And that’s why companies like IBM are really exploring silicone alternatives. One very promising direction is with carbon nanotubes and IBM has just reached a major milestone. They have created a new computer chip based on carbon nanotube technology that has more than 10,000 transistors. This is a far cry from the current generation of silicone-based microprocessors, but it does demonstrate a lot of potential for carbon nanotubes moving forward.

As you might remember, carbon nanotubes are constructed with sheets of cabon that are just a single atom thick, rolling them into a cylinder. These conduct electricity better than silicon and have the perfect shape to act as transistors. Unfortunately, they have to be completely free of inpurities and they have to be aligned perfectly. They’re harder to work with, but they could hold the future of computing because carbon nanotubes can also scale much smaller than silicone.

It’s unlikely that we’ll have a Nexus 2013 next year based on carbon nanotube technology, but with the continuing research and innovation at places like IBM, the future of Moore’s Law might still be viable.

[Source]

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What this means is that they don’t need an additional layer of polymer to hold the nanotubes together. Since the cells only use small amounts of purified carbon, the end product is lighter and presumably more efficient. The new cell also uses what is known as C60 or Buckminsterfullerene, another type of carbon.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, even though the new all-carbon solar cells are able to capture near-infrared light energy, they still suffer from the same lack of efficiency as their predecessors. The proof of concept devices have only achieved 0.1 percent efficiency thus far, but scientists have already identified some areas for improvement. For instance, they’ve noticed that homogenous mixtures of carbon nanotubes are more efficient than heterogeneous mixtures.

This is “fundamentally a new kind of photovoltaic cell,” says MIT professor Michael Strano. I wonder if they could start pasting these onto the roofs of electric or hybrid cars.

[Source]

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The Stanford scientists behind the work say that “carbon nanotubes could be an excellent alternative to the platinum, palladium and other precious-metal catalysts now in use.” Inside a fuel cell, the catalysts are needed to oxidize the hydrogen at the anode.

The study demonstrates that when they shred the other walls of a multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) with the inner walls left intact, the MWNT gained “enhanced” catalytic ability. The electrical conductivity remained good too. When used in metal-air batteries, the potential is for batteries that have 10 times the theoretical energy density of “today’s best lithium-ion technology.”

Further research is needed, of course, but this could be the key to cracking the puzzle of more widespread fuel cell adoption.

[Source]

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The diagnosis of most particular types of disease is a time-consuming process. But that’s going to change in the future thanks to a new breathalyzer-like technology that is currently under development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The researchers there believe that the tech could be used to diagnose a wide range of diseases including cancer and diabetes.

The human body reacts differently to different conditions. It is capable of shifting between energy sources when required.

According to Warren Porter, a UW-Madison professor of zoology, “When we’re healthy we use the food that we eat. When we get sick, the immune system takes over the body and starts tearing apart proteins to make antibodies and use them as an energy source“.

This shift between energy sources leads to different biochemical pathways. As a result, there will be changes in the carbon isotopes in the exhaled CO2. The “breathalyzer” will be used to detect these changes in isotopic signatures of carbon-containing metabolic by-products.

One of the main advantages of such a system will be the early detection of diseases. Diseases could be diagnosed well before symptoms start to show up. As you already know, early detection is very important when it comes to diseases such as cancer. And the use of a single technique to survey the entire body will also simplify diagnosis to a great extent.

The research on the technique was done on mice which were injected with glucose containing a single atom of carbon-13. This was done to detect the most active metabolic pathways in sick and healthy mice. They found out that there were changes in the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 in the exhaled CO2 by the healthy and sick mice. Furthermore, different ratios were detected for different diseases.

At the moment, the “breathalyzer” is about the size of a shoebox, but they are planning to make it smaller. Head here to know more about the study.

[ source ]

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Blight on the landscape, or awesome improvement on mother nature?

Influx Studio has designed synthetic trees that are capable of removing carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen. Mario Caceres and Christian Canonico of Influx Studio envision the trees in urban landscapes all over Boston, helping clean the air “branch” by branch.

The treepods will work by utilizing an eco-friendly, alkaline resin which reacts with the air around it and strips the air of carbon dioxide. The clean air will float away happily. The treepods will be made entirely of recycled plastic from drink bottles.

As part of the design, the trees are attached to each other to form clumps, or treepods, which the team hopes will encourage people to gather under them and help power the trees. To maximize the tree’s efficiency, the treepods will partly power themselves with the solar energy they generate through panels on top of the trees. The team found that solar power on its own wasn’t enough to power the trees, so the trees would be placed in pods and joined together by see-saws and hammocks.

Some might ask, what’s wrong with normal trees? They are nature’s lungs, aren’t they? Well, treepods don’t require soil or water and can be placed in areas that don’t support tree growth, like in heavily-polluted cities plagued by smog.

Influx Studio was inspired by Dr Klaus Lackner, the Director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University. He in turn was inspired by his daughter’s 8th grade science fair project that extracted CO2 from the air by using a fish tank pump and a battery.

Whether you think the trees are awesome or an eye-sore, they have the potential to help clean up the air in polluted city centres.There has been no word on whether the treepods will actually make their way to Boston.

[SHIFT Boston]

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