March 12th, 2009

By John DeFore
Green Right Now

File this under Sounds Too Good To Be True: Researchers using nanomaterials at Penn State are experimenting with a device that changes carbon dioxide into methane that can be used as transportation fuel.

Chronicling their experiments in the journal Nano Letters, team leader Craig Grimes describes an array of nanotubes that were coated with catalyst layers of platinum and/or copper, then stuck in a stainless steel chamber with some CO2-loaded water vapor and placed in the sun. After a few hours, the catalyst had turned some of the carbon dioxide into methane.

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March 12th, 2009

By John DeFore
Green Right Now

Animal-rights activists may be pleased at a new development that should lead to fewer animals being sacrificed in the name of environmental monitoring — or, at least, will result in vastly smaller organisms being used in the guinea-pig role.

The new developments also could save people from becoming inadvertent guinea pigs when their water system becomes contaminated by detecting problems early.

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November 20th, 2008

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

There’s science, and there’s applied science. Here’s some interesting applied science: Nanobamas. OK. We get that everything’s Obama right now. Obama-drama. Obama-rama. But nanobamas?

The scoop: John Hart, an assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Michigan wants to expand our understanding of nanotechnology, which could be vital to developing better solar cells and batteries, disease treatments and the continuing perfecting of computer processors. Solar power could benefit from nano-thinking and already is, with experimental fabrics and even spray-on solar particles under development that could collect the sun’s energy wherever they go.

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July 3rd, 2008

By John DeFore Water boils whenever it reaches 100 degrees Celsius, period — right? As with many lessons learned in elementary school, the truth is more complex than that, and new research conducted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York is examining those complexities to come up with some energy-saving innovations that have big [...]

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