by Michael Pollitt

A Carbon Trust-backed project aims to develop solar cells that could produce energy more efficiently.

Physicist Neil Greenham would like his work to lead to 'something that's going to generate some useful power'. Physicist Neil Greenham of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory likes turning a good idea on its head. His PhD involved researching polymer light emitting diodes, since used for displays in some televisions, MP3 players and mobile phones. But then he joined a research group trying to use similar polymers to generate electricity from light. Now, more than a decade of pioneering work has resulted in an organic solar cell that doesn't use expensive silicon.

Conventional photovoltaic (PV) solar cells are made from a thin slice (around 200 microns) of silicon that is doped with chemicals to form a bilayer structure called a p-n junction. When photons of light are absorbed by the silicon, electrons ...

The most powerful group of microscopes in the world was inaugurated friday by ship-owner Mr Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller. DTU’s Centre for Electron Nanoscopy (DTU CEN) owes its creation to a large donation from the A.P. Møller and Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation for General Purposes.

‘It is unique to be able both to build an ambitious centre and to equip it with the absolute best in electron microscopy technology at the same time. This raises Danish experimental facilities for research into materials and nanotechnology to world class. It will have a major influence on nanoscience all over the world,’ says Lars Pallesen, Rector of DTU. One of the total of seven new microscopes is the almost four-metre-high ‘Environmental Transmission Electron Microscope,’ developed in association with DTU by world-leading microscope manufacturer FEI Company. It is the most powerful of its type in the world.

Abstract:
The drought plunging Georgia into a state of emergency this fall set me thinking. How ironic that even states that enjoy miles of coastline are rationing water, truly a case of "water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." Could nanotechnology ease the threat of drought by helping to make our ocean water potable?

Can Nanotechnology Make Drought Relief A Reality?

The news is full of drought stories this autumn. States are fighting legal battles to claim federal water resources. Scientists are predicting that changes to our climate may leave much of the U.S. with multiyear drought for decades to come.

by rograss

One of the most expensive, time consuming and annoying problems in chemistry and biotechnology is product removal: After a highly complex chemical synthesis procedure the final product has to be separated from reactants and byproducts and has to be purified prior to analysis and application - a long-lasting and often boring enterprise. In protein synthesis problems get worse since the systems are even more complex and the desired compounds are often only present in miniscule concentrations!

Steve Bratteng, a Westwood High School science teacher, said that working with nanotechnology is like making music with different sized tubes. Every size of tube makes a distinct sound, just like the different sizes of a particle have distinct properties, he said. These new substances then have new uses.

They mixed a gold solution that was red because of the different size of the particles of gold they were working with. The optical properties are different for particles at that size, said Keith Stevenson, an associate professor of biochemistry.

"These are new materials with new properties," Stevenson said, "and we're trying to tailor the properties by controlling size and shape."

The experiments were simple enough for the teachers to perform in their classrooms.