Nanotechnology Spotlight – Latest Articles

Showing Spotlights 1881 - 1888 of 3579 in category All (newest first):

Leverage nanotechnology to speed up the energy transition

Drawing attention to the possible implications of extreme weather does not answer the question what we can really do about the risks of climate change, and who will drive fresh solutions. Science - including nanotechnology - is an important part of the answer, and we need human ingenuity to step forward. To accelerate the process and help to push the boundaries of usable energy solutions, the Exergeia Project backs potentially groundbreaking inventions and innovations in all fields of alternative energy.

December 5, 2014

Unlocking the potential of graphenes - functionalisation via plasma

Graphene's properties appear to have almost limitless application potential, ranging from composite materials for the aerospace industry, next-generation batteries and supercapacitors, flexible displays and optical electronics and biosensors for applications in healthcare and medical devices. So why hasn't graphene, with the potential to vastly outperform the majority of currently available materials, been integrated into everything from wristwatches to ocean liners?

December 4, 2014

European Parliament agrees on moratorium on nanofoods and on a new legal definition of engineered nanomaterials

A majority of the members of the Environmental, Public Health and Food Safety (EHS) committee of the European Parliament approved several amendments to the draft regulation on novel foods, including one imposing a moratorium on novel foods containing nanomaterials. The EHS committee's amendments to the Commission's proposal show that the European Parliament and the European Commission clearly have two different approaches towards the regulation of nanotechnologies.

December 3, 2014

Superstable copper nanowire stretchable conductors

The use of copper as an alternative electrode material to silver would reduce the cost of conductive inks. Nevertheless, copper nanowire conductors face a serious bottleneck for future practical use in flexible and stretchable optoelectronics: although they are nearly as conductive as silver, this conductivity is not stable. Researchers have now demonstrated conductive copper nanowire elastomer composites with ultrahigh performance stability against oxidation, bending, stretching, and twisting. This material offers a promising alternative as electrodes for flexible and stretchable optoelectronics.

December 2, 2014

3D printed nanostructures made entirely of graphene

The successful implementation of graphene-based devices invariably requires the precise patterning of graphene sheets at both the micrometer and nanometer scale. Finding the ideal technique to achieve the desired graphene patterning remains a major challenge. Researchers have now demonstrated 3D printed nanostructures composed entirely of graphene using a new 3D printing technique. The method exploits a size-controllable liquid meniscus to fabricate 3D reduced graphene oxide nanowires.

November 27, 2014

Protecting satellite electronics with reinforced carbon nanotube films

The space industry has a strong requirement to develop flexible electrostatic discharge protection layers for the exterior cover of satellites in order to protect the electronics of the spacecraft. A new study explores carbon nanotube-polyimide composite materials as a flexible alternative for the currently used indium tin oxide (ITO) coating, which is brittle and suffers from severe degradation of the electrical conductance due to fracture of the coating upon bending.

November 26, 2014

Surface state engineering to achieve white LEDs with carbon nanomaterials

White-light-emitting diodes have many advantages over forms of lighting - incandescent, fluorescent and halogen - and this solid-state lighting technique is bound to make major inroads into the commercial and household markets. Researchers have now designed precursors and chemical processes to synthesize intercrossed carbon nanomaterials with relatively pure hydroxy surface states for the first time, which enable them to overcome the aggregation-induced quenching (AIQ) effect, and to emit stable yellow-orange luminescence in both colloidal and solid states.

November 25, 2014

Foldable capacitive touch pad printed with silver nanowire ink

Most printed electronics applications rely on some kind of ink formulated with conductive nanomaterials. Researchers have now introduced a rapid and facile method to fabricate a foldable capacitive touch pad using silver nanowire inks. The team developed a technique that uses a 2D programmed printing machine with postdeposition sintering using a camera flash light to harden the deposited silver nanowire ink. resulting paper-based touchpads produced by direct writing with silver nanowire inks offer several distinct advantages over existing counterparts.

November 24, 2014