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Existence Finally Confirmed of Hypothetical Particle That Could Help Cool the Planet

Clay Dillow — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:02:21 -0500

Welcome the Criegee biradical

We can fit everything we knew before today about Criegee biradicals inside the period at the end of this sentence, but from what we understand they are pretty amazing. At least, that’s the word from a team of researchers form the U. of Manchester, the U. of Bristol, and Sandia National Labs, who have just detected these invisible chemical intermediates for the first time. Apparently they can not only oxidize pollutants from combustion, cleaning up the atmosphere as they go, but they also contribute to cloud formation, helping to cool the planet.

Criegee biradicals were first hypothesized in the 1950s by German chemist Rudolf Criegee, but at that point in time it was impossible to detect them or measure them, so it was unknown whether or not they truly existed and, if so, how fast they reacted with other atoms. Finding and measuring them was made possible by a special device rigged up by Sandia researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs’ Advanced Light Source, which allowed them to discern the formation and eliminate other similar molecules that contain the same atoms but in a different structure.

What they found in doing so, we’re told, is quite promising. Criegee biradicals react more rapidly than researchers previously thought they could with aforementioned pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, leaving behind nitrate and sulfate that lead to aerosol formation and eventually cloud formation. Ultimately, Criegee biradicals could help cool the planet.

Moreover, understanding them should lend atmospheric researchers some insight on the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere as a whole as well as help lead to better understandings of climate and how pollution affects the air around us.

The World’s First "Nano-Ear" Can Listen to the Songs of Bacteria

Clay Dillow — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:23:25 -0500

Hearing sounds smaller than any we've ever heard before

German researchers have turned an optical tweezer device into the world’s first “nano-ear” capable of detecting sounds six orders of magnitude below the threshold of human hearing. Using an optically trapped gold nanoparticle as their listening device, the team says they can now detect sounds made at the bacterial level or use their device to tune (or perhaps to test?) the minuscule MEMS machines of the future.

The nano-ear is pretty simple, considering that it relies on technology that has been laying around in the lab for decades now. Optical tweezers are laser devices that use light to trap or manipulate a small particle in a particular point in space by drawing the particle to the most intense point in the laser beam’s electric field. By trapping a gold nanoparticle in just such a optical trap and measuring the influence of various sound waves on that particle, the found that they can “listen” to very small vibrations.

That means sound analysis at extremely low levels. The gold nanoparticle itself is just 60 nanometers (that’s 60 billionths of a meter, or roughly a thousand times smaller than a human hair), which makes it pretty sensitive to very small forces. The researchers used both a “loud” source--a tungsten needle glued to a speaker that vibrates at roughly 300 Hz--and a second source made up of bunches of other gold nanoparticles heated by a second laser to vibrate at just 20 Hz.

The nano-ear could hear them both loud and clear. The sound waves nudge the trapped gold nanoparticle in the same direction that the waves are propagating, allowing for precise measurement of the sound itself based on the particle’s motion. Experiments showed the nano-ear could detect vibrations down to about -60 decibels--or six orders of magnitude lower than human hears can. That means the device could be used to identify microorganisms or processes at the microscopic level by their sound signatures, or to help design and tune microelectrical mechanical systems.

[Physics World]

New Material Can Scrub Carbon Dioxide Right Out of the Air at Unprecedented Rates

Clay Dillow — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:28:17 -0500

If cleaning carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was easy, we’d already be doing it. But carbon capture has proven to be a tough technology to feasibly roll out on a grand scale, and that means all the things we do that produce carbon dioxide emissions--which seems to be just about everything these days--are still roughly as bad for the planet as they were several years ago. That’s a problem in a warming world, and one that a team of researchers may have just found a solution for via an inexpensive polymeric material.

Reporting their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the team (which includes a Nobel laureate in chemistry) descirbes a new solid material based on polyethylenimine that can be used to capture carbon dioxide at the source--be that an industrial smokestack or a car’s exhaust pipe--under real-world conditions where the air contains moisture.

That last part is important. Previous methods of scrubbing CO2 from the air have enjoyed varying degrees of success (usually under controlled conditions), but none has been particularly effective in the presence of humidity. The new material, which is inexpensive and readily available, has shown some of the highest carbon dioxide removal rates of any material ever tested in the presence of humidity.

It’s also reusable. After capturing carbon, the material also gives it up easily so it can be sequestered or recycled through the manufacture of other substances. The polyethylenimine material can then also be reused over and over again to capture more carbon dioxide. Used to line smokestacks or even out in the open atmosphere, the material could blunt the impact of all of those things we humans do that are contributing to the carbon glut in the atmosphere.

[Science Daily]

China Builds the World's Largest Battery, a Building-Sized, 36-Megawatt-Hour Behemoth

Clay Dillow — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:05:13 -0500

The largest battery in the world has arrived, and you likely won’t be surprised where it landed: Hebei Province, China. The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) and electric car maker BYD--the company that most recently made big headlines a few years back when Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway took a 10 percent stake--have teamed to create a massive battery array capable of storing 36 megawatt-hours of electricity.

That’s enough to power something like 12,000 homes for an hour during a total power failure, and enough for SGCC authorities to declare it the world’s largest energy storage device. The $500 million facility is constructed of arrays of BYD batteries “larger than a football field,” according to an SGCC press release, and they should increase the region’s renewable energy efficiency by up to 10 percent.

The array, located in Zhangbei, isn’t just a stand-alone battery. It is hooked into 140 megawatts of wind and solar power generation projects as well as a smart grid transmission system. Together, these elements represent China’s push toward a smart grid system that can generate renewable energy when conditions are ripe and store excess energy in its new battery array for use when energy generation troughs throughout the day.

The Deputy Director of China’s National Energy Administration is calling it the model for the future of Chinese renewable energy development, which means it will probably be the first such battery facility of many. That’s good for both China and BYD, which has been having a bit of trouble selling its electric cars both at home and abroad.

And it’s an intriguing test-bed for the rest of the world as well. There’s been a lot of chatter globally about using various kinds of energy storage devices to smooth the peaks and valleys inherent in wind and solar power generation so that we can rely more heavily upon them. Now that China’s gone and done something on a truly large scale, the rest of us have a real-world project to watch and learn from.

[Cleantechnica]

Nobel-Winning Quasicrystals Appear to Have Come From Space

Clay Dillow — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:02:20 -0500

Rare crystals found in Russia were likely deposited there by meteorites

First they were thought to be impossible on Earth, then when they were grown in the lab they were thought to be so novel that they earned their discoverer a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Now, it turns out the quasicrystals--unusually structured crystals that break several rules of crystalline symmetry and exhibit strange physical properties--unearthed in Russia’s Koryak mountains a couple of years ago are probably from outer space.

Quasicrystals were first introduced to the chemical conversation by Israeli researcher Daniel Schechtman back in the 1980s, and they immediately were met with a good deal of skepticism by researchers who thought such structures impossible. Schechtman won that round, eventually receiving the Nobel for his efforts. But up until two years ago, quasicrystals were still thought to be impossible in nature--up to that point they had only been created under laboratory conditions.

Then in 2009 a team of Italian researchers found quasicrystals in mineral samples found in the mountains of eastern Russia. This mineral provided proof that quasicrystals could form naturally, but exactly how they formed remained a mystery.

Now, with tests on the quasicrystals completed, researchers are saying that the evidence suggests these crystals are not of Earthly origin, but rather were deposited in Russia via meteorite. Firstly, mass spectrometry shows a pattern of oxygen isotopes in the quasicrystal that is unlike that in any mineral known to originate on Earth (but it did resemble a pattern found in a certain type of meteorite). It also contained the tell-tale signs of a high-pressure past in certain silicas that only form under extreme conditions, like those inside the Earth’s mantle or in a high-speed impact like the kind that occurs when meteors slam into a planetary body.

[BBC]

Eco-Friendly Battery Runs on Old Newspapers

Dan Nosowitz — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:15:34 -0500

I'll start you guys off with a quote here: In talking about Sony's new battery technology, which uses old cellulose product like newspapers and cardboard to generate electricity, the BBC says: "Their work builds on a previous project in which they used fruit juice to power a Walkman music player." Thank you, crazy Sony recycling-engineers.

This new tech relies on turning cellulose products (including, lest we forget, the paper greeting cards all you Earth-hating monsters are exchanging this time of year) into glucose sugar. That's done by introducing the old paper products to a solution of water and cellulase, an enzyme found in nature, and, um, shaking it. The cellulase solution decomposes the cellulose to form that necessary glucose, which is in turn combined with oxygen and some other unnamed enzymes, producing electrons and hydrogen ions, the former of which is fed into batteries to charge them.

If you're wondering where in nature this wood-eating cellulase enzyme is found, look no further than the termite. Cellulase is naturally occurring in the wood-eating species, and in fact the Sony researchers involved in the project actually compared their technique to that of a termite.

As with all new battery tech, especially in the early stages like this one is, the battery isn't powerful enough to run high-demand gear. A portable music player, like the Walkman™, is about all it can handle at the moment. But as the byproducts are basically harmless (water and gluconolactone, a neutral product often used in anti-aging cosmetics), it's definitely a tech we'd like to see improve and become viable.

[BBC]

Geologists Pinpoint Welsh Quarry as Source of Stonehenge's Oldest Stones

Clay Dillow — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:01:51 -0500

Stonehenge's inner circle came from a site 160 miles away in Wales

It’s long been known that the stone monoliths that make up the mysterious Stonehenge site in the UK traveled a great distance to get there, but up to this point the exact origin of the stones was unknown. Now, a team of British geologists have found the exact site from which the innermost circle of bluestone rocks were quarried.

Stonehenge, as we’ve all been told, is an ancient moon temple/burial ground/alien landing site that was fashioned by the Danes/a giant/a race of intelligent space-faring stonemasons. Its larger stones have been approximately sourced to a site just 20 miles away, but the kinds of rhyolite debitage stones that make up the inner circle and horseshoe--thought to have been placed some 5,000 years ago--can’t be found for hundreds of miles.

Using petrography (which is basically the science of getting down to the gritty details of rocks), a team from the University of Leicester and the National Museum of Wales sampled the mineral makeup of several large outcroppings of rock in Pembrokeshire, Wales. They then cross-referenced those with Stonehenge’s rhyolites. They found a match with a 215-foot stretch of rock called Craig Rhos-y-Felin in north Pembrokeshire. That’s 160 miles from Stonehenge).

There’s still plenty of mystery surrounding Stonehenge, not least of which is how (and why) an ancient culture moved such huge chunks of stone 160 miles. One theory holds that glaciers actually moved the rocks during the last ice age, while others think the stone was quarried in Pembrokeshire and somehow hauled from Wales to the Stonehenge site (a task most easily accomplished with a spaceship and a tractor beam--just sayin’).

By pinpointing exactly where the stone came from researchers hope to zero in on some answers.

[Wired UK]

Portable Gamma Camera Displays Radioactivity in Real Time

Clay Dillow — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:42:20 -0500

Tracking down radiation hotspots is tricky and time consuming because it’s hard to see where the problem areas are. Radiation doesn’t spread itself evenly over an area, and as such it can be hard to find the spots within a contaminated area that require cleanup and differentiate them from the places that do not (typically this is done by walking around waving a handheld meter around, a process that is really, really slow). To simplify the task, Toshiba has developed what it’s calling a Portable Gamma Camera that mashes up gamma ray data with image data to create visual radiation heat maps on the fly.

The camera itself is the size of a large camcorder and records both image data through a normal camera sensor and radiation data via embedded semiconductor detection elements built into the camera. Then, via a signal processing device, it combines the two into a single image that superimposes the radiation data onto the visual image on the camera’s display.

Color coding like a weather map (red for “danger” down through oranges and yellows to greens for “okay”) tells the user where radiation is the highest and how high it is, allowing workers to quickly survey an area and mark it for cleanup. It also serves as a fast and efficient way for cleanup crews to check their work and make sure they’ve completely cleared an area of all radioactive hotspots before moving on.

Toshiba will field trial the Portable Gamma Camera in collaboration with Fukushima City in Japan this month. If all goes well, the camera could go into regular use within Japan’s central and local governments early next year.

[Tech-On]

To Monitor Radiation, Researchers in Fukushima are Enlisting Local Wild Monkeys

Clay Dillow — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:09:30 -0500

Researchers from Fukushima University in Japan are enlisting the help of some locals to monitor radiation near the damaged nuclear power facility in their prefecture. To get a better read on what kind of radiation levels exist in the forests around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, scientists plan to fit the area’s native wild monkeys with collars containing radiation meters and GPS transponders.

The nuclear plant was notably damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the ensuing (and ongoing) nuclear disaster that resulted is still largely undefined in terms of its extent and long-term impact. Right now, the forests around Fukushima are being monitored mostly by helicopter, but researchers want to get readings closer to the ground to see how the forest habitats might be impacted by the radiation leaking from the nuclear facility.

Enter the monkeys. There are as many as 14 groups of documented monkeys living in the mountainous forests around Minamisoma city, where the study will focus. These monkeys do a lot of moving around at a range of elevations, and that makes them ideal for gathering a wide spectrum of data for researchers. Presumably the wild monkeys will be tranquilized and fitted with collars, and then be released back into their habitats.

After roughly two months the experimental monitoring project will cease and the collars will be remotely detached. What happens to the technology after that is purely in the hands of the likely confused, probably angry, and definitely somewhat radioactive monkeys of Fukushima prefecture. It’s like a sci-fi screenplay writer’s dream come true.

[Telegraph]

New Li-ion Battery Design Boosts Energy Capacity and Charge Rate 10-Fold

Clay Dillow — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:00:06 -0500

For years, battery designers have been looking for the next big thing in energy storage technology that could replace the lithium-ion batteries currently found in everything from laptops to smartphones to cars. It turns out they may have simply needed to rethink the existing li-ion battery. Northwestern University researchers have re-engineered a lithium-ion battery that can hold ten times the charge of current batteries on the market, and can charge ten times faster.

The trick: a redesigned anode that addresses the two main issues holding li-ion batteries back--charge capacity and charge rate. Li-ion batteries work via a chemical reaction in which lithium ions are swapped between two ends of a battery (known as the anode and the cathode). As energy is burned by a device, ions travel from where they are stored in the anode through an electrolyte to the cathode. In the process, electrical charge is passed to the device as the ions make the transition through the electrolyte. When the battery charges, the ions move in the opposite direction, from cathode to anode.

Current anode design is based on graphene sheets--one-atom-thick layers of carbon--that store the lithium ions. But these anodes can only store one lithium atom for every six carbon atoms, a rather low charge density. Designers have experimented with materials like silicon, which can hold four lithium atoms for every silicon atom, but silicon tends to expand and contract significantly during the charge process, causing it to fragment. This naturally reduces the lifetime of the anode.

A graphene-based design also slows the charge rate. Because of the geometry of graphene sheets--very thin but very long--lithium ions have to make a long trip to the edges of the graphene sheets and then push their way inside. This causes a kind of ion bottleneck around the edges of the anode and slows the charge rate significantly.

The NU team sawed through these problems significantly by rethinking the anode and incorporating a hybrid graphene-silicon design that boosts capacity and charge rate at the same time. First, they sandwiched layers of silicon in between the graphene sheets, allowing greater numbers of lithium ions to come to rest there. The silicon still expands and contracts during charging and discharging, but the flexibility of the graphene still holds the anode together. The silicon can fragment but it still stays in place, allowing the anode to hold greater charge.

The team then used chemical oxidation to punch tiny holes in the graphene sheets--just 10 to 20 nanometers across--so the lithium ions can move through the graphene rather than having to go around to the edges of the anode (where the traffic jams were occurring). This shortcut allow lithium ions to pile into the anode quickly during the charge process, giving charge rates a 10-fold shot in the arm.

And that’s just the anode. The researchers next plan to rethink the cathode to further boost efficiency and effectiveness. The better li-ion battery could hit the marketplace in the next three to five years.

[NU]