Leapfrog / Disruptive Technologies

[a_bharat]

Graphite + water = the future of energy storage

A combination of two ordinary materials – graphite and water – could produce energy storage systems that perform on par with lithium ion batteries, but recharge in a matter of seconds and have an almost indefinite lifespan.
...
“The reason graphene isn’t being used everywhere is that these very thin sheets, when stacked into a usable macrostructure, immediately bond together, reforming graphite. When graphene restacks, most of the surface area is lost and it doesn’t behave like graphene anymore.”
Now, Dr. Li and his team have discovered the key to maintaining the remarkable properties of separate graphene sheets: water. Keeping graphene moist – in gel form – provides repulsive forces between the sheets and prevents re-stacking, making it ready for real-world application.
“The technique is very simple and can easily be scaled up. When we discovered it, we thought it was unbelievable. We’re taking two basic, inexpensive materials – water and graphite – and making this new nanomaterial with amazing properties,” said Dr. Li.
When used in energy devices, graphene gel significantly outperforms current carbon-based technology, both in terms of the amount of charge stored and how fast the charges can be delivered.

[ranjbe]

Paper from elephant dung
From The Economist:

It does not, then, come as a surprise that Mahima Mehra, a Delhi-based paper merchant, turned to elephant dung as the raw material. Ms Mehra sells her paper, produced by her business partner Vijayendra Shekhawat, under the name Haathi Chaap, Hindi for "Elephant Mark". They stumbled on the idea during their visit to Amer fort in Jaipur. They observed that the clumps of roughage left behind by elephants ferrying tourists up to the fort bore a striking similarity to the raw fibre used in paper-making.

The idea is not wholly new. Paper producers in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and even America have employed pachyderm poop to the same effect. Unable to chew, elephants consume food in large gulps. The salivary glands act as a lubricant which softens the coarse fare and aids digestion. But like all heavy non-ruminating mammals, they have trouble digesting cellulose, an organic compound which constitutes a third of all plant matter. Bacterial fermentation helps to break cellulose down in the digestive tract, but of pachyderms' average daily intake of 150kg or so of plant matter, about 60% passes right through.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/ ... _economist

[Ashwin B]

Was checking out this thread after a very long time. The radio show that Ravi Karumanchiri is talking about is on Youtube. (I think this is the one):
Here's part-1 and follow links for subsequent parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70L6hqcB ... re=related
@ about 23:35 into part 1.

[ramana]

BBC reports:

Microbes powered fuel cells

US researchers say they have demonstrated how cells fuelled by bacteria can be "self-powered" and produce a limitless supply of hydrogen.

Until now, they explained, an external source of electricity was required in order to power the process.

However, the team added, the current cost of operating the new technology is too high to be used commercially.

Details of the findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There are bacteria that occur naturally in the environment that are able to release electrons outside of the cell, so they can actually produce electricity as they are breaking down organic matter," explained co-author Bruce Logan, from Pennsylvania State University, US.

"We use those microbes, particularly inside something called a microbial fuel cell (MFC), to generate electrical power.

"We can also use them in this device, where they need a little extra power to make hydrogen gas.

"What that means is that they produce this electrical current, which are electrons, they release protons in the water and these combine with electrons."

Prof Logan said that the technology to utilise this process to produce hydrogen was called microbial electrolysis cell (MEC).

"The breakthrough here is that we do not need to use an electrical power source anymore to provide a little energy into the system.

Hydrogen has long been hailed a transport fuel of the future but has yet to fulfil its potential "All we need to do is add some fresh water and some salt water and some membranes, and the electrical potential that is there can provide that power."

The MECs use something called "reverse electrodialysis" (RED), which refers to the energy gathered from the difference in salinity, or salt content, between saltwater and freshwater.

In their paper, Prof Logan and colleague Younggy Kim explained how an envisioned RED system would use alternating stacks of membranes that harvest this energy; the movement of charged atoms move from the saltwater to freshwater creates a small voltage that can be put to work.

"This is the crucial element of the latest research," Prof Logan told BBC News, explaining the process of their system, known as a microbial reverse-electrodialysis electrolysis cell (MREC).

"If you think about desalinating water, it takes energy. If you have a freshwater and saltwater interface, that can add energy. We realised that just a little bit of that energy could make this process go on its own."

Early days

He said that the technology was still in its infancy, which was one of the reasons why it was not being exploited commercially.

"Right now, it is such a new technology," he explained.

"In a way it is a little like solar power. We know we can convert solar energy into electricity but it has taken many years to lower the cost.

"This is a similar thing: it is a new technology and it could be used, but right now it is probably a little expensive. So the question is, can we bring down the cost?"

The next step, Prof Logan explained, was to develop larger-scale cells: "Then it will easier to evaluate the costs and investment needed to use the technology.

The authors acknowledged that hydrogen had "significant potential as an efficient energy carrier", but it had been dogged with high production costs and environmental concerns, because it is most often produced using fossil fuels.

Prof Logan observed: "We use hydrogen for many, many things. It is used in making [petrol], it is used in foods etc. Whether we use it in transportation... remains to be seen."

But, the authors wrote that their findings offered hope for the future: "This unique type of integrated system has significant potential to treat wastewater and simultaneously produce [hydrogen] gas without any consumption of electrical grid energy."

Prof Logan added that a working example of a microbial fuel cell was currently on display at London's Science Museum, as part of the Water Wars exhibition.

[harbans]

Quantum locking


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw ... e=youtu.be

[a_bharat]

Nanoparticle electrode for batteries could make large-scale power storage on the energy grid feasible, say Stanford researchers

Stanford researchers have used nanoparticles of a copper compound to develop a high-power battery electrode that is so inexpensive to make, so efficient and so durable that it could be used to build batteries big enough for economical large-scale energy storage on the electrical grid – something researchers have sought for years.
...
In laboratory tests, the electrode survived 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity. For comparison, the average lithium ion battery can handle about 400 charge/discharge cycles before it deteriorates too much to be of practical use.

"At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid," said Colin Wessells, a graduate student in materials science and engineering who is the lead author of a paper describing the research, published this week in Nature Communications.

"That is a breakthrough performance – a battery that will keep running for tens of thousands of cycles and never fail," said Yi Cui, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, who is Wessell's adviser and a coauthor of the paper.

The electrode's durability derives from the atomic structure of the crystalline copper hexacyanoferrate used to make it. The crystals have an open framework that allows ions – electrically charged particles whose movements en masse either charge or discharge a battery – to easily go in and out without damaging the electrode. Most batteries fail because of accumulated damage to an electrode's crystal structure.

Because the ions can move so freely, the electrode's cycle of charging and discharging is extremely fast, which is important because the power you get out of a battery is proportional to how fast you can discharge the electrode.

To maximize the benefit of the open structure, the researchers needed to use the right size ions. Too big and the ions would tend to get stuck and could damage the crystal structure when they moved in and out of the electrode. Too small and they might end up sticking to one side of the open spaces between atoms, instead of easily passing through. The right-sized ion turned out to be hydrated potassium, a much better fit compared with other hydrated ions such as sodium and lithium.

"It fits perfectly – really, really nicely," said Cui. "Potassium will just zoom in and zoom out, so you can have an extremely high-power battery."

The speed of the electrode is further enhanced because the particles of electrode material that Wessell synthesized are tiny even by nanoparticle standards – a mere 100 atoms across.

Those modest dimensions mean the ions don't have to travel very far into the electrode to react with active sites in a particle to charge the electrode to its maximum capacity, or to get back out during discharge.

A lot of recent research on batteries, including other work done by Cui's research group, has focused on lithium ion batteries, which have a high energy density – meaning they hold a lot of charge for their size. That makes them great for portable electronics such as laptop computers.

But energy density really doesn't matter as much when you're talking about storage on the power grid. You could have a battery as big as a house since it doesn't need to be portable. Cost is a greater concern.

Some of the components in lithium ion batteries are expensive and no one knows for certain that making the batteries on a scale for use in the power grid will ever be economical.

"We decided we needed to develop a 'new chemistry' if we were going to make low-cost batteries and battery electrodes for the power grid," Wessells said.
...
The researchers chose to use a water-based electrolyte, which Wessells described as "basically free compared to the cost of an organic electrolyte" such as is used in lithium ion batteries. They made the battery electric materials from readily available precursors such as iron, copper, carbon and nitrogen – all of which are extremely inexpensive compared with lithium.

The sole significant limitation to the new electrode is that its chemical properties cause it to be usable only as a high voltage electrode. But every battery needs two electrodes – a high voltage cathode and a low voltage anode – in order to create the voltage difference that produces electricity. The researchers need to find another material to use for the anode before they can build an actual battery.

But Cui said they have already been investigating various materials for an anode and have some promising candidates.

[kshirin]

DARPA may be on track to find the ultimate solution against asymmetric warfare:

The head of the DARPA program is a desi:

http://192.5.18.102/mto/people/pms/lal/ ... serday.pdf

http://www.darpa.mil/BAA/baa06-22.html

I checked the links they have expired the head is not a Desi. Would be surprising if it was.

[Kannan]

DARPA may be on track to find the ultimate solution against asymmetric warfare:

The head of the DARPA program is a desi:

http://192.5.18.102/mto/people/pms/lal/ ... serday.pdf

http://www.darpa.mil/BAA/baa06-22.html

I checked the links they have expired the head is not a Desi. Would be surprising if it was.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/darpa-solyndra/

Americans are pretty tolerant people and it would violate numerous discrimination laws to hold someone back for their ethnicity.

[Pranav]

Is Cold Fusion Finally Being Accepted by Scientists? - http://www.cnbc.com/id/48615362

Back in 1989 two of the greatest electrochemists in the world, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, made a remarkable announcement. They had witnessed low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) at an atomic level, which generated excess heat. It was the first ever account of cold fusion, a third type of nuclear reaction after fission and fusion.

However, Pons and Fleishman could not consistently reproduce their results, and this led to the rejection of cold fusion, the discrediting of the two scientists by the general scientific community.

Cold fusion became a complete dead end. Two different Department of Energy panels dismissed cold fusion theories and recommended against creating a program to study it. No one would risk putting major funding into any research projects, and no reputable scientists were willing to risk their reputations by pursuing a science that many considered equal to alchemy.

However, following recent LENR demonstrations at reputable institutions such as MIT, the University of Missouri, and the University of Bologna, as well as presentations by the world's largest instrument companies, National Instruments [NATI 26.33 0.20 (+0.77%) ], a report by the European Commission's research and development center that suggests LENR has its place in the future of renewable energy, and most impressively of all, the fact that NASA is interested and reportedly filed two LENR patents last year; serious companies are now considering the possibilities of LENR and investing in certain research projects. There are rumors that Boeing is working with NASA to test LENR powered aircraft.

The promise of discovering a clean, green, safe, and (due to the fact that it is fueled by the most abundant metal and gas on the planet, nickel and hydrogen) cheap renewable energy source is causing many investors and scientists to overcome their previous reluctance and enter the field.

I am not saying that the companies such as Boeing [BA 74.21 -0.07 (-0.09%) ] of National Instruments, or agencies such as NASA, the US Navy, or the DOE will publicly admit to spending large amounts on cold fusion research. In fact the Navy had to shut down its LENR research in California after a news report attracted unwanted public attention.

By James Burgess of Oilprice.com

Talk by Dr Peter Hagelstein of MIT, in 3 parts -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoPe4Tzd ... r_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_IoIfL- ... ure=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkmzCkEF ... ure=relmfu

[vijayk]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... erial.html

THE hottest new material in town is light, strong and conducts electricity. What's more, it's been around a long, long time.

Nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), which is produced by processing wood pulp, is being hailed as the latest wonder material. Japan-based Pioneer Electronics is applying it to the next generation of flexible electronic displays. IBM is using it to create components for computers. Even the US army is getting in on the act, using it to make lightweight body armour and ballistic glass.

To ramp up production, the US opened its first NCC factory in Madison, Wisconsin, on 26 July, marking the rise of what the US National Science Foundation predicts will become a $600 billion industry by 2020.

So why all the fuss? Well, not only is NCC transparent but it is made from a tightly packed array of needle-like crystals which have a strength-to-weight ratio that is eight times better than stainless steel. Even better, it's incredibly cheap.

"It is the natural, renewable version of a carbon nanotube at a fraction of the price," says Jeff Youngblood of Purdue University's NanoForestry Institute in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The $1.7 million factory, which is owned by the US Forest Service, will produce two types of NCC: crystals and fibrils.

Production of NCC starts with "purified" wood, which has had compounds such as lignin and hemicellulose removed. It is then milled into a pulp and hydrolysed in acid to remove impurities before being separated and concentrated as crystals into a thick paste that can be applied to surfaces as a laminate or processed into strands, forming nanofibrils. These are hard, dense and tough, and can be forced into different shapes and sizes. When freeze-dried, the material is lightweight, absorbent and good at insulating.

"The beauty of this material is that it is so abundant we don't have to make it," says Youngblood. "We don't even have to use entire trees; nanocellulose is only 200 nanometres long. If we wanted we could use twigs and branches or even sawdust. We are turning waste into gold."

The US facility is the second pilot production plant for cellulose-based nanomaterials in the world. The much larger CelluForce facility opened in Montreal, Canada, in November 2011 and is now producing a tonne of NCC a day.

Theodore Wegner, assistant director of the US factory, says it will be producing NCC on a large scale. It will be sold at just several dollars a kilogram within a couple of years. He says it has taken this long to unlock the potential of NCC because the technology to explore its properties, such as electron scanning microscopes, only emerged in the last decade or so.

NCC will replace metal and plastic car parts and could make nonorganic plastics obsolete in the not-too-distant future, says Phil Jones, director of new ventures and disruptive technologies at the French mineral processing company IMERYS. "Anyone who makes a car or a plastic bag will want to get in on this," he says.

In addition, the human body can deal with cellulose safely, says Jones, so NCC is less dangerous to process than inorganic composites. "The worst thing that could happen is a paper cut," he says.

[Lilo]

Unlike today's EV batteries, which are usually based on a lead-acid or nickel-metal hydride (or, more rarely, lithium-ion) standard, IBM's theoretical battery would run on a combination of lithium ions and oxygen pulled from the atmosphere. As explained in the video below, the car would pull in oxygen, which would then react with the lithium to power the car. When the battery is charged, the process would be reversed, and the oxygen would be released back into the atmosphere. IBM says such a battery could be incredibly dense by current standards, letting it run huge distances. Since limited range is one of the biggest criticisms leveled against electric cars, this could remove a major barrier blocking their adoption.

The project is still in the very early stages, and IBM doesn't expect such a battery to be feasible until 2020 or 2030. If you're interested in IBM's work, you can check out the Battery 500 page here.

[Lilo]

Neil Gershenfeld: The beckoning promise of personal fabrication

[vijayk]

Is any one here working on Graphene research and its usage in sea water desalination? Can any one help high school student with science fair project?

[vijayk]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/2 ... _207958076
Mars Rover 'Curiosity' Team Reportedly Will Reveal Major Discovery In December


Any guesses? Bacterial Life on Mars?

[Arjun]

Any guesses? Bacterial Life on Mars?

Presence of organic compounds - most likely.

[member_23686]

Sprinkled Nanocubes Could Hold Light Tight for Efficient Solar Panels

A device based on scattered silver cubes could scale up light absorption for solar power

By Katharine Sanderson and Nature magazine

nanocubes Scattering silver nanocubes over a metallic film may help harvest the sun's rays. Image: Cristian Ciraci

Just sprinkle on and harvest light — that is the procedure with nanoscale cubes of silver that could be used to make efficient solar panels, heat detectors and specialist cameras.

The cubes are scattered randomly on a piece of polymer-coated metal to form a device that absorbs nearly all the light that hits it. Unlike other light absorbers, it is relatively simple and cheap to make, and could be produced on a large scale for industrial and even domestic applications.

The material, which can be tuned to ensnare the desired wavelength of light, is described today in Nature. It was developed by David Smith, a materials scientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and his colleagues.

Trapped in a gap
Absorbers that can capture all, or almost all, of the light that hits them are typically made with metamaterials — materials engineered to have particular properties not found in nature. They usually have precisely placed components smaller than the wavelength of light, which gives them the ability to manipulate light in weird ways (see 'Ideal focus').

These minuscule components are painstakingly fabricated in a laborious, expensive etching process using lithography, so the light absorbers are difficult to make in large quantities.

Smith and his team took a different approach. They mounted a thin piece of gold on a piece of glass, and dipped it into two organic chemicals to build a uniform polymer layer just a few nanometers thick on top of the gold. They then made silver cubes about 74 nanometers wide, and scattered them on top of the polymer.

When light with a certain wavelength hits a nanocube in the device, it excites the cube’s electrons, which start to oscillate together with the electrons in the gold film. This 'plasmon resonance' between film and nanocube seems to pull light into the insulating polymer gap between them, and traps it there, explains Smith.

Different wavelengths
The thickness of the polymer is crucial — it determines the wavelength of light that is gathered. Different polymer thicknesses in an array of combined devices could absorb between them a broad range of light wavelengths.

Smith says that his device works just as well as etched systems, and is easier to make.

“It’s time consuming to make a very large structure” using lithography, agrees Min Qiu, who works on similar systems at the Royal Institute of Technology in Kista, Sweden. A square of etched light absorber 100 micrometers across takes up to an hour to prepare, he says, and a patch 1 millimeter across would take up to 100 times longer.

Smith’s system is potentially easier to prepare on large scales, says Qiu. However, before it can be used practically, the team must find a way to make all the nanocubes the same size; they currently vary slightly.

Smith is also looking at using different materials to form the insulating gap, because organic polymers might not be suitable for high-temperature applications, he says.

The method could help to make metamaterials much more practical, says Junpeng Guo, who works on nanophotonics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. “This brings the technology to ordinary people’s lives,” he says. For example, the nanocube absorber could be used to make solar-powered rooftop water heaters more efficient.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on December 5, 2012.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... lar-panels

[member_23686]

The first flexible, fiber-optic solar cell that can be woven into clothes

By Sebastian Anthony on December 7, 2012 at 8:13 am
Comment

Flexible, optical fiber solar cell
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An international team of engineers, physicists, and chemists have created the first fiber-optic solar cell. These fibers are thinner than human hair, flexible, and yet they produce electricity, just like a normal solar cell. The US military is already interested in weaving these threads into clothing, to provide a wearable power source for soldiers.

In essence, the research team started with optical fibers made from glass — and then, using high-pressure chemical vapor deposition, injected n-, i-, and p-type silicon into the fiber, turning it into a solar cell. Functionally, these silicon-doped fiber-optic threads are identical to conventional solar cells, generating electricity from the photovoltaic effect. Whereas almost every solar cell on the market is crafted out of 2D, planar amorphous silicon on a rigid/brittle glass substrate, though, these fiber-optic solar cells have a 3D cross-section and retain the glass fiber’s intrinsic flexibility.

Optical fiber solar cell, cross-section, showing the PIN silicon regionsThe lead researcher, John Badding of Penn State University, says the team has already produced “meters-long fiber,” and that their new technique could be used to create “bendable silicon solar-cell fibers of over 10 meters in length.” From there, it’s simply a matter of weaving the thread into a fabric. Badding says that the military is “interested in designing wearable power sources for soldiers in the field,” but unfortunately he falls short of actually demonstrating some woven fabric. As we can see in the picture above, the solar cell fiber certainly looks flexible — but we’ll have to take Badding’s word for it that it can turn right angles, and withstand everyday garment stresses, without shattering.

Moving forward, the potential for flexible, woven solar cells is enormous. On the most basic, immediate level, you can imagine a baseball cap or t-shirt that can recharge your smartphone. As we move towards bionic implants and other biomedical devices, though, there is a very pressing need to develop a wearable power source — and fiber-optic solar cells could certainly be it.

These fibers also have two other intriguing properties that still need to be investigated. Due to their three-dimensional cross-section, they can absorb sunlight from any direction — unlike their conventional, 2D siblings that lose much of their efficiency when the sun sinks below a certain angle. Further, according to Pier Sazio, another member of the research team, they used the same silicon injection method to embed photodetectors inside the fiber. Sazio doesn’t extrapolate on what this might lead to, but it’s fun to speculate: A wearable computer with built-in solar charging and high-speed networking? Neat.

Now read: LG produces the first flexible cable-type lithium-ion battery, or Creating cheap solar panels with an ion cannon

Research paper: DOI: 10.1002/adma.201203879 – “Silicon p-i-n Junction Fibers”

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/14 ... to-clothes

[Yagnasri]

Salt/Thorium based power generation process was under way for sometime. But we hear no news item. no developments ???

[Amber G.]

Salt/Thorium based power generation process was under way for sometime. But we hear no news item. no developments ???

Actually there is major news, as far as thorium. Thorium fuel is now being tested in the Halden reactor in Norway. It was loaded very recently ... start of a physical test operations in a power reactor.
The test will provide information necessary for this new fuel material for commercial use in current reactors.

For example check out: this or this

[Neshant]

The bizarre world of quantum mechanics.

Any of you babuz involved in this kind of cutting edge research?

[ramana]

Anil Gupta, Chairman National Innovation Foundation

The Grass Roots Innovators

[Mukesh.Kumar]

An interesting concept. Maybe this technology can help in even leapfrogging the smart phone revolution in providing computing and internet access at low cost.
http://player.vimeo.com/video/94715454

[Rishirishi]

Salt/Thorium based power generation process was under way for sometime. But we hear no news item. no developments ???

Actually there is major news, as far as thorium. Thorium fuel is now being tested in the Halden reactor in Norway. It was loaded very recently ... start of a physical test operations in a power reactor.
The test will provide information necessary for this new fuel material for commercial use in current reactors.

For example check out: this or this

Just wondering, why has this not been tested in India??

[NRao]

Actually there is major news, as far as thorium. Thorium fuel is now being tested in the Halden reactor in Norway. It was loaded very recently ... start of a physical test operations in a power reactor.
The test will provide information necessary for this new fuel material for commercial use in current reactors.

For example check out: this or this

Just wondering, why has this not been tested in India??

At the very tail end of the very first article (this):

Other approaches to begin using thorium include a research program by Candu of Canada and China National Nuclear Corporation to develop a version of the Candu design that could use thorium fuel as well as recycled uranium. Indian planners are moving towards a complex three-stage program to use natural uranium and then fast-neutron reactors to create uranium and plutonium drivers for a third stage powered by thorium.

Everyone seems to have a diff path.

[NRao]

Microsoft Plumbs Ocean’s Depths to Test Underwater Data Center

This is something that India should have done by now.

[Prem]

[sooraj]

Elite Ushio lights the way to next-gen computer chips in Japan

Specialized UV light will help chipmakers break 7-nanometer IC barrier

[sanman]

Russia has been investing in development of Synchrotron X-ray lithography for mass production of semiconductors, as their gambit to overcome their technology gap with the West:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/russi ... raphy-tech

https://socialbites.ca/latest-news/206581.html

https://min.news/en/tech/d665d119a5eb5c ... ca036.html

https://inf.news/en/military/32d28b7aa6 ... a6115.html

So as we know, synchrotron radiation is the highest-frequency shortest-wavelength radiation known to Man, ranging anywhere from 0.1 to 10 nanometers wavelength. It should therefore in principle be capable of producing smaller-sized chip features than the EUV technology used by the West and Taiwan.

Should India seek collaboration with Russia in developing this technology? We don't seem to be getting anywhere with acquiring semiconductor manufacturing tech from the West. At the very least, such Sychrotron tech research could be used as a bargaining chip.

[Amber G.]

So as we know, synchrotron radiation is the highest-frequency shortest-wavelength radiation known to Man, ranging anywhere from 0.1 to 10 nanometers wavelength.

Must be missing something.. typical gamma rays used for sterilizing medical equipment or extending life of Alphonso Mangos (so we in USA can get these things) is measured in pico-meters .. about .001 nanometers.

[sanman]

So as we know, synchrotron radiation is the highest-frequency shortest-wavelength radiation known to Man, ranging anywhere from 0.1 to 10 nanometers wavelength.

Must be missing something.. typical gamma rays used for sterilizing medical equipment or extending life of Alphonso Mangos (so we in USA can get these things) is measured in pico-meters .. about .001 nanometers.

Sorry, I should have said that the Russians are using a synchrotron light source capable of that 0.1 to 10 nm wavelength range. But as you say, synchrotron radiation can go much tighter than that.

[sanman]

This could be quite important - graphene as a semiconductor which can outperform silicon:





India seems to not be making enough progress in gaining access to traditional silicon-based semiconductor manufacturing technologies.

Meanwhile, our friend Russia has built up considerable unique expertise in diamond-based computing technology. Diamond is a carbon-based material too, like graphene - they are just different allotropes of carbon.

Should we try to go in with the Russians for joint development of graphene-based semiconductor computing technology?

While the silicon-based computing industry is considerably more mature, with huge knowledge base built up around the use of that material, the fact is that graphene nevertheless has inherently superior characteristics over silicon, especially on both electrical and thermal conductivity.

Note that even in our ISRO/Space thread, there's a recent post about ISRO's new battery tech, which also seems to make use of graphene.

But...

[sanman]

Silicon carbide is being used as a substrate to enable the new graphene electronics - but silicon carbide has its own usefulness itself.

[sanman]

I thought this was pretty impressive:

Printing Parts with Liquid Metal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H93W-CiOT4A

[sanman]

Boring Company comes out with new Prufrock-3 tunneling machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKpKYu4bGNg

Google summary

This video is about the Prufrock-3 machine, which is a tunnel boring machine (TBM) built by The Boring Company. The video discusses the progress that has been made on the machine so far and speculates about when it will start tunneling.

The video begins with a discussion of the importance of the Prufrock-3 to The Boring Company. The speaker says that if the machine is a failure, it will raise serious questions about the company's future. However, the speaker is also impressed with the progress that has been made on the machine so far. He believes that the machine is well-designed and that it will be able to make rapid progress.

The video then shows a number of pictures of the Prufrock-3. The speaker points out a number of features of the machine, including the pre-fabricated concrete segments, the conveyor belt system, and the ventilation units. He also discusses the challenges of operating a TBM in a confined space.

The video concludes with the speaker speculating about when the Prufrock-3 will start tunneling. He believes that it will start tunneling either Friday afternoon or early next week. He is also confident that the machine will be able to excavate 50 meters of tunnel per day.

Overall, the video is positive about the Prufrock-3 and its potential to help The Boring Company achieve its goals.

[vijayk]