Steps into Space - Commercialisation, Occupation, Colonization: 05/19/14

Monday 19 May 2014

Additive stops aging in super glassy polymer membranes

Putting a stop to aging has now been made possible for highly porous polymer membranes whose efficiency in the separation of gases falls off fast when parts of their polymer chains rearrange, as so do their pores. In the journal Angewandte Chemie , a team of Australian and American researchers has now introduced a method for preventing this relaxation of the polymer chains: special porous particles made of an aromatic framework incorporate the polymer chains and hold them in their original position. Separation processes like purification and adsorption are especially energy-intensive procedures; it is thus correspondingly important to find alternatives to replace existing technologies. One possible approach is gas separation using polymer membranes. The theory behind this separation technique is that different gases pass through the membrane at different rates. This allows for the separation of CO2 from nitrogen, for example, which is relevant for carbon capture from flue gases. Currently, liquid absorbents that operate in a batch rather than continuous process are typically used. The polymer membranes used must be extremely porous, so that as much of the surface area as possible is accessible to the gas molecules. It is no problem to produce highly porous membranes by using the appropriate “molds”. Read

The post Additive stops aging in super glassy polymer membranes has been published on Technology Org.

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One-nm-thick graphene engine mimics two-stroke engine

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(Phys.org) —It may sound impossible that a 1-nm-thick piece of graphene—made of just a single layer of carbon atoms and containing some chlorine and fluorine atoms—can function as a two-stroke combustion engine. After all, on the macroscale, two-stroke engines are often used to power devices such as chainsaws and motorcycles. Although the nanoscale version is also very powerful, its potential applications in next-generation nanodevices would of course be very different.

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'Smoking gun' evidence for theory that Saturn's collapsing magnetic tail causes auroras

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Researchers have captured stunning images of Saturn’s auroras as the planet’s magnetic field is battered by charged particles from the Sun.

via Science Daily

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Successful Companies Founded by Physicists Often Break the Silicon Valley Model

Science Focus

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For much of the 20th century, many of the technological innovations that drove U.S. economic growth emerged from “idea factories” housed within large companies — research units like Bell Labs or Xerox PARC that developed everything from the transistor to the computer mouse. In recent decades, however, many large high-tech companies have eliminated in-house research programs, turning instead to startup companies as their primary source of breakthrough innovations. “Small startups have replaced corporate research centers as the drivers of American innovation,” said Orville Butler, a former historian at the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and coauthor of a new AIP report on physics startups. The report, titled Physics Entrepreneurship and Innovation, is based on extensive interviews with 140 PhD physicists and other professionals who co-founded and work at some 91 startup companies in 14 states that were established in the last few decades. These companies are engaged in making medical devices, manufacturing tools, nanotechnology, lasers and optical devices, renewable energy technologies and other products. There is no one winning formula for a successful physics startup, said Joe Anderson, director of AIP’s Niels Bohr Library & Archives and co-author of the new report. Many physics startups can be found in the same Boston

The post Successful Companies Founded by Physicists Often Break the Silicon Valley Model has been published on Technology Org.

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» see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/_T0k3T_sozQ/
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New thermoset plastic is easily reduced to its source chemicals, recycled

Science Focus

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Many of the polymers that make up the items we rely on are relatively easy to break down. An otherwise robust styrofoam container will dissolve completely in a solvent like chloroform. Thermoplastics like the ones found in food delivery containers get soft at higher temperatures. Raise the heat a bit more, and they'll melt. These properties help make many of the plastics we use recyclable.

But there are other plastics, called thermosets, that don't show this kind of behavior. They are extremely durable, they will shrug off solvents, and they will hold up well to heat, which makes them great for the places you've probably come across them—things like auto interiors and cases for electronic devices. The problem is that the same properties that make them so robust also make them nearly impossible to recycle.

Now, materials scientists have come up with a new thermoset polymer that's quite tough and holds up to high temperatures and most solvents. Its Achilles' heel? Strong acids. Put it in a solution with a pH below 2, and it will break back down into its component molecules, which can then be reused to form the same polymer all over again.

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» see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/6h4x0YmJTTg/
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UK "needs more home-grown energy"

Science Focus

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The UK's proven reserves of oil, coal and gas will run out in little more than five years, a report looking at energy resources warns.
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» see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27435624#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Wreath Nebula in our awesome Milky Way Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Wreath Nebula in our awesome Milky Way Sticker

tagged with: envelope sealers, star forming activity, wnmwbpt, interstellar gas clouds, milky way, wreath nebula, awesome astronomy images, metallic elements, new born stars, galaxies, dust clouds, star nurseries, young hot stars

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space picture featuring the Wreath Nebula, located in our Milky way near the boundary between the constellations of Perseus and Taurus.
Tiny particles of dust, glowing warmly in the energy being radiated by the new-born star are similar to those in the composition of our Earthly smog. The red cloud is cooler than its environs and likely comprises more metallic elements as well.

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image code: wnmwbpt

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

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Meteors, Planes, and a Galaxy over Bryce Canyon

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Team made great improvements of nanogenerator power efficiency

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Nanogenerators are innovative self-powered energy harvesters that convert kinetic energy created from vibrational and mechanical sources into electrical power, removing the need of external circuits or batteries for electronic devices. This innovation is vital in realizing sustainable energy generation in isolated, inaccessible, or indoor environments and even in the human body.

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Edgy look at 2-D molybdenum disulfide

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A new SHG imaging technique allows rapid and all-optical determination of the crystal orientations of 2D semiconductor membranes at a large scale, providing the knowledge needed to use these materials in nanoelectronic devices. The drive to develop ultrasmall and ultrafast electronic devices using a single atomic layer of semiconductors, such as transition metal dichalcogenides, has received a significant boost. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have recorded the first observations of a strong nonlinear optical resonance along the edges of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide. The existence of these edge states is key to the use of molybdenum disulfide in nanoelectronics, as well as a catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction in fuel cells, desulfurization and other chemical reactions. “We observed strong nonlinear optical resonances at the edges of a two-dimensional crystal of molybdenum disulfide” says Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division who led this study. “These one-dimensional edge states are the result of electronic structure changes and may enable novel nanoelectronics and photonic devices. These edges have also long been suspected to be the active sites for the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction in energy applications.

The post Edgy look at 2-D molybdenum disulfide has been published on Technology Org.

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Lighting up Saturn

Space science image of the week: Hubble sees a flickering light display on Saturn

via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/05/Hubble_sees_aurora_on_Saturn

Carina Nebula - Breathtaking Universe Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space

Carina Nebula - Breathtaking Universe Sticker

tagged with: stlrnrsry, star clusters, galaxies, awesome astronomy pictures, constellation puppis, the stern, star nurseries, nebulae, outer space exploration, universe photographs, starfields, european southern observatory, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

A gorgeous set of oval stickers showing the area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis ("The Stern"). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a very active stellar nursery, where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas.

The image, looking like a colourful cosmic ghost or a gigantic celestial Mandrill, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 (centre) and Haffner 19 (middle right: it is located inside the smaller pink region - the lower eye of the Mandrill), as well as vast areas of ionised gas.

The bright star at the centre of the largest pink region on the bottom of the image is HD 64315, a massive young star that is helping shaping the structure of the whole nebular region.

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Image code: stlrnrsry

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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