According to this CSRwire press release this week–“In-Flight Media has produced an impressive current-event documentary type two-minute video clip for GSPI. The video illustrates a solution to both solving the fuel crisis and global warming crisis simultaneously”–(if you believe in CO2 as the cause of global warming–which I don’t) . “Over 5-million people will view this video on Continental Airline flights during the months of April and May (2007). A preview of this video is presently available for viewing at” http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=595872956429027619.

I have written several pieces on using desalinising greenhouses for dual use desalination and biodiesal

The article below fleshes out the algae-to-biodiesal angle pretty well. What the article doesn’t mention is that Greenfuels is now running second stage tests in Arizona using “greenhouse-like buildings about 30 feet wide by 500 feet long that will house the algae”. Future algae greenhouses could use Seawater Greenhouse desalination technology. This would be especially appropriate for areas in the southwest that have carbon dioxide producing plants sited above briny aquifers–or areas along the US coasts that use coal to produce electricity. As well, here is an article that says adding hydrogen to biomass — while its being turned into fuel — increases efficiencey significantly. The process is a “hybrid hydrogen-carbon process,” (H2CAR). According to this article the Hydrogen-Augmented Fischer-Tropsch Processes yields More Product, No CO2.

The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a “carbon-free” energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification. Adding hydrogen during this step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass.

The picture looks like this:

That would increase the output of greenhouses turning algae to biodiesal significantly. (Same goes for thermal depolymerization.) Further, solar panels mentioned here will come onstream next fall at 1/10 current costs to convert sunlight to electricity for electrolysis to produce hydrogen for the process mentioned above.

While this talk is about fuel–it should be mentioned that the by product is… fresh water.

The article below mentions that they expect the algae to yield biodiesal for $50@ barrel. I think those numbers will fall.

January 26, 2007

Making Biofuel from Pond Scum

by Shelley Schlender

Oil-rich plants such as soy may offer a cleaner energy alternative to diesel fuel, but Jim Sears says these food crops can’t meet all our diesel needs. The Colorado-based entrepreneur says, even in America’s bountiful croplands, farmers couldn’t grow enough oilseed crops to meet demand.

“It is about 1,000 times more efficient to produce fuel from algae than it is from an irrigated crop. There’s enough water even in the desert from natural rainfall to support this technology.”

— Jim Sears, Solix Biofuels, Founder
“Right now,” [Sears] points out, “if we were to use all the normal sources we know about, such as canola oil, soy, things like this to make biodiesel, the industry thinks they could make 3.7 billion liters a year. That sounds like a lot, but Americans currently use 227 billion liters of diesel a year.”

Fortunately, Sears says, an unconventional crop could produce 100 times more biodiesel per hectare than either canola or soy. It can thrive in places where other crops can’t grow at all, and it only requires the equivalent of 5 centimeters of rain a year. It’s algae, a small but familiar plant, usually seen as a green scum that forms on ponds or aquarium glass.

To demonstrate his crop’s potential, Sears leads the way inside a former coal-fired electric power plant, now the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU). CSU and Sears’ small company, Solix Biofuels, have teamed up for this research.

Sears passes a two-story tall engine that may soon be running on his biodiesel, and heads to a quieter room where test batches of algae grow in glass beakers. The water ranges from pale yellow to soft Irish green, thanks to millions of microscopic algae.

Biologist Nick Rancis lifts a favorite specimen. “Here we have a species of green algae that grows in fresh water. As you can see, it grows very high density. You can’t even see through it when you hold it up to the light.” He says this strain produces enormous amounts of fat: up to 50 percent of its body weight. And while producing oil from soy or canola generally requires a three to five-month growing season, some algae are so prolific, over half a batch can be harvested for oil production every day. “They can double or triple overnight,” Rancis says.

For industrial production, the researchers are designing enormous growing troughs, wider than two trucks side by side, as long as a football field, and grouped by the thousands around processing plants. In this way, Sears says, algae could supply all the U.S. diesel power on a fraction of the nation’s farmland, just one percent of the 400 million hectares now under cultivation.

“Actually we wouldn’t have to convert any of our arable land,” [Sears] observes. “We could use desert land to grow this algae. It doesn’t require good soil. Just flat land, carbon dioxide and sunlight.”

Carbon dioxide helps algae grow fast and fat, so the team plans to siphon it from fossil fuel power plant exhaust, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And Sears says there are other ways to get the gas. “It would actually start with biomass such as switch grass or wood, where in some countries are the only type of fuel that they have anyway. In that case, the grass, the trees, the wood is pulling the carbon dioxide out of the air, then we burn it as fuel and feed the carbon dioxide to the algae.”

He stresses that no carbon will be added to the atmosphere during all these energy conversion steps, making biofuel from algae is a truly carbon-neutral technology. “It’s essentially solar powered fuel.”

To conserve water, the growing troughs are sealed. The algae grows under a clear plastic lid that allows in plenty of sunlight, but keeps the water the plants are floating in from evaporating. “It is about 1,000 times more efficient to produce fuel from algae than it is from an irrigated crop,” Sears says. “There’s enough water even in the desert from natural rainfall to support this technology.”

Affordable biodiesel is an important focus of the research team, and Bryan Willson, who directs this Engines and Energy Conversion Lab, says the projections look promising. “We believe the technology could be cost competitive with $50 a barrel oil, which is basically where we are right now. Even last year, we were up to $70 a barrel.”

Because building a vast new production system is an enormous undertaking, Sears predicts that it will be five to ten years before biodiesel from algae becomes commonplace. However, Eric Jarvis, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Lab, cautions that it may take longer. “I wouldn’t expect it to meet a large demand for diesel in that time frame, but I’m hoping to see some good demonstration projects in the next 5 to 10 years.” He adds that in the last two years, interest in developing systems for biodiesel from algae has grown tremendously, and he gets phone calls every week from people trying to get into this area.

Whether it takes five years, a decade or a little longer, Jim Sears says he’s certain that biodiesel from algae will become commonplace. He calls it “by far the most scalable and reasonable way to make biofuels in the future in an endlessly sustainable method.”

As he considers that future, a train whistle sounds in the distance. “That train is the train that used to bring the coal to this power plant,” he comments, adding “it is one of the future customers.”

The National Renewable Energy Lab plans to step up their development of biodiesel from algae within the year, and they estimates that along with Colorado State and Solix Biofuels, roughly a dozen other groups around the world are developing similar projects, increasing the likelihood that someday soon, clean-burning algae biodiesel will be the fuel of choice for trucks, boats . . . and trains.

imho there should be a desal lab in the USA working on desalination catalysts. If there isn’t one — then a couple scientists should be funded. The tools they would use are being developed for hydrogen catalysts over at Argonne Labs. Notice how the article below mentions how their tools & methodologies can be applied to other things beside hydrogen catalysts. Read the piece and consider: aren’t the issues here similiar to those of desalination and wouldn’t it be nice to develop a catalyst that would just settle the salt out of solution or make the Na & Cl ions bind so they can’t pass through a semi permiable membrane? Anyhow here’s the article:

New nanoscale engineering breakthrough points to hydrogen-powered vehicles High-resolution transmission electron micrograph that reveals the possibility of platinum skin formation on nanoscale surfaces. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed an advanced concept in nanoscale catalyst engineering – a combination of experiments and simulations that will bring polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells for hydrogen-powered vehicles closer to massive commercialization. The results of their findings identify a clear trend in the behavior of extended and nanoscale surfaces of platinum-bimetallic alloy. Additionally, the techniques and concepts derived from the research program are expected to make overarching contributions to other areas of science well beyond the focus on electrocatalysis. The Argonne researchers, Nenad Markovic and Vojislav Stamenkovic, published related results last month in Science and this month in Nature Materials on the behavior of single crystal and polycrystalline platinum alloy surfaces. The researchers discovered that the nanosegregated platinum-nickel alloy surface has unique catalytic properties, opening up important new directions for the development of active and stable practical cathode catalysts in fuel cells. These scientific accomplishments together provide a solid foundation for the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles, as basic research brings value of society today by helping to lay the foundation for tomorrow’s technological breakthroughs. “Understanding catalysis is a grand challenge of nanoscience that is now coming within reach,” said George Crabtree, director of Argonne’s Materials Science Division. “The systematic work that Voya and Nenad are doing is a major step toward transforming catalysis from an empirical art to a fundamental science.” Their experiments and approach sought to substantially improve and reduce platinum loading as the oxygen-reduction catalyst. The research identified a fundamental relationship in electrocatalytic trends on surfaces between the experimentally determined surface electronic structure (the d -band centre) and activity for the oxygen-reduction reaction. This relationship exhibits “volcano-type” behavior, where the maximum catalytic activity is governed by a balance between adsorption energies of reactive intermediates and surface coverage by spectator (blocking) species. The electrocatalytic trends established for extended surfaces explain the activity pattern of nanocatalysts and provide a fundamental basis for the enhancement of cathode catalysts. By combining experiments with simulations in the quest for surfaces with desired activity, the researchers developed an advanced concept in nanoscale catalyst engineering. “In the past, theoretical connections have been suggested between electronic behavior and catalytic activity,” explained Markovic. “Our work represents the first time that the connections have been identified experimentally. For us, this development constitutes the beginning of more breakthrough advances in nanocatalysts.” According to Stamenkovic, “Our study demonstrates the potential of new analytical tools for characterizing nanoscale surfaces in order to fine tune their properties in a desired direction. We have identified a cathode surface that is capable of achieving and even exceeding the target for catalytic activity with improved stability. This discovery sets a new bar for catalytic activity of the cathodic reaction in fuel cells.” Through continued research combining nanoscale fabrication, electrochemical characterization and numerical simulation a new generation of multi-metallic systems with engineered nanoscale surfaces is on the horizon. Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials, Advanced Photon Source and Electron Microscopy Center will enable some of this research. “We have got crucial support from Argonne management to set up the new labs and launch research directions, which would establish Argonne as a leading center in basic sciences related to energy conversion.” said Stamenkovic. Their lab includes a custom built three-chamber UHV system equipped with the state-of-the-art surface sensitive tools, including Low Energy Ion Scattering Spectroscopy (LEISS), Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES), angle resolved X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS with monochromator), ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) optics, sputtering guns, thermal evaporators, dual hemispherical analyzers, and chamber with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy AFM. All three chambers are connected to each other but they can also work as independent chambers, making it possible to transfer samples from one to the other unit in order to get detailed surface characterization or to make desirable surface modification. “We hope that this research program will lead the nation to more secure energy independence and a cleaner environment for future generations,” Markovic said. Source: Argonne National Laboratory

This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

There have been a couple of articles over the last year on the use of “graphene-based materials.” Graphene is interesting because– rolled up its a carbon nanotubes. However, laid out flat — its graphene — and it is cheap and plentiful.

Work appeared out of Northwestern last year:

“This research provides a basis for developing a new class of composite materials for many applications, through tuning of their electrical and thermal conductivity, their mechanical stiffness, toughness and strength, and their permeability to flow various gases through them,” said Ruoff, professor of mechanical engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. “We believe that manipulating the chemical and physical properties of individual graphene-based sheets and effectively mixing them into other materials will lead to discoveries of new materials in the future.”

Another team led by Andre Geim from the University of Manchester in England:

But Geim and colleagues say that the appeal of this kind of carbon lies not with nanotubes in themselves, but with the underlying fabric: the flat sheets of graphene. They have developed methods for splitting graphite apart into its separate layers and lying them down flat on a surface, where their electrical properties can be studied. A graphene sheet is electrically conducting, behaving essentially like a two-dimensional metal. But it is a strange kind of metal, with properties dictated by quantum mechanics. For example, even if there are no mobile electrons to carry an electrical current, the electrical conductivity can never fall below a certain minimum value: it is like an electron gate that can never be fully closed.

And the Manchester researchers have shown that graphene can be fashioned into a device called a spin valve, which discriminates between mobile electrons according to their spin.

Maybe too this could be worked into a filter of some sort to take out charged Na or Cl ions.

This week another article came out on the subject:

Physicists pioneer new super-thin technology (Update)

Atomic gauze hanging on a scaffold of golden wires: It is the thinnest material you will ever see. Credit: University of Manchester

Researchers have used the world’s thinnest material to create a new type of technology, which could be used to make super-fast electronic components and speed up the development of drugs.

Physicists at The University of Manchester and The Max-Planck Institute in Germany have created a new kind of a membrane that is only one atom thick.

An artist’s impression of the chicken wire of carbon atoms. Credit: University of Manchester

It’s believed this super-small structure can be used to sieve gases, make ultra-fast electronic switches and image individual molecules with unprecedented accuracy.

The findings of the research team is published today in the journal Nature.

Two years ago, scientists discovered a new class of materials that can be viewed as individual atomic planes pulled out of bulk crystals.

These one-atom-thick materials and in particular graphene – a gauze of carbon atoms resembling chicken wire – have rapidly become one of the hottest topics in physics.

However, it has remained doubtful whether such materials can exist in the free state, without being placed on top of other materials.

Now an international research team, led by Dr Jannik Meyer of The Max-Planck Institute in Germany and Professor Andre Geim of The University of Manchester has managed to make free-hanging graphene.

The team used a combination of microfabrication techniques used, for example, in the manufacturing of microprocessors.

A metallic scaffold was placed on top of a sheet of graphene, which was placed on a silicon chip. The chip was then dissolved in acids, leaving the graphene hanging freely in air or a vacuum from the scaffold.

The resulting membranes are the thinnest material possible and maintain a remarkably high quality.

Professor Geim – who works in the School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester – and his fellow researchers have also found the reason for the stability of such atomically-thin materials, which were previously presumed to be impossible.

They report that graphene is not perfectly flat but instead gently crumpled out of plane, which helps stabilise otherwise intrinsically unstable ultra-thin matter.

Professor Geim and his colleagues believe that the membranes they have created can be used like sieves, to filter light gases through the atomic mesh of the chicken wire structure, or to make miniature electro-mechanical switches.

It’s also thought it may be possible to use them as a non-obscuring support for electron microscopy to study individual molecules.

This has significant implications for the development of medical drugs, as it will potentially allow the rapid analysis of the atomic structures of bio-active complex molecules.

“This is a completely new type of technology – even nanotechnology is not the right word to describe these new membranes,” said Professor Geim.

“We have made proof-of-concept devices and believe the technology transfer to other areas should be straightforward. However, the real challenge is to make such membranes cheap and readily available for large-scale applications.”

A second article this week on the subject by the same team suggests the work could be used for transistors.

Another group this week at Cornell

found that a single sheet of graphene, a form of carbon atoms in a plane just one atom thick, can be isolated and used as an electromechanical resonator.

Here’s an interesting disinfectant that might be appropriate fit for several different problems. The key take away is that

The elemental or “zero-valent” iron (Fe) used in the technology is widely available as a byproduct of iron and steel production, and it is inexpensive, currently costing less than 40 cents a pound (~$750/ton). Viruses are either chemically inactivated by or irreversibly adsorbed to the iron, according to the scientists.

“In 20 minutes, we found 99.99 percent removal of the viruses,” Chiu said. “And we found that removal of the viruses got even better than that with time, to more than 99.999 percent.”

The elemental iron also removed organic material, such as humic acid, that naturally occurs in groundwater and other sources of drinking water.

I’m also thinking that Fe might also have a pretty stiff charge that would ward off some dissolved salts.

The full article is below.

New UD technology removes viruses from drinking water

	Pei Chiu (left), an associate professor in UD’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Yan Jin, a professor of environmental soil physics in UD’s plant and soil sciences department, have developed an inexpensive, nonchlorine-based technology that can remove harmful microorganisms from drinking water, including viruses.

3:21 p.m., Feb. 26, 2007–University of Delaware researchers have developed an inexpensive, nonchlorine-based technology that can remove harmful microorganisms, including viruses, from drinking water.

UD’s patented technology, developed jointly by researchers in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the College of Engineering, incorporates highly reactive iron in the filtering process to deliver a chemical “knock-out punch” to a host of notorious pathogens, from E. coli to rotavirus.

The new technology could dramatically improve the safety of drinking water around the globe, particularly in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over a billion people–one-sixth of the world’s population–lack access to safe water supplies.

Four billion cases of diarrheal disease occur worldwide every year, resulting in 1.8 million deaths, primarily infants and children in developing countries. Eighty-eight percent of this disease is attributed to unsafe water supplies, inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

In the United States, viruses are the target pathogenic microorganisms in the new Ground Water Rule under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Act, which took effect on Jan. 8.

“What is unique about our technology is its ability to remove viruses–the smallest of the pathogens–from water supplies,” Pei Chiu, an associate professor in UD’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said.

Chiu collaborated with Yan Jin, a professor of environmental soil physics in UD’s plant and soil sciences department, to develop the technology. They then sought the expertise of virologist Kali Kniel, an assistant professor in the animal and food sciences department, who has provided critical assistance with the testing phase.

“A serious challenge facing the water treatment industry is how to simultaneously control microbial pathogens, disinfectants such as chlorine, and toxic disinfection byproducts in our drinking water, and at an acceptable cost,” Chiu noted.

Viruses are difficult to eliminate in drinking water using current methods because they are far smaller than bacteria, highly mobile, and resistant to chlorination, which is the dominant disinfection method used in the United States, according to the researchers.

Of all the inhabitants of the microbial world, viruses are the smallest–as tiny as 10 nanometers. According to the American Society for Microbiology, if a virus could be enlarged to the size of a baseball, the average bacterium would be the size of the pitcher’s mound, and a single cell in your body would be the size of a ballpark.

“By using elemental iron in the filtration process, we were able to remove viral agents from drinking water at very high efficiencies. Of a quarter of a million particles going in, only a few were going out,” Chiu noted.

The elemental or “zero-valent” iron (Fe) used in the technology is widely available as a byproduct of iron and steel production, and it is inexpensive, currently costing less than 40 cents a pound (~$750/ton). Viruses are either chemically inactivated by or irreversibly adsorbed to the iron, according to the scientists.

Technology removes 99.999 percent of viruses

The idea for the UD research sprang up when Jin and Chiu were discussing their respective projects over lunch one day.

Since joining UD in 1995, Jin’s primary research area has been investigating the survival, attachment and transport behavior of viruses in soil and groundwater aquifers. One of the projects, which was sponsored by the American Water Works Association Research Foundation, involved testing virus transport potential in soils collected from different regions across the United States. Jin’s group found that the soils high in iron and aluminum oxides removed viruses much more efficiently than those that didn’t contain metal oxides.

“We knew that iron had been used to treat a variety of pollutants in groundwater, but no one had tested iron against biological agents,” Chiu said. So the two researchers decided to pursue some experiments.

With partial support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Delaware Water Resources Center, through its graduate fellowship program, the scientists and their students began evaluating the effectiveness of iron granules in removing viruses from water under continuous flow conditions and over extended periods. Two bacteriophages–viruses that infect bacteria–were used in the initial lab studies.

Kali Kniel, a virologist at UD, has provided critical expertise in documenting the UD technology’s effectiveness in removing pathogens such as rotavirus, shown in the magnified view at right. Rotavirus is the number-one cause of diarrhea in children.

Since then, Kniel has been documenting the technology’s effectiveness against human pathogens including E. coli 0157:H7, hepatitis A, norovirus and rotavirus. Rotavirus is the number-one cause of diarrhea in children, according to Kniel.

“In 20 minutes, we found 99.99 percent removal of the viruses,” Chiu said. “And we found that removal of the viruses got even better than that with time, to more than 99.999 percent.”

The elemental iron also removed organic material, such as humic acid, that naturally occurs in groundwater and other sources of drinking water. During the disinfection process, this natural organic material can react with chlorine to produce a variety of toxic chemicals called disinfection byproducts.

“Our iron-based technology can help ensure drinking-water safety by reducing microbial pathogens and disinfection byproducts simultaneously,” Chiu noted.

Applications in agriculture and food safety

Besides helping to safeguard drinking water, the UD technology may have applications in agriculture.

Integrated into the wash-water system at a produce-packing house, it could help clean and safeguard fresh and “ready to eat” vegetables, particularly leafy greens like lettuce and spinach, as well as fruit, according to Kniel.

“Sometimes on farms, wash-water is recirculated, so this technology could help prevent plant pathogens from spreading to other plants,” she said.

This UD research underscores the importance of interdisciplinary study in solving problems.

“There are lots of exciting things you can discover working together,” Jin said, smiling. “In this project, we all need each other. Pei is the engineer and knows where we should put this step and how to scale it up. I study how viruses and other types of colloidal particles are transported in water, and Kali knows all about waterborne pathogens.

“Our hope is that the technology we’ve developed will help people in our country and around the world, especially in developing countries,” Jin noted.

Currently, the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology in Calgary, Canada, is exploring use of the UD technology in a portable water treatment unit. Since 2001, the registered Canadian charity has provided technical training in water and sanitation to more than 300 organizations in 43 countries of the developing world, impacting nearly a million people.

The University of Delaware is pursuing commercialization opportunities for the research. Patents have been filed in the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Switzerland. For more information, contact Bruce Morrissey, UD director of technology development, Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies, at [brucem@udel.edu] or (302) 831-4230.

Article by Tracey Bryant
Photos by Kathy Atkinson

Last July I posted about how “Scientists at Argonne National Labs are modeling for electrical properties by adding defects in carbon nanotubes”. I thought this was interesting because the:

methodology looks like it could be readily adopted for desal research by adjusting the charge on a carbon nanotube to screen for Na or Cl–as was done for Hydrogen production purposes by collaborating researchers from UT and the Research Triangle Institute in the Research Triangle NC.

Now consider this article below about how an imperfection moves along the carbon nanotube. Perhaps the charge of a carbon nanotube couldn’t be induced to change as the blemish moved up and down the nanotube.

Nanotube, heal thyself
Atomic blemishes move, repairing molecular skin in their wake

HOUSTON, Feb. 15, 2007 — Pound for pound, carbon nanotubes are stronger and lighter than steel, but unlike other materials, the miniscule cylinders of carbon – which are no wider than a strand of DNA – remain remarkably robust even when chunks of their bodies are blasted away with heat or radiation. A new study by Rice University scientists offers the first explanation: tiny blemishes crawl over the skin of the damaged tubes, sewing up larger holes as they go.

“The shape and direction of this imperfection does not change, and it never gets any larger,” said lead researcher Boris Yakobson, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry. “We were amazed by it, but upon further study we found a good explanation. The atomic irregularity acts as a kind of safety valve, allowing the nanotube to release excess energy, in much the way that a valve allows steam to escape from a kettle.”

The research appears Feb. 16 issue of in Physical Review Letters.

Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders of pure carbon that measure about a billionth of a meter, or one nanometer, across. They are much longer than they are wide, akin in shape to 100-foot garden hose, and they’re 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight.

The carbon atoms in nanotubes are joined together in six-sided hexagons, so when scientists sketch out the arrangement on paper, nanotubes look something like a rolled up tube of chicken wire. Yakobson’s “smart repair machine” is a deformity, a blemish in this pattern. The blemish consists of a five-sided pentagon joined to a seven-sided heptagon and contains a total of ten atoms. Yakobson, who specializes in using computers to decipher the atomic pecularities of materials, discovered several years ago that mechanically stressed nanotubes – like those being pulled very hard from both ends – are predisposed to develop these 5/7-defects due to the complex interplay of thermodynamic forces at work in the nanotube.

In the latest study, Yakobson, research associate Feng Ding and students examined the effects of other types of stress, including exposure to heat and radiation. The tests confirmed the predisposition of nanotubes to develop the 5/7 blemishes, and they revealed the blemishes’ unexpected healing powers.

“The 5/7-blemishes move across the surface of the nanotube like a steamship, giving off puffs of carbon gas,” said Ding. “In their wake, the skin of the tube appears pristine, in its characteristic hexagonal arrangement.”

Yakobson said the blemishes consume all larger defects, and chug along indefinitely, rearranging atoms and healing the skin of the damaged nanotubes. This explains how nanotubes retain their strength, even when severely damaged. But the healing comes with a price.

“In their role as a safety valve, the 5/7-steamers give off energy and mass, which is released as pairs of gaseous carbon atoms,” Yakobson said. “Since they never change shape or stop moving, they ever so slowly eat away the surface of the nanotube, one pair of atoms at a time.”

Yakobson said the 5/7-blemishes turn when they reach the end of the nanotube and return in the opposite direction. In fact, there’s only one thing that can stop them: another 5/7 blemish. If two of the blemishes run headlong into one other, they cancel each other out and disappear.

Research co-authors include graduate students Kun Jiao and Mingqi Wu.

The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation and the Robert A. Welch Foundation.

Last June I posted in Computer Power in 5-10 Years — that computers 1000 times faster than todays computers will be available in 5-10 years. This week Intel unveiled the first Teraflop chip. It won’t be available for 5 years or more. First teraflop speeds were achieved at Sandia Labs 10 years ago using building sized computers. Remember this stuff speeds up the rate at which things happen. Its in part the accelerating speed of the computers that give men like Mihail Roco, senior advisor for the nanotechnology to the National Science Foundation and a key architect of the National Nanotechnology Initiative…such confidence about the accelerating pace of developments in nano technology.

What about those developments?

I mentioned charge in passing during the post on the work of LLNL researchers last year. This week there were two different groups that created membranes using charge and a third that made a supercondenser made of nanotubes.The first is from the University of Rochester. Their post will appear in Nature. They have created a membrane that’s 50 atoms thick. Its NOT a carbon nanotube but I think the work is interesting because it suggests that the charge properties of the carbon nanotubes are not a function of the shape of the nanotubes–and maybe not even the size of the nanotubes. Read this second piece to see how scientists at MIT charge carbon nanotubes used to create the next generation batteries that charge up instantly. The third piece is the most interesting. A group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced that they had found a way to precisely control the flow of water through carbon nanotubes by adjusting the carbon nanotube membrane charge. How did they create the membranes? They may have used a printing method developed by another Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute team–or another by method developed by a Northwestern Team. But I can’t be sure. Anyhow, here’s the post. (see me comment after the post.)

bV = parseInt(navigator.appVersion); if (bV >= 4) window.print();

Controlling the Movement of Water Through Nanotube Membranes

Precise control of water transport through a nanotube membrane is demonstrated by a novel electro-chemical approach. Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute By fusing wet and dry nanotechnologies, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found a way to control the flow of water through carbon nanotube membranes with an unprecedented level of precision.

The research, which will be described in the March 14, 2007 issue of the journal Nano Letters, could inspire technologies designed to transform salt water into pure drinking water almost instantly, or to immediately separate a specific strand of DNA from the biological jumble. Nanotube membranes have fascinated researchers with their combination of high flow rates and high selectivity, allowing them to filter out very small impurities and other organic materials like DNA and proteins from materials with high water content. The problem is that nanotube arrays are hydrophobic, strongly repelling water. “We have, at a very fundamental level, discovered that there is a new mechanism to control water transport,” said Nikhil Koratkar, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Rensselaer and lead author of the paper. “This is the first time that electrochemical means can be used to control the way that the water interacts with the surface of the nanotube.” A group of Rensselaer researchers led by Koratkar has found a way to use low-voltage electricity to manipulate the flow of water through nanotubes. Control of water’s movement through a nanotube with this level of precision has never been demonstrated before. “In this century one of the big challenges is how to get clean drinking water,” Koratkar said. “If you can remove salt from water you can solve this problem. Nature does this all the time. The first step to getting to this process is to control the flow of water through nanochannels, which we have now successfully demonstrated. This is the starting part of the research. The next step would be to capture specific proteins, DNA, or impurities within the water with specifically designed nanotubes.” The researchers discovered that when the nanotube’s membrane is given a small positive potential of only 1.7 volts, and the water is given a negative potential, the nanotubes quickly switch from repelling water to pumping water through the tube. When the charge on the water is raised, the water flows through at an exponentially faster rate. When the experiment is reversed with a negatively charged nanotube, it takes much higher voltage (90 volts) to move the water through the tube. By simply reversing the polarity of the nanotubes, the team found that they could actually start and stop the flow of water through the tube. When a small positive charge is administered the water moves through the tube, and when that charge is reversed the water flow stops. The researchers determined that the nanotube walls had been electrochemically oxidized as a result of water electrolysis, meaning that oxygen atoms had coated the surface of the nanotubes enabling the movement of water through the tube. Once the charge is reversed, oxidation stops and the water can no longer flow through the unoxidized portion of the tube. The researchers also discovered that they could control the rate of water flow through nanotubes sitting directly next to each other, allowing one tube to pump quickly while the one next to it didn’t pump water at all. Such an extreme difference in water absorption so close together is unprecedented, and could have major implications for time-released drug coatings, lab-on-a-chip devices, and water capture that mimics some of nature’s most efficient water-harvesting materials. The research is the first step to creating nanotube devices built to filter out specific elements from water and organic materials. With this enabling research in place, more efficient micro-filtration and separation techniques can be created for environmental restoration, the production of safe drinking water, biomedical research, and advanced circuitry. Pulickel Ajayan, the Henry Burlage Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer and a world-renowned expert in fabricating nanotube materials, collaborated with Koratkar on this project. Four other Rensselaer researchers were involved with the research: Saroj Nayak, associate professor of physics; post-doctoral researcher Lijie Ci; and doctoral students Li Chen and Zuankai Wang. Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

friends…just for giggles,… show them this piece on programmable water. And then mention the work above.

Three items out of New Mexico,  recently,  point to the focus that state is putting on desalination.

The new El Paso/ Ft Bliss water desalination plant is opening this year. It will be the world’s largest inland water desalination plant.

The desalination facilities will increase El Paso Water Utilities’ fresh water production by approximately 25%, based on current demand, and will include a state-of-the-art desalination plant, a learning center, groundwater wells, transmission pipelines, storage and pumping facilities and the disposal of concentrate, the residual that remains after the desalination process.

The second item out of New Mexico is the opening of a new 16,000 sq ft  ground water desalination research facility. The facility called the National Inland Groundwater Research Center headed up by Mike Hightower from San Dia Labs–will offer permits & several different concentrations of brackish water for desalination research purposes.

To address the development of the “next generation” of desalination technologies needed to realistically impact future fresh water supplies, a federal partnership between Sandia National Laboratories and the Bureau of Reclamation was established by Congress in 2001 to evaluate and coordinate the development of a brackish ground water desalination research facility in the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico. While significant efforts have been devoted to address coastal or seawater desalination issues, this facility has been designed to address the unique research needs, such as system performance and environmental impact, of desalination and effective utilization of brackish ground water in inland areas. The goal of this facility is to become a national and international leader in the research, testing, evaluation, and demonstration of novel technologies for cost-effective ground water desalination and environmentally sound concentrate management.

Conceptual design of the facility was completed in September 2002, and final design completed in April 2004. Construction on the water supply system for the facility was initiated in October 2003, while groundbreaking for the facility was held in June 2004.

This last article involves students being involved in a research contest that involves desalination related problems. It occurs to me that they might do their bench scale demonstrations at the new facility mentioned above. One of the problems calls for the students to “Develop an inland desalination operation” Too bad they won’t have those cheap photovoltaic cells that I mentioned in last week’s post. Those won’t come out until this fall. However, a couple  ideas mentioned in this blog would  be great student projects.  One would be  distillation desalination using low pressure.  Another would would be using greenhouses for water desalination.

Anyhow here is the contest.

Environmental Design Contest to focus on water and renewable energy

Under the recently formed Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE) and the College of Engineering, New Mexico State University is advancing applied engineering solutions to critical environmental challenges through its Environmental Design Contest, an annual international competition set for April 1-5 this year.

The Design Contest, sponsored by private and public entities such as Intel, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Food and Drug Administration and the American Water Works Association and Research Foundation, has deployed seven student-developed technologies at industrial and DOE sites over the 17-year course of the contest.

The design challenges presented in the upcoming competition relate to water and renewable energy – two areas critical to the state’s legislative initiatives symbolized by Gov. Bill Richardson’s call to be the “clean energy state” as he declared 2007 the “Year of Water.”

The 2007 international challenge will engage 34 teams from 22 universities. Almost 170 students from across the U.S., as well as teams from Budapest, Hungary, Universidad de Las Americas in Mexico, and the University of Manitoba, Canada, will compete. In a concurrent high school design contest, 125 students from eight schools will develop solutions to the same design challenges with various options for the younger competitors. NMSU has two teams competing for cash prizes, traveling trophies and worldwide recognition.

Government agencies, industrial affiliates and academic partners play a key role in the design contest, assisting IEE in the development of design problems and evaluation criteria, providing financial support for site-specific issues and serving as judges for the final competition. Design teams showcase their work through research papers, oral and poster presentations and bench-scale demonstrations. Their scientific approach must consider regulatory guidelines, public opinion and cost.

“The institute fosters an inter-disciplinary research agenda to address environmental sustainability,” said Abbas Ghassemi, IEE director. “Our flagship event, the International Environmental Design Contest is evolving into its 17th year addressing immediate areas of concern, and it is as timely and relevant as ever. We continue to evolve the application of real solutions to real problems affecting quality of life for everyone.”

Steven Castillo, dean of the NMSU College of Engineering, is excited about the contest and the engineering solutions that result from it.

“Providing inexpensive, clean sources of energy to support continued economic growth is one of the biggest challenges we face in the coming years,” Castillo said. “IEE is becoming a focal point for NMSU faculty from disparate disciplines to solve difficult technical problems and support the production of world-class engineers in these important areas.”

This year’s Design Contest tasks include:

• Develop a photovoltaic (solar panel) system performance indicator to determine that a residential utility-interactive PV system is operating properly and that the AC power output is following the solar power available to the PV array.

• Develop an inland desalination operation and disposal system (for water) in rural, isolated communities to demonstrate a low-cost, simple and reliable system.

• Convert a biomass resource to useful forms of energy and other products to demonstrate options using biogas or liquids.

 

 

As I have mentioned before, water desalination costs consist roughly of 1/3 each of capital, maintenance and energy. The most promising technology so far — carbon nanotube membranes show promise of collapsing capital maintenance and energy costs by replacing a 30 million dollar desalination plant with a <2 million dollar membrane tipped pipe you stick in the ocean. (More on that later.)

However, there will still be energy costs involved with pumping water. Those costs increase as you contemplate pumping water hundreds —even thousands of miles inland.

So what about electricity costs?

There is a serious power generation paradigm shift afoot which will result in lower electricity prices.

Current solar generation efforts underway might well provide a way to offload all the construction and maintenance costs of the electrical infrastructure onto private contractors — Leaving water utilities just the consumer’s cost of metered electricity–all along the inland pipeline.

Here’s How.

Low cost high volume electricity will be generated from next generation solar plants going up in the deserts of Southern California. In fact, it looks like they will be able to bring in electricity at the current cost of coal fired electricity.

None of the companies would give a price for building the solar sites or disclose the rates the utilities will pay for power, but both said the cost would be similar to traditional coal or gas.

It looks like the solar power operators in Southern California have come up with a seriously innovative way to mainstream solar power using net metering.

January 20, 2007

Is the Sun finally rising on Solar Power?

An Interview with Rob Styler of Citizenre

Press Release from Affordable Photovoltaics LLC

 

In the past, solar power has been too expensive and too complicated. To switch to solar, people had to invest their children’s college fund or sell their second car. The average consumer pays $40,000 to convert their home to solar-plus you are responsible for the installation, maintaining the equipment, getting permits-who has the time (or the money)?

A company called Citizenre has a bold plan to remove all of the traditional barriers to solar power. They offer: No system purchase. No installation cost. No maintenance. No permit hassles. No performance worries. No rate increases. No way!?

(My comment:So what if this were a water utility–)

When we first heard about this, we were so intrigued that we contacted the company. It seemed almost too good to be true. Like most innovations, their model is so simple it makes you wonder why no one thought of it before.

You simply pay Citizenre the same rate per kilowatt for power that you used to pay your utility company-but it gets even better. Citizenre will guarantee that your rate per kilowatt will not go up for 25 years. With ever increasing electricity rates, this gives consumers peace of mind and can add up to significant savings. They even have a solar calculator on their website that shows exactly how much you will save over 1, 5, and 25 years. I saved over $13,000 and by using clean energy, it was the equivalent of taking 24 cars off the road or planting 400 trees. Nice.

In the past, “going green” usually implied sacrifice. You get to feel good about saving the planet but most “green” products are more expensive than their “dirty” counterparts. With Citizenre, going green can actually save you money.

This is all made possible by net metering laws that require the utility companies to allow renewable energy to flow into the grid and then allow the consumer to pull that same amount of energy off of the grid at no cost to the consumer. Basically the grid becomes a huge battery. The meter spins backwards during the day when the sun is shining and forwards at night when the consumer pulls that power back off the grid.

(My comment: Ok. So what happens if all along the canal/pipeline into the desert you installed solar electricity generating systems– installed for free by franchisees of Citizenre-that generated twice as much energy as the canal pumps need–so that at night when the solar cells weren’t working–the pumps could still draw power from the network–for free–because they had produced twice as much as they needed during the day. The answer is that there is still a rental fee whose total is still calculated by the amount of energy produced by the solar cells. However, it won’t be anything like the retail rates of .10-.20 a kilowatt retail rates)

These laws were passed because residential energy production was the number one cause of pollution in the US last year, but there are still 9 states that have not joined the party. If you live in Alaska, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, or South Dakota, the Citizenre Solution is not an option for you yet.

We were still a little skeptical, so we asked Rob Styler, the president of their marketing division, some hard questions.

Q. How can Citizenre afford to install this complete solar system with no upfront cost to the consumer?

A. Because we handle everything ourselves from the solar grade silicon to the final installation, we create savings at each stage of the production. Plus we are building the largest plant for solar power in the world. When you combine our vertical integration with our economies of scale, we are able to produce the final product at half the cost of our competitors.

Q. This sounds like Citizenre required a large amount of money to make all this happen?

A. $650 million.

Q. Now I know why no one did this before you guys. So the customer does not have to give any money to have this complete solar system installed on their house?

A. We require a security deposit, typically only $500, at the time of installation. They get this deposit back, with interest, at the end of the contract. If they don’t pay their bill and walk away from the contract, they lose their deposit and we come take the system off their roof. They are also required to pay a monthly rental for the solar energy system.

Q. And how is that rent calculated?

A. By the amount of energy that the system produces.

Q. But they are paying the same rate they were paying before, right?

A. Often it is actually less. We base our rates on the yearly average for their utility. So we have to base our rates on the prior year. Since rates tend to go up each year, many customers will save money on their first bill, and this will only increase as the years pass. We provide a calculator on our website that will tell specifically what they will save with their particular utility and their monthly usage. Many customers save over $10,000 just by switching to the sun. Our whole mission is to help people join the solution and stop being part of the problem.

(My comment: So a California water utilitiy could go to their web site and calculate on the spot how much they would save by having a solar system installed.Ok here is the web page you go to. Click on the lower left hand corner.)

Q. I like that. How long of a contract do they have to sign?

A. One year, five years, or 25 years. Over 70% of our customers sign the 25-year contract because that locks in their rate for the entire term of the contract. If they sign a shorter contract, their rate is recalculated according to current energy rates at the end of their term.

Q. What happens if I sign a 25-year contract and I want to sell my house in 10 years?

A. You have three options. First, you can ask us to move the system to your new house. We do that one time for free. Second, you can transfer the contract to the new owner. This can potentially add value to your house because if energy rates keep going up like they are and they are 60% higher in 10 years, then your buyer would get a 60% decrease on their energy bill because of your foresight. The final option is that you can contact us, tell us that you just want to end the contract and we will remove the unit. With this third option you do lose your security deposit.

Q. So is my security deposit the most I can lose?

A. Obviously if you don’t pay your bill there will be late fees or if one of our franchisees comes out to your house to remove the unit and you greet him with a shot gun and pit bull, we will have to take legal steps to recover our property. But if the customer is cooperative they should have no worries.

Q. Say I want a system on my house. How does it work? What is the process?

A. One of our Independent Ecopreneurs will help you each step of the way. There are some simple questions to answer about your amount of shade, the direction of your roofline, etc. After you sign the contract, a solar engineer will come to the house to design your system.

Q. What if I don’t like the design? Am I still obligated to the contract?

A. No. You can back out of the contract with no penalty. You don’t even pay the deposit until after you approve the design.

Q. Okay. I like the design. I want the system. What’s next?

A. The installation usually takes about half a day. The permit process can take as much as 90 days depending on how cooperative the local utility is, but we handle everything. All you do is sit back and feel good knowing you are using clean energy to power your home.

Q. What happens if something breaks or goes wrong?

A. We have a complete worry free performance guarantee. If the unit ever stops working, one of our franchisees will rush out to fix it for free. The customer has no rental charges until the system is working again so we are motivated to get it fixed fast.

Q. What if my kid hits a baseball through one of the panels?

A. It is just like renting a car or a TV. You are responsible for returning it in good condition. We recommend that customers contact their homeowners insurance to double check that the unit will be covered under their policy. Usually there is not a problem.

Q. Wouldn’t I save money in the long run if I just bought the system?

A. Actually, no. Renting can save you a significant amount of money, and it protects you from a large investment risk. We can help the consumer evaluate their options so they can make a solid decision. Our goal is to have solar power producing 25% of our residential energy supply in the year 2025. To make that happen, we removed every barrier we could find to solar entry. We make solar simple.

Q. I understand that your manufacturing plant is not completed yet, is that right?

A. Correct. The first systems will be ready to install in September of 2007.

Q. So why would someone sign up now?

A. First because they lock in their rate as soon as they sign up. Second, they get in line so they can get their system sooner once the plant is producing. Third, it also helps us show the market how many people will go green if we provide an offer that makes sense on every level, including economically. To quote Ghandi, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

Q. So how does someone sign up?

A. They just go to http://www.affordablephotovoltaics.com and they can sign up for free right now

………………………….

Nice interview.

So for the purposes of a pipeline — local solar franchises could install and maintain the photovoltaic equipment along the pipeline that fed electricity at low fixed predictable costs to the generators that ran the pumps that pumped the water inland.

Kind of nice — don’t you think — that they lock in prices for twenty five years so that the consumer is protected from rising electricity prices….But what if future photovoltaic electricity prices fell rapidly and dramatically. That’s what Nano Solar has in mind. “Tomorrow’s solar panels may not need to be produced in high-vacuum conditions in billion-dollar fabrication facilities. If California-based Nanosolar has its way, plants will use a nanostructured “ink” to form semiconductors, which would be printed on flexible sheets. Nanosolar is currently building a plant that will print 430 megawatts’ worth of solar cells annually—more than triple the current solar output of the entire country.” And prices will fall substantially. According to Wikipedia.

Estimates by Nanosolar of the cost of these cells, fall roughly between 1/10th and 1/5th ^[3] the industry standard per kilowatt. A significant cost reduction which, if true, is expected to drastically affect, if not revolutionize the modern energy market.

Current costs for photovoltaics are +-.18@kilowatt hr vs +-.03@kilowat hr for coal generated electricity. So 1/10 of .18 would be .018 cents@kilowatt hour. Operating & maintenance costs add another .01 cent@kilowatt hour

That 1/10th number is not a fluke either. Another company called Innovalight with similiar technology — claims it will be able to do the same thing.

Innovalight has developed a silicon nanocrystalline ink that holds the promise to bring flexible solar panels to cost that could be as much as ten times cheaper than current solar cell solutions.

In fact according The Energy Blog:

Their [Inovalight]technology is similar in some respects to others that are developing thin-film silicon photovoltaics. Kyocera, Unaxis , Ovonics, Sanyo, Energy Photovoltaics , Konarka, Nanosys and Nanosolar are companies in this field that I have written posts about. It seems with all these companies and all the companies developing non-silicon thin-film products, a few should emerge as leaders with low cost solar products.

I think that its safe to say the costs of producing photovoltaics are going to come down substantially in the near future. Basically, we’re talking about electrical generation going through a paradigm shift.

Now remember we are talking about two kinds of solar power generation here. The first is the large scale thermal solar plants located in remote desert locations and the second is photovoltaic systems which are usually small scale affairs located on roof tops. (However, with photovoltaic costs falling so dramatically–next generation solar farms may use phtovoltaics rather than thermal solar power generation.)

A company like Citizenre is using both the large scale thermal solar plants and the small photovoltaic systems by way of net metering to gain enormous economies of scale.

One hidden cost of building the large power generation plants in remote sites is the costs of building electrical lines back to the main grid. To offset these costs

California ISO asks feds to back plan for greening the grid

Folsom, CA, Jan. 26, 2007 — The California Independent System Operator Corp. (California ISO) filed with its regulator, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to approve in concept a financing plan for transmission trunklines to remote locations in order to get green power from multiple users on to the grid.

If the new payment mechanism is approved and implemented, it would be a means of removing financial barriers that can hinder development of wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy resources, said the California ISO.

This is a good idea and should be implimented in other states beside California.

Finally, from Moss Landing in Monterey California, an interesting method for drawing water from the ocean is being considered. Rather than stick a pipe out in the ocean planners are contemplating digging a diagonal well from the shore at a cost of 2 million dollars.

Cal Am estimates well drilling to cost $2M

PUC asked water company to research method seen as less invasive way to cool desalination plant

By KEVIN HOWE

Herald Staff Writer

If California American Water is required to draw seawater from wells rather than Moss Landing’s once-through water cooling system for a pilot desalination plant, the cost will be about $2 million, the company has told the state Public Utilities Commission.

The purpose of the diagonally drilled test wells, Bowie said, would be to see if they could draw enough water to support a full-scale desalination plant, a process that would involve water quality testing and may include experimental desalination.

The company’s estimate for all of that work, including some pilot water treatment, is $2 million, she said, “and they may not ask us to do all of that.”

Subsurface intakes are diagonally-drilled wells that extend below sea level toward the ocean floor. They are the favored desalination technology of many environmental groups that object to the open ocean-water intakes employed at Moss Landing and other coastal power plants, because they can trap plankton, larvae and other small organisms.

Subsurface intakes collect water after it has passed through layers of sand, soil and gravel, thereby avoiding impacts to marine life and reducing the need for pre-treatment before the water goes through the desalination process.

In Marina, a subsurface test well would draw water from the seawater-intruded, 180-foot aquifer. Engineers have posed the theory that drawing water at this location could actually help prevent the advancement of seawater intrusion.

Mark Lucca, general manager of the Marina Coast Water District, said district officials and Cal Am representatives have been talking in general terms about possible test wells and sites, “but I’ve not heard about an ‘X’ on the map.”

No decision has been made to drill test wells, Bowie said.

If the PUC requests additional subsurface research, Bowie said, installation of the test well could begin as early as July. The company would need appropriate permits from the Coastal Commission and other agencies for the well.
As currently proposed, the Cal Am pilot plant would divert seawater from the Moss Landing plant’s once-through cooling system. It would then discharge the remaining brine from the desalination process into the power plant’s system to be returned to the bay.

The state Lands Commission early last year adopted a resolution to phase out once-through cooling systems for coastal power plants.

Using the diagonal wells would eliminate the environmental objections of once-through cooling systems and avoid making desalination plants dependent on them.

Desalination, combined with aquifer storage and recovery, Bowie said, has been identified by the Public Utilities Commission as the most viable and environmentally sensitive supply project for the area.

For the full article click here.

2 Million Dollars to drill a diagonal well out into the ocean. That looks like the future cost of a desalination plant– –someday — when all that’s needed is a pipe stuck out in the ocean — with a semipermiable membrane attached to the cnd. Except that they won’t need to drill diagonal well. They’ll just need to lay pipe out into the water. Which should be cheaper than 2 million.

Update:

In December I blogged about peak oil predictions of the collapse of production of Saudi oil production.

A couple of things happened in the last month that I think will result in the collapse of demand for oil in the next 10 years. First GM introduced the hybrid Volt at their auto show in January. The car goes 40 miles on a charge and then switches over to gas. It costs an extra $5000 to make. It can be recharged in 6 hours overnight. (Since standard commutes are <=33 miles daily most cars can be charged overnight without using gas.) The DOE released a study saying that 85% of the US could run off hybrids without need of upgrading the current US electrical system because cars would be charged at night–during a period of low demand. Finally, Bush signed an executive order mandating that federal vehicles use uses plug-in hybrid (PIH) vehicles. So GM will have enough demand to justify investments to ramp up production that will leverage economies of scale to bring down prices that will make the car attractive the public.

 

As much as a third of the cost of water desalination is made up of maintenance costs. So a fair amount of thought has to be put into making surfaces that come in contact with air & water clean. I have mentioned in a previous post called The Pipeline that there is a product called Sharkote-– a US navy funded coating announced in 2005 that immitates the skin of a shark. Sharkote might be used inside the pipes that carry water. (barnicles & algae don’t grow on shark skin like they do on whale skin so Sharkote would also serve well to reduce maintenance in algae farms)

Recently, a number of other possible kinds of surface applications have come out of the labs. This first application looks like its more suitable for places inside desalination plants– surfaces that are damp but not directly connected to fresh water production.

Spiky surface ‘kills infections’

 

The coating inactivated the influenza virus

Adding a special “spiky” coating to surfaces can kill bacteria and viruses, research suggests. US scientists found painting on spike-like structures kept the surfaces infection-free.

The spikes, they believe, rupture bacteria and virus particles on contact, inactivating them.

The team, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest their findings could help to fight the spread of diseases.

Given the simplicity of the coating procedure, it should be applicable to various common materials Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The researchers painted glass with long chains of molecules, called polymers, which anchored to the surface to form tentacle-like spikes.

When the team then applied the surfaces with E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus (both common disease-causing forms of bacteria) and the influenza virus, they found the coating killed them with 100% efficiency within minutes.

Click here for the rest of the article.

This next product might be used for outside surfaces of desalination plants that face the sun– or green houses used for biodiesel and desalination production.)

 

Eco glass cleans itself with Sun

 

By Jo Twist BBC News Online science and technology staff

Normal glass (left) and Activ (right) makes for clear views

A revolutionary kind of glass that needs little cleaning could mean soap and chamois are banned for good. The Pilkington Activ glass has a special nano-scale – extremely thin – coating of microcrystalline titanium oxide which reacts to daylight.

This reaction breaks down filth on the glass, with no need for detergent. When water hits it, a hydrophilic effect is created, so water and dirt slide off.

It is one of four finalists for the eminent MacRobert engineering award.

The prize is given out by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering for technological and engineering innovation.

‘Nano’ cleaning

“Pilkington Activ is based on titanium dioxide, which is used in foodstuffs, toothpastes, and sun cream,” explained Dr Kevin Sanderson, one of the team members who developed Activ at Pilkington’s technical research centre.

“But usually it is a white powder which is not ideal for glass because you can’t see though it.

Each time harsh chemicals are used, they are washed off into ground, which produces contamination. What we say here is that you can just spray water on top Dr Kevin Sanderson, Pilkington

“So we used it in a thin film form – 15 nanometres thick – so that it appears as close to normal glass as it can.”

Although not strictly nanotechnology, the special coating and the chemical reactions happen at the nano-scale (one thousand millionth of a metre).

The titanium dioxide coating on the glass had two properties that made it special, said Dr Sanderson.

Click here to see how the glass works

 

Click here to read the rest of the article.

This last coating is like the coating that is activated by the sun. However, it works in wavelengths that would be suitable for light bulbs. So it would prevent the growth of fungus and the build up of dirt on the damp inner surfaces of a desalination plant.

 

Self-cleaning bathroom on the way

 

By Marina Murphy

Few of us enjoy the weekly blitz on the bathroom

Nanotechnology may yet rescue us from the drudgery of the weekly ritual of blitzing the bathroom.

Scientists in Australia have developed an environmentally friendly coating containing special nanoparticles that could do the job of cleaning and disinfecting for us.

“If you have self-cleaning materials, you can do the job properly without having to use disinfectants and other chemicals,” says researcher Rose Amal at the Particles and Catalysts Research Group, University of New South Wales, where the coating is being developed.

Previously self-cleaning materials were limited to outdoor applications because ultraviolet light was required to activate the molecules in the coatings.

Less time cleaning the bathroom is rather appealing Mary Taylor, Friends of the Earth

These surfaces contain tiny particles of titanium dioxide, which become excited when they absorb ultraviolet light with a wavelength of less than 380 nanometres.

Light activated

This gives the particles an oxidizing ability stronger than chlorine bleach. The excited particles can break down organic compounds and kill bacteria.

The new coating contains modified particles of titanium dioxide, which are doped with other cations like iron or vanadium and anions like oxygen, nitrogen or carbon.

This coating can absorb light at the higher wavelengths in visible light, such as the bathroom light.

The coating can kill bacteria such as E. coli

Lab experiments revealed the surface of coated glass could kill the bacteria E. coli (Escherichia coli) and degrade volatile organic compounds in visible light.

The oxidising properties also mean fungus cannot grow on the surface. And because the coating is hydrophobic – it does not like water – the water simply slides away carrying any dirt with it, rather than gathering as droplets.

Using the coating in baths and sinks would not pose any problems with skin irritation, according to Amal.

“When the bath is filled, the water would attenuate the light so I don’t think the surface would activate. It will only be active if the light can reach the surface,” she says.

For the rest of the article click here.

 

Will someone kindly do the math that shows the energy needed to raise the temperature of water to steam vs the energy needed to lower the pressure on water to near vacume state so that it flashes to steam. Email the formula to me at cakilmer at yahoo.com and I’ll post it.

(See below for updated formula.)

Why?

Well it would be helpful to verify the claim that its more energy efficient to lower the pressure around water so as to flash it to steam than to raise the temperature of water to boil it to steam.

I first heard about this from one of the tenor guys in my community chorus last fall. He was doing consulting work for some outfit or other. I never got the details. They were looking into temperature differentials between say water at the surface and water +1000 feet down to power their vacume pumps. But the whole thing worked out to be too expensive. Recently, a report was published in New Scientist about some UK researchers who are working on a device which will use wave action to power a pump which will lower pressure and thus the temperature needed to evaporate (and then distill) water.

I mention this by way of introducing some Florida Atlantic University Grad Students who claim they can reduce the cost of water desalination by a factor of ten by using waste heat as an energy source to lower the pressure on water so that it will flash to steam. ( The key concept here is using heat to lower pressure on water to flash it to steam — rather than using the heat to raise the temperature of water to boil it.)

“I’ve been able to build this incredibly eccentric machine, spill gallons of water everywhere, and generally act like the mad scientist I always wanted to be as a kid,” said Eiki Martinson, one of the students involved. “Best of all, we solved one of the biggest problems of today — with an invention that can save millions of lives around the world.”

Martinson and Brandon Moore developed a process estimated to be 10 times more efficient than existing desalination technologies.

Sounds like these guys are having fun.

Moore and Martinson have been working in conjunction with their advisor, Dr. Daniel Raviv, an electrical engineering professor, to create a process that depends on recycling waste energy to distill water at a near vacuum and at room temperature. The project was initiated and sponsored by inventor Michael R. Levine, who currently holds 76 patents.

Levine said he came up with the first version of the distillation process on paper, and the FAU team took it to another level, augmenting the inventor’s idea — and creating the working apparatus.

The FAU team and Levine are working with power and water agencies to scale up the project so it can provide a million gallons of fresh water per day.

The students entered the project in the 2006 Collegiate Inventors Competition, a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation. They were among the top seven finalists in the United States/Canada competition. This honor recognizes the innovations, discoveries and research by college and university students and their advisors for projects leading to inventions that can be patented.

How might this be incorporated into current tech.

Well– as I mentioned in Greenhouses For Desalinised Water and Oil — Aquasonics technology is currently using waste heat to power a special nozzle that breaks water into a very fine mist. This mist is then hit with hot air. Instead of using waste heat to hit the mist — maybe the waste heat could be used to create a vacume. The question is–is the energy used to create the vacume orders of magnitude lower than the energy used to heat the water. And is the equipment needed to create the vacume relatively simple/inexpensive.

Update:

P=Pressure V=Volume T=Temperature

PV=nRT

PV/T=nR

P1V1/T1 = P2V2/T2=P3V3/T3

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