanoEFt can be connected to form a nanoscale transistor.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

New technique to detect oral cancer

August 12th, 2010

Researchers at University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospital are working towards to find a quick solution for oral cancer detection. The new test will be quite easy and will take only 8-10 minutes of analysis. A few cells using a brush will be collected from the patient’s mouth and will be analyzed for presence of oral cancer cells. 

USA’s national Institute of Health has awarded a grant of $ 2 million for developing the test to the international research team led by Professor Martin Thornhill, Professor of Oral Medicine at the University of Sheffield at Sheffield and Professor John McDevitt of Rice University. 

Professor Thornhill is carrying out the clinical trials on patients and if the new technology is found effective and if it can suitably replaces the present biopsy technique; it could become a success and can be regularly used for detecting oral cancer. Professor McDevitt has been working on micro-chip and has developed a novel micro-chip, which can lead to the state of the art clinical pathology technique. 

Researchers are confident that the new technology will significantly enhance the ability to detect oral cancer at an early stage and ultimately improve the prognosis. It is expected that the technique will improve the survival rate of 5 years by more than 90 percent, which is around 50 as of now.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

$8 Million funds for lithium battery anode research

August 9th, 2010

The Batteries of Advanced Transportation Technologies Program (BATT) is a part of carbon Cycle 2.0 Initiative and is funded by the DOE’s Office of vehicle Technologies, has recently announced funding of 8 Research projects on lithium battery anodes. The application of the developed batteries out of this research proposal will include electric vehicles and plug-in-hybrid electric vehicles.

The award as been granted to the two national laboratories, five universities and one private non-profit research institute with a total fund of $8.54 million which will be disbursed over next four years. The list of these research facilities are given below.

1.       Argonne national Laboratory: The researchers will design high surface area metal as substrate that will be superior to conventional laminated electrodes.

2.       Binghamton University: The researchers at Binghamton University will synthesize nano metal based anodes with special focus on nano-tin and thus the newly developed anodes will have much higher volumetric energy densities than the current carbon anodes.

3.       Drexel University: Researchers will explore the combination of materials to enhance the lithium uptake and the overall capacity.

4.       National Renewable Energy Laboratory and University of Colorado: The researchers will use atomic layer deposition and molecular layer deposition techniques for coating silicone anode and organic coatings for producing high capacity anodes.
5.       Pennsylvania State University:  Researchers at Pennsylvania State University will synthesize anodes having specific capacity more than 1500mAh/g.
6.       Southwest Research Institute: The Researchers at SWRI will synthesize the characterize silicon clatharates for anode applications.
7.       Stanford University: The researchers at SU will explore porous electrode that can bind silicon nanoparticles. These materials should be low cost and at the same time should be synthesized in high volume.

8.       University of Pittsburg: Researchers at University of Pittsburg will synthesize amorphous silicon and lithium-silicon alloy/ carbon-carbon hetrostructures. The work will also include exploring thermoplastic resin superior than the current poly-vinyl fluoride.

Posted in Investment

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Kripa Varanasi got Young Faculty Award from DARPA

August 6th, 2010

Defence Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA) grants Young Faculty Award every year to the junior faculty engaged in the physical science, engineering and mathematics areas and 2010 Young Faculty Award is received by Kripa Varanasi, assistant professor of Mechanical engineering at MIT. 

Kripa is also the leader of the lab for Surface Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT. Kripa will develop nanoengineering based surface technology enabled thermal fluid systems that can find the applications in many advance technologies including ultra high heat flux thermal management. The new technology can serve multiple industries ranging from photonics to the energy. 

The present hurdles in the electronics or photonics devices are that, these devices are unable to remove heat quickly and the heat present in the system reduces the overall performance and life of these devices. The heat removal is a crucial challenge and with the DARPA’s Defense Science Office grants for 2010 in the area of nanoengineered surface technology based thermal-fluid system, a better solution is expected to come in the near future.

Posted in Government

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

New biodegradable nanocompound for bone regeneration

August 3rd, 2010

Bones are the vital parts of the body and whenever a partial damage to the bone occurs, bones have a property to regenerate themselves. However if in many cases when serious break occurs, bones takes longer time to regenerate and keeping this in mind, bone tissue engineers are continuously working towards the development of new material that induce the bone regeneration and disappears as soon as the bone recover.

Ms. Beatriz Olade, research scholar at the Health Unit of Tecnalia is working towards the development of such compounds. She has recently developed a totally new porous compound that was capable to interact both chemically and electrically with the bone cells. The interaction with bone cells finally accelerated the bone recovery.

The researcher uses the polymer polylactic acid, a bioceramic hydroxyapatite and carbon nanotubes. Polymer polylactic acid has biodegradable properties and is widely used for medicinal purposes and the polymer disappears as soon as the bone grows. The bioceramic provides enough calcium to the cells and thus facilitates the growth and finally carbon nanotubes enhance mechanical properties to the polymer.

The trial carried out by Ms Olade resulted satisfactory results in both in vitro and in vivo experiments. The initial results are encouraging and bone growth was observed after 3 weeks and after  16 weeks, bone showed mechanical and other properties of bone similar to healthy bone tissues.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Growing nanotechnology business around the globe

July 6th, 2010

Nanotechnology is continuously improving its presence and now more than 2000 companies worldwide are engaged in this field from research to manufacturing or applications. A large number of companies around more than half are from United States., above 600 companies are from Europe and more than 200 are from Asia.

Nanotechnology has now become a multidisciplinary research area where the study can lead to its applications over a wide range from medicine to energy. With the advanced equipments such as atomic force microscope, tunneling electron microscope and the latest technologies including electron beam lithography have allowed researchers to manipulate the nanostructures, which was not possible earlier.

With the manipulating nanostructure size, researchers now can achieve the desired nanoparticle that shows different properties compared to the macroscale properties and some of the physical properties get entirely changed. For example copper from opaque becomes transparent at nanoscale, platinum from inert becomes catalyst at nanoscale and gold becomes liquid from solid at nanoscale.

 Nanotechnology thus involve many new dimensions to research and applications and it is growing very fast and even many developing countries have opened institutes for the study of nanotechnology and nanotechnology research facilities are being created.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Altair Nanotechnologies signs agreement to supply advanced lithium-ion batteries to Proterra Inc.

July 3rd, 2010

Altair Nanotechnologies based at Reno, Nevada is one of the leading providers of energy storage systems including Lithium-Titanate based battery systems. These are among the best performing energy storage systems that find applications in a number of uses including mass transit and military applications.

Altair Nanotechnology has recently announced that it will supply advanced lithium-ion battery modules to Proterra Inc that will be incorporated into Proterra’s electric and hybrid vehicles. Proterra Inc, headquartered at Golden, Colorado is one of the leading designer and manufacturer of heavy duty drive systems, transit buses, energy storage systems and vehicle control systems.

Proterra third time in continuation purchased orders of $4.6 million from Altair Nanotechnologies till June 2011. The earlier orders were announced by the user in August 2009 and April 2010. As there is continous growth in mass transit market, Altai Nanotechnologies is anticipating more orders.

Proterra engineers have already studied the usefulness of the Altair Nanotechnologies advanced lithium-ion battery modules and found that these are perfect fit for the transit bus applications and hopeful to deliver more cost effective and sustainable transport solutions.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Carbon nanotube biosensor developed for detecting protein

June 30th, 2010

Researchers at Boston College have developed a carbon nanotube biosensor, which could detect ferritin, protein used for storing iron and E7 oncoprotein. The new carbon nanotube biosensor was prepared by coating a thin layer of selected polymer and the system uses electrochemical signals that detect minute quantities of protein.

According to the multidisciplinary  team of researchers including biologists, chemists and physicist at the Boston College, the biosensor could identify and discriminate from a number of varieties of protein having different shapes. The research finding has recently been reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

A lot of research is going on the use of polymer structure based sensors for identifying certain organic materials, however its application in recognizing protein has been a great challenge for researchers. The team uses wire like nanotubes of carbon and coated them with non-conducting polymer for recognizing protein at subpicogram level.

In the molecular imprinting technique, the imprints reduces the thickness of the coating and therefore these regions of the polymer register lower level of impedance when contacted by the charges and once the protein molecule drops in the mirror image, it fills the space and the nanotube registers a change in impedance signaling the presence of the protein.

The available diagnostic tools at present available for diagnosing papillomaviruse or any other virustakes quite a lot of time, however with the molecular imprinting technique, it is possible to detect the virus in real time. Thus the nanotube sensors have the advantage of tracking HPV protein directly and further no chemical marker is required for detection.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Fab Synchronization for producing advanced chips

June 27th, 2010

Four reputed companies have come together to synchronize semiconductor manufacturing program for producing advanced chips based on 28nm process technology. IBM, Samsung Electronics, ST Microelectronics and Global Foundries are working towards standardization of advanced 28nm process technology so those consistent products are made worldwide for various applications including electronics and device manufacturers.

The 28nm process technology, which was jointly developed by IBM Technology Alliance is designed for the next generation smart mobile devices enabling them to operate at higher speed. The additional features of these devices will also be compact size, longer battery life and low standby power. The base 28nm technology is also expected to be foundation for many portable new generation electronics devices that are capable of streaming video, data, voice etc.

The members of the technology alliance include Infineon Technology, Renesas Electronics, Toshiba in addition to the other four members. The 28nm chips is designed to use complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) and high K metal oxides (HKMG) processes and the above members are now working towards the global standards for HKMG process with “Gate First” technology. The approach is much more superior to the conventional approach and will offer a smaller size and compatible with the other parameters of the process.

Posted in Computing

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Towards improvement in the efficiency of the solar cell

June 24th, 2010

Solar energy is one of the major renewable sources of energy; however the major drawback of utilizing the energy is the conversion of it. The best nanowire solar cells available at present thin film solar cells of type III/IV and had a conversion efficiency of the order of 37 to 40 percent and researchers want it to increase to the significant level so that technology is useful and cost effective and can suitably be applied to day to day use.

The Ministry   of Economic Affairs of Dutch Government has now granted EUR 1.2 million to the researchers for carrying out research on nanowire solar cells to achieve higher efficiency of the solar cells.  Researchers Dr. Jos Haverkort, Dr. Eric Bakkers and Dr. Geert Verbong are expected that when the nanowire solar cell combined with the mirror system, these can generate sizeable portion of the electricity demand in Southern Europe.

Thin film solar cells at presently are being used only on solar panels of satellites as these are very costly. By applying mirror systems having focus systems of the order of one thousand, these solar panels can also be used on earth on a very cost effective manner. Researchers expect that in the next ten years the efficiency of these thin film solar cells can be increased to 65 percent.

The increased efficiency will simultaneously reduce the input cost and has a potential to lead the world’s most cost efficient solar energy technology with a cost price of lower than 50 cent per Watt, which is roughly one-third of present production cost of 1.5 Euro per Watt.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Gold nanoparticles to be added in silver nanowires for enhancing visible light irradiation

June 21st, 2010

A Researcher has thought of decorating silver chloride nanowire with that of gold nanoparticles and has studied its affect of various chemical and physical properties of the material. Nanoscientist Yugang Sun at US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has created visible light catalysis using the method.

Silver nanowires have been continuously studied for various parameters as per the requirement of their applications optoelectronic devices and transparent conductive electrodes. These silver nanowires were first converted by the researcher into semi-conducting silver chloride nanowire and gold nanoparticles were added later into it.

The conventional silver nanoparticles are photocatalytic to limited to ultraviolet and blue light wavelenghths, however gold nanoparticles containing silver chloride are photolytic to entire visible light. Yugang found that the new material has significantly different properties and found that once you allow polluted water to flow through it, the organic molecule destroyed. These organic molecule were found destroyed with visible irradiation from sun or any other source of light such as fluorescent light bulbs.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

A new report on Nanotechnology, Health and Environment to be presented

June 18th, 2010

Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Intertox and BPT Pharmaceuticals have come together and raised issues on the health and environmental impact of nanotechnology. The authors are well known intellectuals and have focus on certain issues related to the safe and eco-friendly use of the nanotechnology for future generation.

The EHS risks as studied by the various stakeholders such as Greenberg and Intertox needs much more elaborate study. Greenberg Traurig is a full service law firm and has more than 30 offices in US to deal with the specialized technology and complex dynamics and have a team of lawyers who are well versed with the nanotechnology and latest advances in this area.

Similarly Intertox, headquartered at Seattle, WA is scientific consulting and research firm and has been working in the nanomaterial area. Intertox has large experience of developing health-protective standards and implementation practices.

Although the report also focuses on the potential benefits of nanotechnology on human health and environment, it summarizes the US Governments efforts on nanotechnology environment, health and safety policy  and the report will be presented at the coming June 21-24, 2010 Nanotech Conference and Expo 2010.

Posted in Society & Ethics

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Stickiness of gold nanoparticles could be used for producing protein

June 15th, 2010

Gold nanoparticles are tiny spheres of gold in the range of 1 to 100 nanometer and these nanoparticles have become useful in medicines. These nanoparticles have found many useful applications in modern medicine and drug-delivery system is the most common application.

Howeevr, the major disadvantage of gold nanoparticles is that they are sticky and due to their stickiness property, these nanoparticles also stick to many unintended particles and thus making them unsuitable for their designed task. MIT Researchers have now utilized the sticking properties of gold nanoparticles for enhancing in vitro translation. The research finding has recently been published in ACS Nano.

Researchers found that the due to the stickiness of the gold nanoparticles, researchers could produce double the amount of protein in vitro translation. Researcher Kimberly Hamed-Schifferli and her coworker initially set up translation inhibition, for stopping the production of harmful protein with the help of gold nanoparticles expecting that the large nanoparticle-DNA aggregates would block the translation. The research was funded by the Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Superconducting nanoparticles of tin show shell effect

June 12th, 2010

A lot of researchers throughout globe are working on superconductors and all metals behave as superconductors at a minimum temperature, however the research focus is to increase this minimum temperature so that the superconductors are utilized for saving the real energy.

As the electrical resistance of any metal also depends on the size, and researchers have shown with scanning tunneling microscope that in case of tin spherical nanoparticles of a fixed size, the minimum temperature at which these nanoparticles show superconductivity could be increased significantly. Quantum effect is responsible for increase in the superconductivity of these magical size nanoparticles at room temperature and can intensify superconductivity up to 60%.

The phenomenon is also known as “Shell effects”  that intensifies the superconductivity as quantum states changes the properties of nanoparticles unexpectedly and which lead to surprising consequences. These shell effects were predicted long back by physicists and according to this, the electrons at certain amount joins together to form Cooper pairs, which move without resistance throughout the material. Cooper pair forms only when the magical amount of electrons are available and it ultimately depend on the size of nanomaterials.  

The research will provide new dimensions in the area of superconductivity and will open new perspective by developing targeted nanostructures of different other metals.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Graphene may replace carbon fibres in high performance applications

June 9th, 2010

Carbon fibres are used for manufacturing in light weight high performance applications such as racing cars, aircrafts etc due to their light weight and excellent strength. Now a team of material scientists and physicists from the University of Manchester are exploring grapheme for the replacement of carbon fibre.

Graphene is a two dimensional carbon layer and it was first discovered by physicists Prof Andre Geim and Dr. Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester and it is one of the stiffest materials and recent study indicates that it is one of the strongest materials also.

Researchers now at the University of Manchester investigated the properties of the graphene when mixed with other materials and research findings were published in the journal Advanced Materials. Researchers put a single grapheme sheet between the layer of polymers and used Raman Spectroscopy and measured the vibration change frequency.

As Raman Spectroscopy gave the sufficient information on graphene for vibrational energy and after computing the vibrational energy change, the stiffness of graphene for different polymer composite was calculated. Using this information, researchers are now designing the grapheme based materials that can be as stiff as carbon fibre and will replace the carbon fibre in future for high performance applications.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanosensors could detect airborne toxins instantly

May 20th, 2010

A small device using a silicon chip in a mobile phone can help in detecting the airborne toxins such as gas leakage or any other hazardous material present in the air in real time. The tiny silicon chip will act as sensitive nose and will respond immediately through cell phone networks. The developers of the device say that the device is sensitive enough to identify the exact location and the extents of hazard.

Researchers of University of California, San Diego in collaboration with Rhevision, Inc., have successfully completed the first phase of the development of the sensor and bow working on the development of the prototype that will connect the sensor to cell phone. The research is headed by Michael Sailor, professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.

The sensor, which is a porous silicon flake changes color when it interacts with toxins and by manipulating its shape and other characteristics, researchers are able to distinguish a number of hazardous materials deliberately brought near it. Researchers are now able to distinguish hundreds of different compound and recognize which is harmful. 

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

International Nanotechnology Conference during May 17-20, 2010 France

May 16th, 2010

The sixth International Technology Conference on Communication and Cooperation  (INC6) will be held during May 17-20, 2010 at Minatec, France. This will be the unique conference in this part of the world and will be attended by policy makers, researchers and well known dignitaries.

People from industry, academia and government will take part in the forum and thus it will provide a unique opportunity to share the nanotechnology initiatives taken by the European countries and at the same time well known speakers from the industry and academia will set the tone of the forum for future nanotechnology collaboration, research to support economic growth.

A large number of technical and poster sessions will focus on the need and future works on a number of nanotechnology subjects so that the research output can lead to the commercialization and betterment of human life on the earth. May 17th will be celebrated as European Nanoelectronics Day and the program will focus on the research and development, nanotechnology initiatives in the nanoelectronics within Europe.

Posted in Events

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Eaton to use A123 System’s batteries in their Ford F 550

May 12th, 2010

Eaton Corporation, one of the major diversifies multinational manufacturer has selected A123 Systems for supplying its battery systems for producing hybrid power system. The hybrid power system will be installed in the PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) Ford F550. The new batteries will enhance the efficiency and has a potential of saving cost up to 63% of fuel depending on the HVAC lifecycle and other working conditions.

The program is managed by the EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) and is partially funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Fund administered by DOE (US Department of Energy). The program is aimed to develop plug-in hybrid power train system to be used in light to medium duty service vehicles.

These vehicles are popularly known as “trouble trucks” and many times kept idling to power truck’s equipment and therefore pose a risk to the humans and environment through diesel emissions. The newly developed battery pack is expected to give a five to six hours idling time under similar conditions and therefore is much more environmental friendly and cost effective.

A123 System Inc., was formed in year 2001 headquartered at Massachusetts is engaged in the development and manufacturing of lithium ion batteries and battery systems for various use including transportation and consumer markets. It’s proprietary nanoscale electrode technology is in high demand and companies from all parts of the country are selecting A123 System for their battery and battery system requirements.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Gold nanoparticles found to eliminate cancer cells

May 9th, 2010

A lot of researchers worldwide are already engaged in finding the medicinal uses of gold nanoparticles. Earlier studies by University of Southern California and Georgia Institute of Technology indicate that gold nanoparticles can play significant role in medicine as these particles are absorbed by cancer cells and heat generated by these nanoparticles can eradicate cancer cells. Further as these particles can help in identifying the cancer cells, this ultimately helps the doctors in surgery also.

Now researchers at Ohio University are further exploring the further benefits of gold nanoparticles that can help in saving lives. The major study that was carried out to understand the mechanism of tumor cells eradication by gold nanoparticles and the finding of the research will be presented at the 2010 Student Research and Creative Activity Expo on May 13.

Michael Carlson, doctoral student and his advisor Hugh Richardson, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ohio University has the ultimate goal of using gold nanoparticles, which are relatively non-toxic in treating cancer. Professor Richardson has a large experience and has published more than 11 research papers. The study so far concludes that the gold nanopartilces absorb the light energy of the laser and generate heat, which helps in killing the cancer cells. 

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | 1 Comment »

Shrink Nanotechnology Inc’s subsidiary to commercialize solar energy products

May 6th, 2010

Shrink Nanotechnology Inc. is one of the first organizations that are involved in diverse activities including nano-devices, medical diagnostics, sensors, biotechnology research and developmental tools and solar film technologies. The company has recently announced  a new wholly owned subsidiary Shrink Solar LLC of the parent company Shrink Nanotechnologies Inc will commercialize the solar technologies and solar energy products, which is a large market of $37 billion.

Shrink Nanotechnologies Inc. has developed the unique nano-structured solar concentrator designs and these unique designs are made efficient enough to produce energy at much lower cost than the conventional solar energy technologies. The newly fully owned subsidiary Shrink Solar LLC, will enhance the marketing capabilities of the parent company worldwide.

The latest nanocrystal based technology from M/s Shrink Nanotechnology, for which patent is still pending, enhances the silicon’s ability to absorb sunlight efficiently resulting in higher conversion of solar energy to electrical energy and consequently higher efficiency of the solar energy products. The new technology will not only bring the higher efficiency but will deliver higher wattage at the lower input cost also.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanoparticles may help surgeons in diagnosing brain tumor

May 3rd, 2010

Researchers at Ohio State University are trying to diagnose brain tumor cells known as glioblastoms with the help of different nanoparticles once these nanoparticles are injected into the blood of the patients. The focus of the researchers is to combine two different particles together so the outcome will have multiple properties in one small particle known as nanocomposite.

The study published in the journal Nanotechnology, researchers claim that they have successfully fabricated a nanocomposite that has magnetic and fluorescent properties. The newly developed nanocomposite has a size of less than 20 nanometer and the magnetic feature will help in diagnosing the cancer cells in MRI and at the same time the fluorescent feature will allow to see the tumor under some special light.

Combining two different properties particles is a difficult task and it has never been attempted before; here  researchers used an altogether different technique to combine the two different properties in a nanocomposite. They took the magnetic particle and tried to bind the fluorescent particle on the top of the magnetic particle at a very high temperature of 350 degree celcius. The new development will help doctors in treating the lethal brain disease glioblastoms.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Strong support expected for Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO)

May 1st, 2010

Standard and Poor (S&P), a famous international rating organization expects continuous growth of the RUSNANO as it will get regular support and investment from the state. The recent outlook from S&P is changed significantly from negative to stable BB+ for long term, B for short term and AA+ national ratings.

RUSNANO was established by the Russian government, which has a rating of BBB/Stable/A-3 for foreign currency and BBB+/stable/A-2 for local currency and the S&P outlook reflects a continuous support in the form of capital till the year 2012 and S&P analysts expects Russian government will guarantee support till 2015. Although RUSNANO legal status has recently changed from a state corporation to a joint-stock company, still then S&P has changed its rating from negative to stable.

If we see the financial health of RUSNANO, it has got regular support from state and will continue to get equity from time to time till 2012. The company’s capital will reach 130 billion ruble by the end of the year 2012, which is about 0.3% Russia’s GDP. Keeping in view of the strong financial health of the company, a better rating from S&P was expected.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

The University of Edinburgh plan to showcase the Nanotecholoy achievements

April 27th, 2010

The University of Edinburgh is one of the leading academic research centres in UK and it has come up with the latest advances in the research nanotechnology research areas. With the fast growing applications of nanotechnology research, the centre has well built up large research facilities and now it is exploring the link with the industry so that it can find the future funding needs of the project. 

At present, the University of Edinburgh is planning to hold the one day event, which will showcase the nanotechnology research activities and expertise in various nanotech areas including nanotoxicology, nanosensors, nanoenergy, nanomaterials, nanoelectronics and nanometrology. The event is open for industry users of these technologies as well as people from academia interested in the areas also can join the program. 

A large number of scientists from University of Edinburgh and Kelvin Nanotechnology Limited are expected to deliver presentation on latest developments in the respective area of nanotechnology in the forthcoming NMPFP7UK and if you are also interested to take part in the event, you can fill-up and submit your registration from, which is available online.

Posted in Events

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

EU-Funded researchers for transporter protein study

April 24th, 2010

EU funded the E-MEP (European Membrane Protein) project under which researchers took the initiate to study the structure of transporter protein in all three main structural states and became the first in the world to do so. The E-MEP project was financed under the “Life Sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health” and researchers took part in the EDICT (European drug initiative on channels and transporters) project under health theme of Seventh Framework Program (FP7). 

The major job of transporters protein is to move substances into and out of the human cells and therefore their study could lead to the development of a range of new drugs that could be used for treating a number of diseases and disorders. A study of transporters protein leads to many new findings on the working of these transporter fuels, which has been published in the recent issue of the Journal science. 

According to the researchers the study of all types of transporters fuel is a challenging task, as there are thousands types of transporters fuel in our body, however these transporters protein carry molecules across cell membrane by switching between three different structural states. Until and unless the entire mechanism of switching is not studies, their use for drug development is difficult. 

For the present study on Mhp1 (Microbacterium hydantoin permease 1), researchers from Japan and UK first converted the hydantoin into amino acids. The earlier way back in 2008, researchers studied the outward facing and occluded structure and the recent study on inward facing structure provide the new insights on the working of Mhp1. With the completion of the third structure researchers are now hopeful for a fast progress on the development of new drug that could lead to advance treatment for many diseases and disorders.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanowire cantilever for enhancing the efficiency of Atomic Force Microscopy

April 21st, 2010

The conventional atomic force microscope cantilever is a sharp tip that is used for obtaining three-dimensional image of the material. As the force required for imaging is minimum, even then on this force, the cantilever can tear apart the tissues or cells and biological materials. Although there is a continuous effort to make smaller and smaller cantilever, however the force required for imaging is still enough to rupture the biological cells. 

Recently researchers Molecular Foundary at U.S. Department of Energy, have developed nano-cantilever. The system is gentle enough to obtain images without rupturing the minute biological materials or other living cells in the natural liquid environment. Further the whole detection system has been made revolutionary so that the limitations present in the conventional system are overcome. 

The Molecular Foundry is one of the best Research Centre of Department of Energy. It is known for interdisciplinary research for nanotechnology is among the five NSRCs and is engaged in fabricating, processing and characterizing the nanomaterials. It has state of the art facilities for creating excellence in the field of nanotechnology and got investments from National Nanotechnology Initiative.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

New silicon drift detector (SDD) designed for nanotechnology characterization

March 1st, 2010

SII NanoTechnology Inc;, is one of the leading company engaged in development and research activities in the areas of X-ray detection and spectrometric systems has recently designed a custom silicon drift detector (SDD). The new detector has larger solid angle improved roughly twenty times than the conventional one and therefore has much improvement and is best suited for nanotechnology characterization.

SII Nano Technology group is continuously launches new products that are not only innovative bust cost effective also and thus helps the whole community looking for XRF and X-ray solutions.

Instruments including Argonne National Laboratory’s products are capable to deliver the best spatial resolution to characterize different nanotechnology based materials, however now by customizing the 50mm 2SDD with larger solid angle, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) has become much more advanced and the new large slid angle SDD spectrophotometer will provide excellent energy resolution..

Posted in Products

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotechnology to be used for scanning hear failures

February 27th, 2010

Researchers are working hard to use nanotechnology for wide applications such as consumer electronics, energy, biotechnology, medicine etc. In a recent study European researchers studied the nanoscale scanning techniques, which could be utilized for better understanding of heart failure. The study will lead a suitable treatment for the people who suffer from this killer disease.

In the study, which has recently been submitted to Science Journal? Researchers from Imperial College London, UK and University of Wurzburg, Germany have used a technique known as scanning conductance microscopy (SICM) for studying the surface of healthy and weak rat hearts. As heart failure is a condition of heart’s inability to pump enough blood to the body needs and experts believe that using this technique, they can obtain better images of hearts cell’s surfaces.

Conventional technique uses a technique known as live microscopy for determining the damage on hearts surface, however using SICM researchers got very fine structures of cardiac muscle cells and at the same time they were also fully able to detect minute tubes, which carry electrical signals. Using the SICM, researchers were also able to get the detailed muscle’s cell surface in heart failure.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotox to provide complete risk analysis of nanoparticles

February 24th, 2010

Nanotox, a new company will analyze the complete risk profile of various nanoparticles used for a number of products and processes. The analysis will not only cover the health risk but it will also focus on environmental risks associated with the use of nanoparticles.

Recently Professor Michael Depledge,a renowned environmental authority professor and Commissioner for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has joined the scientific advisory board of the company. Professor Michael has the expertise in the field of environmental and medical toxicology and his experience will bring many new advances in finding risks associated with the nanoparticles at Nanotox.

Nanotox, a Austin, Texas based company will provide the complete diagnosis of nanoparticles wrt health and environmental risks. It is first of its kind and will work towards reducing the risks associated with commercial products as per the federal safety guidelines and at the same time it will also help nanotechnology-based companies to launch their nanotech based products in market quickly.

Nanotox deals with a number of clients working in different areas of application of nanoparticles and it uses the methodologies accepted by national and International organization and standardization bodies.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotechnology to be applied for advance coating

February 21st, 2010

Nanotechnology has grown far away and researchers have developed its application for advance coating to many specialty products and the nanocoating can significantly enhance the life and performance of these materials.

North Dakota State University (NSDU) is known for its very first initiative in coating when it offered first coating course in more than a century ago in the year 1905 and since then the university has developed many advance processes. The researchers at NSDU’s department of coatings and polymeric materials together with Nanoscale Science and Engineering has recently come out with new nanotechnology based processes that can be beneficial to many consumer as well as military products.

Recently North Dakota State University and Triton System, Inc, has come together and announced that both will work together for manufacturing of advance coatings and future applications of engineering and manufacturing including chemical detection sensing systems. Triton System will establish a new Fargo facility and enhance the company’s environmental friendly coating capabilities. The present partnership of Triton and NSDU will bring many more ultrathin or nanotech coating that will enhance the efficiency the performance of many industrial and consumer products.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotechnology based therapeutic agents improves fighting with cancer

February 18th, 2010

Although nanotechnology has grown a mature way and has found applications in almost all fields of science and technology, energy, consumer products, electronics etc., it’s application in medicine will bring relief to many people around the globe. Around the world people are investigating various ways to use nanotechnology for either detecting a number of diseases or use nanotechnology for treating the diseases.

Mauro Ferrari, Chairman and professor of the department of nanomedicine and biomedical engineering, HSC, University of Texas has already submitted a paper on the application of nanotechnology for cancer detection and treatment in the Journal of Mechanical Engineering and the same will be published in the March 2010 issue.

The researchers at University of Texas have fabricated some engineered nanoparticles having superior capability to deliver drugs to the desired areas. The new nanoparticles will exploit and identify the unique cells affected by various cancer lesions and will treat affected areas only thus protecting the healthy cells.

Researcher have found and demonstrated that the newly engineered nanoparticles are designed to concentrate on localized tumor cells and can be used in very small dosages. The major advantages of such nanoparticles is that these are very less likely to disperse to healthy human body cells and therefore are less likely to cause any side effects.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | 1 Comment »

Nanotechnology to play significant role in quantum technology

February 15th, 2010

Researchers at Harvard University have gone a step forward by creating diamond-based nanowire devices that can significantly enhance the existing quantum technology applications. The new developed nanostructured diamond devices offers stable and bright source of light at ambient and are suitable for computing, quantum communication, biochemical sensing and many other advance applications.

Researchers under the guidance of Marco Loncar, Assistant Professor, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science have first examined natural diamonds for a number of chemical properties and thereafter by manipulating the spin of electron, found that it can be of use for various applications.

The quantum states were measured using light and light emitting defects of diamond can significantly be improved by nanostructuring the diamond. Researchers further embedded the defects within a diamond nanowire and the research finding were published in the recent issue of “Nature Nanotechnology”.

The advantage of using nanowire is that it provides an interface between to the color center and therefore it enhances the sensitivity of the device. The overall efficiency of the device is gets 10 times higher than the natural diamond devices because here in nanowire devices, the emitted photons get are much directed by the device. 

Quantum network devices are unique and require many devices in parallel altogether and keeping the requirement of quantum networks, researchers used top-down nanofabrication methods to embed color centers into machine structures and thus created large arrays. Although this is the beginning of the work, researchers are hopeful to use synthetic diamonds for many more nanotechnology, quantum physics applications in the coming days.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

IBM creates history by developing high efficiency nanotechnology based solar cells using cheap readily available materials

February 12th, 2010

IBM has recently announced that it has developed a solar cell that is based on abundant materials that are readily available on earth and therefore it will be cheaper and at the same time the new solar cell will be more efficient than the conventional cells. The material used for converting light into electricity is made up off copper, tin, zinc, sulfur and selenium using a brand new nanotechnology based technique.

In today’s scenario when there are limited sources of non-renewable energy, the solar energy might play a crucial role, however at present the cost of solar cells is very high and therefore the use of solar cell is limited. Presently the solar energy contributes less than 0.1% of total energy consumption and researchers are working throughout the globe to reduce the cost of the solar cells so that the overall solar energy production and consumption increases.

The finding of the research by IBM scientists has recently been published in Advanced Materials where the researchers elaborated the thin-film photovoltaic technology in detail. The technology uses nanoparticles and by avoiding the highly expensive vacuum based techniques, researchers were able to reduce the input cost of the technique significantly. Further the state of the art production technique will further reduce the fabrication cost of the cell giving overall cost competitiveness to the new technique.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Rice University to organize a technical symposium on Nanotechnology

February 9th, 2010

Rice University is set to organize the Carbon Nanotechnology technical symposium during October 11-13 on the occasion of 25th anniversary of nanotechnology. Many other events are also likely to be held during the year.

Buckminsterfullerene later known as fullerene was the first molecule that was discovered 25 years ago and since then there is a continual growth in the area of nanotechnology. The first molecule consisting 60 molecules of carbon looks like a soccer ball and therefore is nicknamed as “buckyball”. Later with the discovery of carbon nanotube in the year 1991, the rapid devlopment in the area of nanotechnology is taking place.

Today scientists and researchers across the globe are not only identifying the practical uses of the nanotechnology but are also examining the key issues such as health and safety associated with the use of the technology. A lot of emphasis is also being given to the environmental issues.

The distinguished inventors including Sir Harold Kroto, Sean O’Brien, James Heath and Robert Curl will be participating in brainstorming session. Curl and Kroto along with Smalley has already won Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the 1996.

The other key focus areas of the symposium are history of nanotechnology, state of the art applications of nanotechnology in various fields including energy, medicine, electronics, photonics, environmental and quantum research, material science etc. A large of people interested in the nanotechnology areas are expected to participate in this August gathering and if you have some interest in the area, visit the organizers and confirm your participation. 

Posted in Events

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotechnology can play a vital role in fighting cancer

February 6th, 2010

Nanotechnology can play a vital role in fighting cancer is a reality now and many experts of the area nanomedicine and nanotechnology foresee tremendous scope of nanotechnology in many more areas covering wide range of health and medicine in future. One of the key property of nanotech based therapeutic agents is that these complex nanostructures can exploit the cancer lesion’s mechanical properties and therefore can effectively be used for various applications.

The researchers claim to have engineered the specific nanoparticles that are far superior as these are capable to deliver the drugs only at the affected sites and thus don’t cause any adverse effect on the healthy cells. Researchers argue that the understanding of the mechanical aspect associated with the cancer can help in designing nanoparticles for fighting cancer. Further all the mechanical aspect lead to transport or motion of the blood and cells.

Researchers at the Department of Nanomedicine and Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas led by Dr. Mauro Ferrari, chairman have recently launched a new field known as “Transport Oncophysics” where nanotech based therapeutics are under study for their performance. Researchers have so far found that the new nanoparticles developed and studied indicate their superiority over conventional drugs. The outcome of the study will be presented in the forthcoming conference, “First Global Congress on Nanoengineering for Medicine and Biology” starting from Feb 07, 2010 at JW Marriott Houston. 

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | 1 Comment »

White light produced by researchers at Fraunhofer Institute

February 3rd, 2010

Production of white light was a challenge for a long time and researchers all around the globe were looking for some alternate options. The conventional methods for producing white light also accompany with some defects known as peripheral color affects and now researchers led by Dr. Michael Popall of Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research in Wurzburg have found a solution for it.

Researchers here claim to have a technique for producing white light, which will be presented at the forthcoming event Nanotech 2010 dueing February 17 to 19, at Tokyo. Here as claimed, the tiniest colors green, blue and red diodes in the condensed place produced light, which is homogenized through the use of nanotechnology using a ORMOCER optics to produce the brightest white light.

ORCOMER, a hybrid of inorganic and organic networked components is much more superior and a perfect ideal material for producing microoptics. The Applied Optics and Precision Engineering department of Fraunhofer Institute at Jena developed the ORCOMER, which is able to produce the highest quality white light without refraction errors.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Semprius Inc. get DOE subcontract for scaling solar energy technology

January 22nd, 2010

Semprius Inc. have patented micro transfer printing technology, which is one of the state of the art process that is used for depositing high performance semiconductors on a number of substrates. The company also license the technology for other advanced applications including LCD and OELD displays.

NREL has recently short listed Semprius for $3 million subcontract for scaling up the patented technology for solar energy on behalf of Department of Energy as its proprietary solar energy technology is one of the best and at the same time the process is economically viable also. Semprius, a North Carolina based Company, commercializes Solar Module arrays based on the patented technology.

Semprius Inc, will utilize the fund for developing and demonstrating the solar technology at pilot plant. Once the process will be established, a full-scale manufacturing plant will be setup. The high efficiency scalable design of the patented technology will benefit large customers across the United States.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

New novel lipid nanoparticles for RNAi Therapeutics

January 19th, 2010

Researchers from various organizations and universities including The University of British Columbia (UBC), Alnylam, Tekmira Pharmaceuticals and Alcana Technologies have recently come out with a publication in the journal Nature Biotechnology, where they have claimed that the systematic approach in lipid nanoparticles can lead better delivery of RNAi Therapeutics.

Researchers in their new paper, which was published on 17 January, 2010 in the journal Nature Biotechnology discusses with the discovery of the novel LNP composites that improved the systematic delivery of RNAi therapeuticals dramatically. The novel lipid which is known as KC2 was based on the medicinal chemistry. Although a large number of novel prepared by researchers and characterized for various properties and finally were also evaluated for their suitability in delivering the RNAi therapeutics.

Researchers carried out some additional tests to ascertain the vivo gene silencing activity of the newly developed novel lipids. The tests provide indication of physicochemical changes in lipid bilayers and with the successful formulation of novel KC2 lipids based on siRNA and LNP, researchers were able to distinct it with others during their vivo data analysis. These data show that with the KC2 lipid, the gene silencing in rodents was achieved at a very low dosages of 0.01mg/kg, gene transthyretic (TTR) was clinically silenced at coparitive low dosages of 0.1mg/kg in non-human primates and the formulation was well tolerated by both rodents and non-human primates.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotechnology helps in producing biodiesel from algae

January 16th, 2010

Fuel consumption is growing throughout the globe, however production of the convention non-renewable fuel or  energy is constant and further the resources of petroleum and coal based energy are limited and therefore worldwide researchers are looking for alternates of petroleum and coal based energy and biofuel is one of them. Researchers are working on various biofuel sources such as cane sugar for producing methanol, jetropa, rapeseed oil and algae for producing biodiesel.

U.S. Department of Energy has already launched a program for research and developing advanced biofuel and DOE will invest around $78 million in coming years. Two teams at Iowa State University will get a grant of $8 million from DOE over the next three years. The first team is led by Victor Lin, Professor of chemistry and Director of the Institute for Physical Research and Technology’s Centre for Catalysis, which will get $5.3 million and the team, will mainly focus on nanotechnology for converting algae to biodiesel. The other team is led by Robert C. Brown, Professor in Engineering, which will get a total grant of $2.7 million for study of catalytic conversion of biomass so that it maximizes fuel production.

The first team led by Professor Lin will study the silica nanocomposites prepared by Catilin Inc can be successfully used for selective conversion of algae into useful components such as high value lipids and the rest of the algae will be converted into biodiesel using Catilin’s commercial catalysts.

Posted in Energy

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

NIST studies nanoparticle and protein interaction

January 13th, 2010

Gold nanoparticles have been found in a number of applications including the diagnosis and treatment of number of human diseases including cancer, however their interaction with human blood proteins have been studied first time. Scientists at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) have now studied and quantified the interaction of gold nanoparticles with human blood proteins. The new finding will help in developing the next generation therapies that could be used for diagnosis and treatments of a number of diseases including cancer.

One of the major advantages of gold nanoparticles is that, these can be functionalized easily if the nanometer size is between 5 and 100 nanometer. Scientists have predicted that the functionalized nanoparticles will interact with protein and this interaction will alter the biochemical activity of protein. The altered protein will behave differently and may have some adverse affect. Researchers led by Douglas at NIST studied the gold nanoparticles with five types of blood proteins with the help of microscope and spectroscopy devices.

Researchers studied the optical properties and found that once the protein stick to a nanoparticle, it changes the optical properties of both. Studying these changes carefully, researchers were able to quantify the stickiness and thickness of absorbed protein on nanoparticles. Researchers found that all five types of protein selected for the study interact with the nanoparticles and once they stick to the nanoparticles, the diameter of the nanoparticles increases, which also increases the stickiness. Researchers are planning to carry out more experimental work to understand how the different sized nanoparticles attached to the human cells.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | 1 Comment »

NIST awarded new grants of $123 Million

January 10th, 2010

The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) have recently awarded $123 million grants. The grants will be utilized by 11 universities and one non-profit research organization for creating new scientific research facilities in their institutions. All the 12 projects are from variety of fields including wind power to nanotechnology and will start investing money in their projects right from the beginning of 2010.

These research grants will not only help universities in funding their immediate requirement of laboratories and instruments but will also generate employment especially for young researchers. All the 12 projects selected by NIST are of national importance and will deliver value and economic benefits to the country. The grant will provide state of the art research facilities in these institutions and thus will benefit the future researchers also.

Some of the Institutions and Universities who got the prestigious NIST award include Nova Southeastern University for creating Coral Reef Ecosystem Science facilities ($15 million), University of Pittsburg for creating nanoscience and physics research facilities ($15 million),  University of Kansas for creating Measurement, Materials and Sustainable Environment Centre ($12.3 million), University of Maine for creating advanced facilities for nanocomposites in Renewable Energy department (12.4 million).

Posted in Investment

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

“Nanodragster”- A new molecular machine developed by scientists

January 7th, 2010

Researchers at Texas has developed a new molecular machine that is much more efficient that the current molecular machines available. According to the research findings as published in the ACS Organic Letters, this machine can outperform the traditional nano machines and researchers believe that it is the beginning of new generation state of the art molecular machines.

The latest machine which is less than the width of 1/50,000th of the human hair will find many applications in many areas including electronic and computer devices, The molecular machine, which resembles like a hot-rod was developed by controlling the motion of small molecules and controlling the motion as per design, many more futuristic nano and molecular machines can be made.

Researchers James and Kevin have made a nanocar for which wheel were especially designed from C60 (Molecular carbon having 60 carbon atoms). Having bulky wheel, the motion of the car is limited or restricted and these drawbacks were later addressed by incorporating some of the newer techniques in it. These include the quality of the material for making wheel and reducing the front axle size, which makes it much more comfortable to work at lower temperature than nanocar. The “nanodragster” thus formed by improving the design and which can lead to the development of many futuristic molecular and nano vehicles.

Posted in News

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanoparticle self-assembly study could lead new molecular machines

January 5th, 2010

Nanoparticles or nanomaterials are required for various applications in almost all fields including energy, medicine, electronics, consumer goods and technology. These particles rearrange themselves, which is also called self-assembly of nanoparticles.

Now researchers at the University of Glassglow along with scientists of University of Bielefeld have recorded the self-assembly process of nanomaterials. The team has managed to get the blueprint of the whole assembly process and come out with the research findings in the recent issue of the Journal Science.

Researchers constructed flow reactor system and observed the assembly process under dynamic flowing conditions thus allowing first time to monitor the growth at nano level. Researchers here took molybdenum oxide wheel molecule and observed the self assembly of the molecule around intermediate structure.

Researchers found that a template used to form a larger molecule and after reaching to a particular size the nanomaterial ejects automatically allowing space to form another nano-molecule. Resaecrhs also photographed the formation of nanomaterial through a X-ray crystallography.

The new process will allow to generate the information on a number of nanomaterial self-assembly process and which will ultimately guide formation of a number of future advanced nanomaterials that will find place in all fields of science and technology.

Posted in Research

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

Nanotechnology got its new application in DNA sequencing

January 1st, 2010

Carbon nanotubes are of many forms and these finds variety of applications in all spheres of material science, energy and medicine. In the present work, researchers from Centre of Single Molecule of Arizona State University and  Biodesign Institute have successfully demonstrated the use of carbon nanotube for DNA sequencing and the details is published in the current issue of Science.

Carbon naotubes having unique arrangements of carbon atoms exhibits many special physical and chemical properties and researchers used these properties for DNA sequencing. They passes a single stranded DNA ribbon through the carbon nanotube and noted the voltage spikes that were produced by DNA. The information later was analyzed for obtaining the information on DNA.

Nearly a decade ago, first human genome code at the cost of over $1 billion was successfully decoded by researchers. A genome consists of more than 3 billion base pairs and it was then really a difficult and challenging task to get information on all these pairs. For the current study, researchers took single walled carbon nanotubes, which were grown on oxidized silicon wafer.

On passing electric currents through the carefully selected 1-2 nm diameter single walled carbon nanotubes, the oligomers part of the single stranded DNA having 60 or 120 nucleotides get translocated. These oligomers will generally be collected from cathode side and the speed of translocation is dependent upon the DNA molecular weight and the nucleotide structure. Researchers are obtaining perfection in the technique and once they succeed in this, the DNA analysis will be much faster and much accurate than the current existing methods.

Posted in Medical

Top Of Page | Leave a Comment »

— Next Page »