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(Reuters) - Scientists in South Korea say they have found a way of converting used cigarette butts into a material capable of storing energy that could help power everything from mobile phones to electric cars. In a study published on Tuesday in the journal Nanotechnology, researchers from Seoul National University outlined how they transformed the used filters, which are composed mainly of cellulose acetate fibers and are considered toxic and a risk to the environment when discarded. "Our study has shown that used cigarette filters can be transformed into a high-performing carbon-based material using a simple one-step process, which simultaneously...

New type of microengine using internal combustion of hydrogen and oxygen Vitaly B. Svetovoy*1,2, Remco G. P. Sanders1, Kechun Ma1 & Miko C. Elwenspoek1,3 MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands (v.svetovoy@utwente.nl) 2Institute of Physics and Technology, Yaroslavl Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 150007,Yaroslavl, Russia 3FRIAS, University of Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany Microsystems become part of everyday life but their application is restricted by lack of strong and fast motors (actuators) converting energy into motion. For example, widespread internal combustion engines cannot be scaled down because combustion reactions are quenched in a small...

Using precision lasers, a Nanoscribe 3D printer can print models of the Empire State building in a space the width of a human hair. Watching the machine build through the “lens” of an electron microscope is otherworldly—but the printer’s potential runs beyond microscale model making. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, led by Jens Bauer, believe such 3D printers may help craft a new generation of materials lighter than water and strong as steel. Today, the sturdiest materials tend to be the densest (like metals), and the least dense materials tend to be the weakest (like foams). Ideally, materials...

"Nanotechnology-driven manufacturing will change our world in fundamental ways—but we shouldn’t get too worked up about it." In 1959, Richard Feynman delivered a lecture with the provocative title “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom." Speaking at a meeting of the American Physical Society at Caltech, the Nobel-laureate-to-be speculated about the possibility of manipulating matter at the atomic level via exquisitely small machines. Would it be possible, Feynman asked, for such machinery to configure atoms themselves, producing atomically precise outputs? Might we one day have billions of submicroscopic factories working in parallel to produce anything and everything we need? It...

Container's material properties affect the viscosity of water at the nanoscale Sep 19, 2013 Enlarge Georgia Tech associate professor Elisa Riedo poses with a glass water bottle and a plastic water bottle. While container materials don't significantly affect the rate at which water pours from bottles of this size, a new study shows that the properties of containers at the nanoscale dramatically affect the viscosity of water. Credit: Rob Felt Water pours into a cup at about the same rate regardless of whether the water bottle is made of glass or plastic. But at nanometer-size scales for water and potentially...

Cheap synthesis offers edge over gold particles for biomedicine and solar cells. In the realm of nanoparticles, gold reigns supreme. Stable and easy to handle, gold nanoparticles have been used to image cells, deliver drugs and detect disease biomarkers. Silver, by contrast, has suffered from a tarnished reputation, because it is more easily oxidized than gold. It is cheaper, but its nanoparticles degrade far too easily for most uses. Two teams of chemists are now burnishing silver’s status. They have independently developed methods to make robust silver nanoparticles on a large scale — and have worked out what makes them...

Scientists can now experiment at the atomic scale with unprecedented accuracy in new ‘silent’ laboratories in Switzerland. These labs are shielded against all possible forms of background disturbances – external vibrations, acoustic noise, electromagnetic fields and temperature fluctuations. It is hoped that the labs, devised by Emanuel Lörtscher and his team at IBM Zurich, will accommodate the demands of nanotechnology for the next 20–30 years. The labs were designed to screen all sources of background noise relevant to nanotechnologyWhen probing or building structures at the nanoscale, experimental readings are so tiny that they are easily drowned out by any...

The Romans may have first come across the colorful potential of nanoparticles by accident but they seem to have perfected it... The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind -- a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s. The mystery wasn’t solved until 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with...

Nickel oxide nanoparticles glued together with ultrasound lost none of their catalytic activity © Wiley-VCHResearchers are using ultrasound to bond nanoparticles – essentially sticking together particles too small to be seen with sounds too high-pitched to be heard. The technique apparently preserves the special properties of nanomaterials, while producing micro-scale particles that are easier to handle.Jake Barralet at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and colleagues show they can take nanoparticles, coat them in phosphate and then weld them together in an ultrasonic bath to form microparticles around 200µm in size.A chance discovery, the team initially assumed the phenomenon was...

C. Mirkin, Northwestern UniversityLight work. Using a digital micromirror to split beams of light and direct them through apertures in polymer pyramids, Northwestern University researchers drew a variety of molecular architectures and used those to make up the "land" in a map of the world. Imagine trying to draw a maze on something the width of a human hair. Engineers do it all the time when they carve circuits onto semiconductors for our cell phones, tablets, and desktops. That doesn't mean it's easy: The process can require fabrication facilities costing billions of dollars. Now, modifications to an old technique could...

Molecular self-assembly, whereby molecules position themselves into defined arrangements, is commonplace in biological systems and nanotechnology. But researchers at MIT are working on so called "4D printing" technology that aims to bring the process up to the macro scale, enabling 3D-printed materials to be programmed to self-assemble into predefined shapes and structures. Just imagine buying some flat-pack furniture, bringing it home and enjoying a coffee whilst you watch it assemble itself. This month, Skylar Tibbits, director of the MIT Self-Assembly lab, was named as one of the six Architectural League winners for collaborative research into programmable materials. The 4D printing...

DNA-tethered nanorods link up like rungs on a ribbonlike ladder—a new mechanism for linear self-assembly that may be unique to the nanoscale. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that DNA "linker" strands coax nano-sized rods to line up in way unlike any other spontaneous arrangement of rod-shaped objects. The arrangement-with the rods forming "rungs" on ladder-like ribbons linked by multiple DNA strands-results from the collective interactions of the flexible DNA tethers and may be unique to the nanoscale. The research, described in a paper published online in ACS Nano, a journal of the American...

A $16 device could provide a family of five with clean water for an entire year About 780 million people—a tenth of the world’s population—do not have access to clean drinking water. Water laced with contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, lead and arsenic claims millions of lives each year. But an inexpensive device that effectively clears such contaminants from water may help solve this problem. Thalappil Pradeep and his colleagues at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras developed a $16 nanoparticle water filtration system that promises potable water for even the poorest communities in India and, in the future, for...

A state representative in Massachussetts is being investigated after allegedly sending pictures of his genitals to a government computer. The investigation is ongoing and the committee has not formally reprimanded the individual in charge, but it is being widely reported that Democratic State Representative John Fresolo is the one behind the scandal.

Some scientists question the existence of self-assembling stripes on nanoparticles © NPGA prickly controversy has erupted in the rarefied world of nanoscience revolving around the strength of the evidence that molecules can assemble themselves into discrete stripes around gold nanoparticles. The issue highlights the difficulty of interpreting images of nanoscale objects.For many years researchers have been decorating gold nanoparticles with thiolated ligands to imbue the nanoparticles with a range of properties. In 2004, a group led by Francesco Stellacci, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, published a paper in Nature Materials demonstrating that if two different...

Nanotechnologies that deliver fertilizers to plants offer promising ways of improving farm productivity while reducing the risk of water contamination. But the scientists behind a new Swiss-funded study caution that while the technology is still evolving, potential risks must be considered. The European Union’s Horizon 2020 research program proposes heavy investment in developing materials and machines that are built from an atomic or molecular scale, with the European Commission proposing some €6 billion ($7.7 billion) in financing for nano and other advanced technologies. A UN Food and Agriculture Organization conference held earlier this year in Rome identified nanotechnology as potentially...

New nanotechnology can be used for Type 1 diabetes, food allergies and asthma New nanoparticle tricks and resets immune system in mice with MSFirst MS approach that doesn't suppress immune systemClinical trial for MS patients shows why nanoparticle is best optionNanoparticle now being tested in Type 1 diabetes and asthma CHICAGO --- In a breakthrough for nanotechnology and multiple sclerosis, a biodegradable nanoparticle turns out to be the perfect vehicle to stealthily deliver an antigen that tricks the immune system into stopping its attack on myelin and halt a model of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) in mice, according...

Enlarge Image Nanopower. Yarn made of intertwined carbon nanofibers and wax can expand and contract like muscle. Credit: Images Courtesy of Science/AAAS Here's a twist: Scientists have designed a flexible, yarnlike artificial muscle that can also pack a punch. It can contract in 25 milliseconds—a fraction of the time it takes to blink an eye—and can generate power 85 times as great as a similarly sized human muscle. The new muscles are made of carbon nanotubes filled with paraffin wax that can twist or stretch in response to heat or electricity. When the temperature rises, the wax melts and...

French researchers have made the longest molecular machines that can be shrunk on demand in a collective motion that emulate muscle fibres.1Nicolas Giuseppone from the University of Strasbourg and his teammates linked together strings of around 3000 macromolecular daisy-chain rotaxane monomers that contract under basic conditions. The resulting polymer went from 15.8 µm to 9.4 µm, movement in the range of that produced by sarcomere proteins, the basic building blocks of muscle. That amplifies a single daisy-chain rotaxane’s contraction by nearly four orders of magnitude, Giuseppone tells Chemistry World. ‘This is a result long expected by the community, but it...

Nature assesses the aftermath of a series of nanotechnology-lab bombings in Mexico — and asks how the country became a target of eco-anarchists. The shoe-box-sized package was addressed to Armando Herrera Corral. It stated that he was the recipient of an award and it was covered in official-looking stamps. Herrera, a computer scientist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico City, shook the box a number of times, and something solid jiggled inside. What could it be? He was excited and a little nervous — so much so, that he walked down the hall to the...