All’interno intervista
esclusiva al Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa di ENEA.
di: Marco La Rosa
Il “PALAZZO DELLA CIVILTA’ ITALIANA”, chiamato anche “della
Civiltà del Lavoro” e “Colosseo quadrato” (per via dei 54 archi per facciata),
è un edificio di carattere monumentale, sorge a Roma nel quartiere dell’EUR. Progettato nel 1936-37 fu iniziato nel 1938
ed inaugurato, ancora incompleto nel 1940. Fu ultimato dopo il 1945. Oggi è un
edificio di interesse culturale e quindi vincolato ad usi espositivi e museali.
Negli archi del piano terreno, sono collocate 28 statue
rappresentanti le virtù del popolo
italiano: EROISMO, MUSICA, ARTIGIANATO, GENIO POLITICO, ORDINE SOCIALE, LAVORO,
AGRICOLTURA, FILOSOFIA, COMMERCIO, INDUSTRIA, ARCHEOLOGIA, ASTRONOMIA, STORIA,
GENIO INVENTIVO, ARCHITETTURA, DIRITTO, PRIMATO DELLA NAVIGAZIONE, SCULTURA,
MATEMATICA, GENIO DEL TEATRO, CHIMICA, STAMPA, MEDICINA, GEOGRAFIA, FISICA,
POESIA, PITTURA, GENIO MILITARE.
ABBIAMO DIMENTICATO TUTTO
QUESTO. ABBIAMO PERDUTO LA NOSTRA IDENTITA’.
La “SCUOLA”, nel tempo è stata “cannibalizzata” di tutte le
risorse possibili, non è praticamente più in grado di trasmettere questi
valori, che nel tempo si sono prima diluiti e poi persi. Restano parole vuote
scolpite in qualche monumento, caduto pure quello nell'oblio.
Ma il DNA non è fantasia, per cui senza averne coscienza,
ognuno di noi ha dentro se il “seme” di questo immenso patrimonio. Quindi
nonostante tutto, esso continua a germogliare, ed anche se non ce ne
accorgiamo la pianta cresce, cresce e tende verso l’alto, verso il
sole, pure senza acqua.
Ho trovato una di queste "piante", non per caso. Perché se cerchi
trovi…eccome se trovi.
L’ ENEA, Agenzia
Nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico
sostenibile. E’ un fiore all’occhiello tutto italiano, specchio di quel
patrimonio “scolpito” nel travertino lassù. Fucina di idee e scoperte che fanno
invidia al mondo intero: Efficienza energetica, fonti rinnovabili, nucleare,
ambiente e clima, sicurezza e salute, nuove tecnologie… In questi tempi “cupi” è
come un gigante semi addormentato. Innumerevoli brevetti di importanza epocale
non solo per l’Italia, ma per tutti i paesi del mondo, giacciono polverosi nei
cassetti: mancano le aziende, mancano le risorse per “studiare” e “sviluppare”
i prototipi che poi faranno da volano al rilancio dell’economia… le eccezioni
sono poche, ma danno il polso di una situazione incredibile, basterebbe
veramente poco per cambiare le cose.
Leggete qua:
“ Un significativo passo avanti
per il rilancio dell’economia
italiana si sta compiendo grazie agli investimenti fatti nella ricerca e nel
sistema industriale ad alta tecnologia, che nonostante la crisi, è
uno dei pochi settori che ha accresciuto la propria competitività,
e la creazione di nuovi posti di lavoro.”
ha dichiarato Giovanni Lelli, Commissario dell’ENEA,
intervenendo alla cerimonia di avvio dei lavori per la costruzione di una
macchina sperimentale per la produzione di energia da fusione nucleare in
Giappone, con l’assemblaggio dei
primi componenti arrivati dall’Europa.
Si tratta di un programma internazionale tra Europa e Giappone, alla cui realizzazione
l’ENEA ha contribuito con il suo
progetto e lavorando in sinergia con le aziende italiane che forniscono alcuni
componenti essenziali. La collaborazione tra il sistema della ricerca pubblica
e quello dell’industria nazionale
dei sistemi energetici tecnologicamente avanzati ha portato alla qualificazione
di prodotti tecnologici che ora possono competere e vincere in tutti i mercati
mondiali. L’ENEA ha messo a
disposizione le infrastrutture tecnologiche dei Centri di ricerca di Frascati e del Brasimone, che sono tra i
più avanzati in Europa, e le
competenze tecnico-scientifiche dei suoi ricercatori per sviluppare e
qualificare i componenti tecnologici delle nostre maggiori realtà
industriali per il raggiungimento di quei livelli qualitativi di eccellenza che
hanno determinato il successo italiano
in tutti i programmi internazionali per la fusione nucleare.”
In particolare, le industrie italiane ad alta tecnologia
sono riuscite a cogliere l’opportunità
offerta dalla costruzione del reattore ITER, il più
importante programma internazionale di fusione nucleare, aggiudicandosi
commesse del valore totale di circa 750 milioni di euro per componenti
rilevanti, tra i quali i magneti superconduttori.
Un successo ottenuto grazie al ruolo che l’ENEA
svolge da più di 20 anni come
coordinatore nazionale dei programmi europei sulla fusione nucleare finalizzati
ad ottenere un’energia green,
che non comporta i rischi legati al nucleare da fissione, che è
la stessa energia che si verifica nelle stelle”.
Ecco un esempio
pratico:
Un’intervista esclusiva al Dott. Giuseppe Cotellessa appunto di
ENEA, che ci onora della sua presenza sul nostro sito-blog e che ringraziamo per la seguente spiegazione
semplificata della sua scoperta:
Metodo per l’analisi di
immagini acquisite da strumenti di indagine nucleare
“Giuseppe Cotellessa
dell’Istituto Nazionale di Metrologia delle Radiazioni Ionizzanti (INMRI) dell'ENEA è l’inventore di un
procedimento fisico-matematico che permette un’analisi corretta della “natura”
e la “misura” affidabile delle dimensioni degli oggetti osservati nelle
immagini acquisite da strumenti di indagine nucleare ed estensibile ad immagini
non nucleari, per esempio: immagini radar, sonar, TAC, RMN, radiografiche,
ecografiche, da microscopi elettronici, ottici e telescopi. Il procedimento può essere applicato anche per
migliorare la precisione della lettura dei rilevatori di tracce nucleari, come
quelli utilizzati per misurare l’esposizione al radon e ai neutroni in ambienti
di lavoro per la radioprotezione dei lavoratori, come anche garantire la
sicurezza meccanica nel funzionamento dei componenti utilizzati negli impianti
nucleari, contribuire in modo significativo agli studi di ricerca sulla fusione
nucleare ed agli studi di ricerca nucleare in generale in quanto è in grado di
rilevare ed eliminare i segnali provenienti dalle pseudo tracce, cioè quei
segnali prodotti dalla presenza di impronte digitali sul rilevatore o da
imperfezioni del materiale”.
“I sistemi di indagine nucleare finora utilizzati si basano
sulla osservazione da parte di sistemi automatici di analisi di oggetti su
immagini bidimensionali a diverse tonalità di grigio, ricostruiti a partire
dalla misura del numero di danni delle radiazioni nucleari, provocate sulla
superficie del rivelatore, captate da una telecamera, dopo riflessione o
trasmissione sul o attraverso il rivelatore di un fascio luminoso.
L’interpretazione dell’immagine ottenuta è affidata esclusivamente a
procedimenti matematici di software che analizzano nella maggior parte immagini
trasformate in formato binario con notevole perdita di informazioni utili per
l’interpretazione degli oggetti. Gli oggetti delle immagini analizzate in campo
diagnostico e non (immagini radar, sonar, TAC, RMN, radiografiche, ecografiche,
da microscopi elettronici, ottici e telescopi) spesso sono analizzate
attraverso l’occhio umano dell’operatore, con notevoli errori
nell’interpretazione della natura degli oggetti, nella misura nel numero e
delle dimensioni degli oggetti interpretati.
Il procedimento brevettato consente di ricostruire grafici
tridimensionali facilmente interpretabili dall’occhio umano, che sono ottenuti
effettuando più letture dello stesso rilevatore, per diversi valori di
intensità luminosa. Ciò permette di differenziare le tracce nucleari emesse o
trasmesse dall’oggetto indagato, dalle pseudo tracce reali dovute alla presenza
di impronte digitali sul rilevatore o a imperfezioni del materiale, e da quelle
virtuali dovute a una non corretta impostazione dei parametri di lavoro.
L’eliminazione dei segnali delle pseudo tracce consente di ottimizzare i
parametri di lavoro e migliorare l’accuratezza e la riproducibilità della
lettura”.
Il brevetto, di proprietà ENEA, è stato depositato il 13
dicembre 2012 con numero RM2012A000637. È consultabile nella banca dati Brevetti
ENEA dal 19 dicembre 2012 ed è disponibile per licensing.
Chi è Giuseppe Cotellessa:
Laurea in fisica alla
Sapienza 1982, ricercatore all’ENEA dal 1985.
Specializzato in
metrologia dei gas, ha sviluppato prototipi di misura del gas radioattivo radon
(celle elettrostatiche), ha contribuito alla risoluzione di problematiche
relative alla taratura degli strumenti di misura del radon e di sviluppo dei
campioni relativi.
Ha partecipato a
contratti nazionali ed internazionali con funzione da parte di ENEA di
laboratorio garanzia per la taratura degli strumenti di misura: Italia,
Germania Orientale (Lipsia).
Ha partecipato alla
realizzazione di due sistemi integrati per la misura del radon e dei figli del
radon, denominati Radotron. Ha partecipato nel progetto di realizzazione dei
prototipi di flussimetri “Seeback” dell’Istituto tedesco di Jena per le alte
tecnologie, occupandosi della caratterizzazione ambientale tramite flussimetri
miniaturizzati in ambiente controllato. Questo progetto è stato selezionato
dalla Comunità Europea come esempio di “successo storico”.
Ha partecipato al
primo interconfronto italiano degli strumenti di misura passivi in Italia.
Ha partecipato a
diversi interconfronti con strumenti di misura passivi del radon in Inghilterra
presso NRPB e a Berlino.
Nel laboratorio ha
preso parte alla progettazione e ristrutturazione del sistema di gestione della
camera radon con microclima controllato.
Ha effettuato studi di
caratterizzazione della radioprotezione dei lavoratori dal gas radon nella
camera radon praticabile del laboratorio.
Ha partecipato alla
realizzazione di numerosi circuiti ed apparati per differenti finalità.
Il compito attuale è
quello di realizzare il primo campione primario assoluto per il radon per
l’INMRI (Istituto Nazionale di Metrologia delle radiazioni Ionizzanti) in
Italia.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, può farci qualche esempio pratico per aiutare la gente comune, a
capire che la sua scoperta può davvero migliorare in modo sensibile tanti
aspetti della vita di società?
G.C.: Finora lo stato dell’arte da me raggiunto è di aver
verificato sperimentalmente la validità del procedimento fisico-matematico, con
un lavoro di ricerca applicata durato quasi cinque anni (da
Agosto 2007) utilizzando i mezzi disponibili nel laboratorio di tracce nucleari
dell’INMRI, in cui ho avuto la possibilità di sviluppare l’attività di ricerca dal 1985. In questo periodo di
tempo sempre nel campo dell’uso dei rivelatori di trace nucleari a stato solido,
ho depositato altri due brevetti di invenzioni originali:
1)RM2008A000148
|
“Processo per lo Sviluppo di Tracce
Nucleari Identificabili mediante la Loro Intensità Luminosa Rispetto ad Altre
Tracce Agglomerate, e Dispositivo per la Sua Attuazione” del 17-3-2008
|
2)RM92A000540
|
“Procedimento per la Separazione
Automatica delle Tracce con un Analizzatore di Immagini Utilizzando
l'Immagine Originaria.” Del 15-7-1992.)
|
Queste ricerche e relativi
brevetti hanno un comune obiettivo di migliorare gli aspetti metrologici dei
processi basati sulle applicazioni delle
analisi delle immagini.
Hanno aperto delle prospettive
per applicazioni in diversi campi, anche nel settore industriale e pertanto l’ENEA
ha ritenuto opportuno di proteggere i
risultati con la deposizione di un brevetto.
I passi ulteriori da effettuare
sono quelli di trovare i finanziamenti adeguati per continuare le ricerche; di promuovere le applicazioni in
collaborazione con le ditte interessate, preferibilmente italiane, concedendo
loro la licenza d’uso del brevetto ed incorporare
poi, lo stesso, in prototipi multidisciplinari, con la prospettiva di immettere sul mercato
l’innovazione.
Tutto ciò, potrà portare alla realizzazione di nuovi
dispositivi in campo medico, migliorando
la qualità di diverse tecnologie diagnostiche basate sull’analisi delle
immagini.
Ad esempio, per quanto riguarda
i trapianti di organi, riconoscere in
modo automatico, in un campione composto
di cellule morte e vive, la percentuale di cellule vive, fondamentale nei test per la determinazione della compatibilità dei
tessuti tra donatore e ricevente.
Procedendo per ipotesi, senza aver
ancora ottenuto le dovute verifiche sperimentali, penso a nuovi dispositivi nel
campo della produzione industriale.
Il procedimento consente di migliorare
le prestazioni dei microscopi ottici, elettronici, che hanno larga
applicazione. ecc.
Si potrebbero affrontare i
problemi più complessi da un punto di vista fisico, come la gestione dei
sensori di centrali solari termodinamiche con un procedimento molto più snello
e semplificato.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, quanto importante sarà la sensibilizzazione della società, della
scuola a tutti i livelli (in questo momento di profonda crisi generale), affinché
il “genio” e la “ricerca” italiana ritrovino “splendore” di fronte al mondo, ma
sopratutto a quella parte del nostro paese ormai profondamente disillusa?
G.C: L’innovazione
costituisce un fattore significativo per dare impulso alla ripresa
socio-economica del paese. Questo processo deve essere reso operativo a tutti i
livelli, in particolare nella scuola.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, è d’accordo sul fatto che se le Istituzioni italiane arresteranno
l’”emorragia di cervelli” dal nostro paese, con atti concreti, l’economia tutta
ne beneficerebbe da subito?
G.C.: .: La ricerca italiana, sia pubblica che privata, consentirebbe
se opportunamente valorizzata, un impulso positivo per superare le attuali
condizioni di ristagno nel nostro paese, e quindi anche “mantenere” in Italia i ricercatori che
si sono formati nelle nostre università e nei centri di ricerca.
In conclusione vorrei
evidenziare che il lavoro sperimentale è frutto di lavoro di equipe con il
concorso di altri ricercatori, ma anche della struttura operativa dell’INMRI dell’ENEA
che ha consentito e valorizzato questa linea di ricerca, portando anche alla
brevettazione dei risultati e dell’innovazione.
In particolare ringrazio il
Dott. Pierino De Felice, responsabile attuale dell'INMRI, il Dott. Marco
Capogni responsabile della sezione dell'INMRI per lo sviluppo dei campioni
primari (appartengo a questa sezione) e il Dott. Giuliano Sciocchetti mio
ex-responsabile, attualmente in pensione, che ancora mi segue quasi
quotidianamente nelle mie avventure scientifiche, Elvio Soldano (chimico) e
Massimo Pagliari (tecnico). Queste personalità, eccezionali all'interno
dell'ENEA, mi hanno creato le condizioni indispensabili per poter
conseguire questi risultati importanti.
MLR: Dott.
Cotellessa, la ringraziamo per la sua disponibilità e chiarezza, nella viva
speranza che quel “seme” di cui parlavo all’inizio di questo articolo,
custodito nelle nuove generazioni, possa
davvero trovare in ITALIA “terreno fertile” in cui germogliare e crescere…
questa volta con abbondanza di acqua.
SE TI E' PIACIUTO QUESTO POST NON PUOI PERDERE:
LA VERA "GENESI" DELL'UOMO E' COME CI HANNO SEMPRE RACCONTATO? OPPURE E' UNA STORIA COMPLETAMENTE DIVERSA?
"L'UOMO KOSMICO", TEORIA DI UN'EVOLUZIONE NON RICONOSCIUTA"
" IL RISVEGLIO DEL CADUCEO DORMIENTE: LA VERA GENESI DELL'HOMO SAPIENS"
DI MARCO LA ROSA
SONO EDIZIONI OmPhi Labs
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ACQUISTABILI DIRETTAMENTE DAL SITO OmPhi Labs ED IN LIBRERIA
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Wristwatch technology leads to battery-free pacemaker
A batteryless pacemaker powered by energy from the heart and based on automatic wristwatch technology was unveiled yesterday.
The technology, developed by researchers led by Prof Rolf Vogel from the University of Bern in Switzerland, harvests energy from the motion of the heart using the 200-year-old principles used to power self-winding watches.
This means it could remove the need for operations to replace pacemaker batteries, said researcher and PhD student Adrian Zurbuchen in a statement.
‘Batteries are a limiting factor in today’s medical implants. Once they reach a critically low energy level, physicians see themselves forced to replace a correctly functioning medical device in a surgical intervention. This is an unpleasant scenario which increases costs and the risk of complications for patients.’
A traditional clockwork wristwatch is automatically wound because the rotor inside is turned whenever the watch accelerates due to the movement of the wearer’s arm. This rotation progressively winds a mechanical spring that, once fully charged, unwinds again and spins an electrical micro-generator.
To develop a pacemaker that operated in a similar way, the researchers copied the wristwatch mechanism, removing unnecessary parts to reduce weight and size and developing a custom-made housing with eyelets so it could be stitched directly onto the heart muscle tissue.
‘The heart seems to be a very promising energy source because its contractions are repetitive and present for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,’ said Zurbuchen. ‘Furthermore the automatic clockwork, invented in the year 1777, has a good reputation as a reliable technology to scavenge energy from motion.’
The energy-harvesting device was connected to an electronic circuit that transformed and stored the signal into a small buffer capacity.
To test the prototype, the researchers developed an electronic circuit to transform and store the signal into a small buffer capacity and then connected it to a custom-made cardiac pacemaker. It was then implanted into a domestic pig.
‘The next step in our prototype is to integrate both the electronic circuit for energy storage and the custom-made pacemaker directly into the harvesting device. This will eliminate the need for leads,’ said Zurbuchen.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Piezo device harvests energy from sound
Researchers in London have developed a device that uses sound to help generate an electrical charge, a development that could see mobile phones recharged by everyday background noise.
The device from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) uses the piezoelectric properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods to harvest energy from vibration and movement.
To make the device, ZnO nanoparticles are sprayed onto a plastic surface, which is then placed into a solution containing hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) and heated to 90oC. The hexagonal nanorods then grow from that layer of ZnO particles to cover the whole surface.
The team then used aluminium foil to form the electrical contacts. Furthermore, the coating can be applied to a range of surfaces.
Source: QMUL
According to QMUL, the ultimate device was the same size as a Nokia Lumia 925 and generated five volts.
Dr Joe Briscoe, a post doctoral research assistant at QMUL explained that decibel levels of around 70dB and above will give a measurable response, but more work remains to be done in order to increase the amount of power the device can generate. The team will also refine the methods used to produce the devices.
Dr Briscoe added that vibrations have even more potential than sound to charge a battery.
He said via email: ‘A direct vibration such as in a vehicle or from machinery should be able to excite the piezoelectric material a lot more, and so generate more power.
‘This would work by, for example, building the device into a phone so that if you put it on a table on a train, or maybe even in your pocket, or on the dashboard of the car, the device would vibrate, and convert this vibration into electricity.
‘A final device could be incorporated into a phone in a couple of ways - you could have a small sheet…which you had in your bag or your wallet, which stored some charge from the vibration, and you then plugged it into your phone to top it up. Or you could coat part of the phone case with the piezoelectric material - which in itself is very very thin - and then the phone would always charge a little when it picked up enough sound or vibration.’
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Wales prepares for deployment of tidal energy device.
The DeltaStream device developed by Tidal Energy Ltd (TEL) will now be installed in Ramsey Sound, Pembrokeshire, making it one of the world’s first grid-connected demonstration devices to generate tidal power.
DeltaStream combines a freestanding triangular base design with an advanced hydraulics system, which ensures the turbine freely turns to capture the best tidal flow and maximise power generation. Gravitational pull anchors the device in place, eliminating the need for drilling into the seabed.
Tidal Energy Ltd’s DeltaStream 400kW demonstration device, which weighs 150 tonnes and with a frame 16m long by 20m high, also includes a number of design features to minimise any potential impact on the surrounding environment.
Consequently, DeltaStream is the first project to receive precautionary ‘deploy and monitor’ environmental consent in a designated Marine Special Area of Conservation.
EU funds worth £8m delivered through the Welsh Government have been invested in the project, with match funding from majority shareholder, Welsh renewable energy company, Eco2 Ltd.
Following a 12 month testing period, TEL and Eco2 will install up to nine DeltaStream devices off St Davids Head in Pembrokeshire. These installations will form a 10MW DeltaStream commercial array.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
L’interruttore che spegne le malattie autoimmuni
Trovato l’interruttore molecolare per “spegnere” le malattie autoimmuni, come sclerosi multipla o diabete giovanile . A farlo sono stati ricercatori britannici dell’Università di Bristol il cui studio, pubblicato su Nature Communication, apre la strada ad un nuovo tipo di immunoterapia contro queste patologie.
Ispirandosi ai successi ottenuti nella lotta contro alcune forme di allergie, una tecnica nota come desensibilizzazione allergica, i ricercatori hanno scoperto un metodo per `educare´ le cellule `anarchiche´ del sistema immunitario utilizzando frammenti di proteine. Piuttosto che tentare di sopprimere le cellule immunitarie aggressive, questa tecnica ha permesso di ripristinare il loro funzionamento corretto.
La speranza dei ricercatori è che questa intuizione possa portare allo sviluppo di nuovi trattamenti contro molte malattie autoimmuni, come sclerosi multipla, diabete di tipo 1, malattia di Graves e lupus eritematoso sistemico. Dopo aver ottenuto i primi successi, la tecnica è ora in fase di sviluppo clinico attraverso la società di biotecnologie Apitope, uno spin-off nato all’Università di Bristol.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Ground Robots are Essential Partners in War
In a keynote address at the National Defense Industrial Association's Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference & Exhibition, Heidi Shyu, assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics & Technology, told the attendees that the Army is working with industry partners to develop a standard architecture that will enable the Army to incorporate robotics capabilities rapidly. According to the keynoter, getting ground robotics right is important, as robots are becoming essential partners to the warfighters.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il procedimento del brevetto RM2012A000637 può risultare utilissimo in questo tipo di applicazione. GC.
Sensor Tracks Railway Cracks
To keep the railway tracks safe, railway operators must monitor many track parameters at regular intervals. Irregularities in the rail geometry can cause sudden cracking of the steel rails due to high tension. Today's camera-based systems have many drawbacks when it comes to surveying railway track infrastructure. To overcome these limitations, Fraunhofer IPM has developed the Rail Track Scanner (RTS), a laser-based system.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Nanophotonics key to high-speed information transfer
A development in the US could lead to computer chips capable of transporting digital information at light speed.
Reporting in Optica, optical and material scientists at the University of Rochester and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich describe a basic model circuit consisting of a silver nanowire and a single-layer flake of molybendum disulphide (MoS2).
Using a laser to excite electromagnetic waves (plasmons) at the surface of the wire, the researchers found that the MoS2 flake at the far end of the wire generated strong light emission. Going in the other direction, as the excited electrons relaxed, they were collected by the wire and converted back into plasmons, which emitted light of the same wavelength.
‘We have found that there is pronounced nanoscale light-matter interaction between plasmons and atomically thin material that can be exploited for nanophotonic integrated circuits,’ said Nick Vamivakas, assistant professor of quantum optics and quantum physics at the University of Rochester and senior author of the paper.
Typically about a third of the remaining energy would be lost for every few microns the plasmons travelled along the wire, said Kenneth Goodfellow, a graduate student at Rochester’s Institute of Optics and lead author of the Optica paper.
‘It was surprising to see that enough energy was left after the round-trip,’ he said in a statement.
Photonic devices can be much faster than electronic ones, but they are bulkier because devices that focus light cannot be miniaturized nearly as well as electronic circuits, said Goodfellow. The new results hold promise for guiding the transmission of light, and maintaining the intensity of the signal, in very small dimensions.
Ever since the discovery of graphene, scientists have been rapidly exploring the world of two-dimensional materials. These materials have unique properties not seen in their bulk form.
Like graphene, MoS2 is made up of layers that are weakly bonded to each other, so they can be easily separated. In bulk MoS2, electrons and photons interact as they would in traditional semiconductors like silicon and gallium arsenide. As MoS2 is reduced to thinner and thinner layers, the transfer of energy between electrons and photons becomes more efficient.
The key to MoS2’s desirable photonic properties is in the structure of its energy band gap. As the material’s layer count decreases, it transitions from an indirect to direct band gap, which allows electrons to easily move between energy bands by releasing photons. Graphene is inefficient at light emission because it has no band gap.
Combining electronics and photonics on the same integrated circuits could drastically improve the performance and efficiency of mobile technology. The researchers said the next step is to demonstrate their circuit with light emitting diodes.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Troubleshoot Problems with FLIR E-Series IR Cameras
FLIR E-Series thermal cameras help users pinpoint many problems — from mechanical wear and equipment misalignment to faulty electrical connections and moisture/air leaks in buildings. With thermal and visible images, touchscreen controls, mobile app connectivity, and much more, E-Series cameras can help you prevent equipment failures, extensive damage, and unplanned shutdowns.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
PIOX R Inline Process Refractometer
By measuring the refractive index with PIOX® R, concentration levels of many media consumed or created within the chemical and textile fiber industry, such as solvents, acids, caustics, as well as other — often corrosive and toxic — intermediate and end products, can accurately be monitored.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Fotovoltaico invisibile, il solare c'è ma non si vede
Il primo prototipo del Fotovoltaico Invisibile è stato realizzato nel 2010 dal laboratorio di ricerca Dyaqua Art Studio ed è stato premiato in occasione del Concorso Internazionale d’Idee "L’energia solare per le isole minori Italiane". Dal 2012 Dyaqua Art Studio collabora con l'ENEA nelle operazioni di ottimizzazione e ingegnerizzazione del Fotovoltaico Invisibile che ha portato, nel maggio 2014, all'installazione a Capri del primo prototipo di impianto formato da pietre fotovoltaiche: l'opera, promossa da ENEA e Marevivo, alimenta un impianto a LED e serve a raccogliere dati per verificarne l'efficienza.
Recentemente Dyaqua Art Studio ha aperto le candidature per la costituzione di una Società Cooperativa S.p.A. cui affidare la vendita esclusiva del Fotovoltaico Invisibile in Italia, invitando gli installatori fotovoltaici con sede in Italia a candidarsi come aspiranti soci e riservare così una zona propria dove installare i primi moduli fotovoltaici.
L'obiettivo è dare vita ad un rivenditore nazionale per il Fotovoltaico Invisibile, composto dagli stessi professionisti di settore. Costituita in forma di S.p.A., la Società Cooperativa fornirà in esclusiva i prodotti del Fotovoltaico Invisibile ai propri Soci, i quali avranno il diritto di installarli in zone operative riservate e dimensionate secondo la partecipazione al capitale sociale.
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Titania has promise as superconductor insulator
Research from North Carolina State University shows that a type of modified titania, or titanium dioxide, holds promise as an electrical insulator for superconducting magnets, allowing heat to dissipate while preserving the electrical paths along which current flows.
According to NCSU, superconducting magnets are being investigated for use in next-generation power generating technologies and medical devices.
Regular conductors conduct electricity, but a small fraction of that energy is lost during transmission. Superconductors can handle much higher currents per square centimetre and lose virtually no energy through transmission. However, superconductors only have these desirable properties at low temperatures.
‘Superconducting magnets need electrical insulators to ensure proper operation,’ said Dr. Sasha Ishmael, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the work. ‘Changing the current inside the superconductor is important for many applications, but this change generates heat internally. The magnets will operate much more safely if the electrical insulators are able to shed any excess heat. Otherwise, the higher temperatures could destroy the superconductor.
‘This titania-based material is up to 20 times better at conducting heat than comparable electrical insulators,’ Ishmael said in a statement. ‘It has characteristics that are very promising for use as electrical insulators for superconducting technologies.’
The precise chemical composition of the modified titania is proprietary information. The material’s development and characterisation was a joint effort between NC State and nGimat LLC, based in Lexington, Kentucky.
‘We’re now looking at the effect of radiation on this material, to determine if it can be used for high energy physics applications, such as particle colliders,’ said Dr. Justin Schwartz, senior author of the paper and Kobe Steel Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State.
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Disposable fuel cell patch brings galvanic skin treatments into the home
Researchers in Finland have developed a disposable patch that will let consumers perform galvanic skin treatments at home.
Developed at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the new patch is manufactured using printing and lamination techniques and derives its power from a biofuel cell.
The patch changes the permeability of skin with the aid of microcurrent, said Anu Vaari, a senior scientist at VTT.
‘A selected cosmetic product could be applied to the specific area of your skin after the patch has been removed,’ she said via email. ‘In existing products the cosmetic agent should be used at the same time with the patch and the current is used to push the cosmetic agent into your skin by the aid of electric field.’
Vaari added that the patch is activated with a few drops of ‘suitable liquid’ prior to application, and that the microcurrent is produced by enzymes using sugar and oxygen as fuel.
‘The power production mechanism is the same as in conventional fuel cells,’ said Vaari.
According to a related VTT patent application, the multi-layered structure comprises a conductive laminar layer; and an enzyme layer containing a dry enzyme capable of oxidizing or dehydrogenating carbohydrate materials.
Because the enzymatic anode layer and the fuel-containing layer are not interacting during the production - and since they are kept latent during storage - the power source will remain stable for extended periods of time, which increases the power source’s utility.
A patent for the product’s manufacturing has also been applied for.
In addition to cosmetics, the same product and manufacturing method could be adapted to medicinal and herbal products. The product is said to have attracted interest from the cosmetics industry and is now moving toward commercialisation.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Robotic submarines make waves in the oil and gas sector
Six months after the disappearance of flight MH370 we look back at our feature on the unmanned submarine technology that's helping to look for the missing aircraft.
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Researchers replicate crucial step in photosynthesis that could lead to replacement for petrol.
Scientists have made a vital breakthrough in the race to develop a potential replacement for petrol and slash its impact on the environment.
Experts have successfully replicated one of the crucial steps in photosynthesis that could lead to the development of an efficient hydrogen-based fuel.
The way in which plants produce hydrogen by splitting water molecules was previously poorly understood.
But researchers have now developed a protein which, when exposed to light, displays the electrical 'heartbeat' which is the key to photosynthesis.
"Water is abundant and so is sunlight. It is an exciting prospect to use them to create hydrogen, and do it cheaply and safely," said Dr Kastoori Hingorani, from the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis at the Australian National University.
Hydrogen offers the potential to be a zero-carbon replacement for petroleum products, and is already used to launch spacecraft.
The naturally occurring protein is also cheap to produce, meaning it could also provide an affordable energy source in developing countries.
Co-researcher Professor Ron Pace said: "This is the first time we have replicated the primary capture of energy from sunlight. It's the beginning of a whole suite of possibilities, such as creating a highly efficient fuel."
Prof Pace said hydrogen fuel was also "indefinitely sustainable".
"Sunlight is extraordinarily abundant, water is everywhere - the raw materials we need to make the fuel. And at the end of the usage cycle it goes back to water."
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Soft-bodied robot can walk through fire
US researchers have built a crawling soft-bodied robot that can operate without a tether and survive fire, snow and being run over by a car.
The cross-shaped quadruped robot built by engineers at Harvard University uses chambers of compressed air to move along the ground, carrying its control system and power supply on its back.
It is a scaled-up and more mobile version of earlier designs that could aid the development of machines that can better survive harsh environments but also pose less risk to humans operating alongside such devices.
‘One of the things that limit our imagination is that factory robots are very large and scary and dangerous to be around,’ said Michael Tolley, first author of a paper on the work published inSoft Robotics.
‘As a lay person, you can’t just walk into a factory where industrial robots are working. But a soft system is inherently less dangerous, so you can start to interact with it more, and I think that opens up many more opportunities.’
Previous versions of such soft robots were typically no larger than a note pad but the new device is more than 50cm in length and can carry over 3kg of weight on its back, enabling it to operate without a tether to a control and power system.
‘Earlier versions of soft robots were all tethered, which works fine in some applications, but what we wanted to do was challenge people’s concept of what a robot has to look like,’
‘We think the reason people have settled on using metal and rigid materials for robots is because they’re easier to model and control. This work is very inspired by nature, and we wanted to demonstrate that soft materials can also be the basis for robots.’
The robot is made from a composite silicone rubber impregnated with hollow glass microspheres with an underside of Kevlar for added toughness. This created a lightweight structure that was strong enough for the increased air pressure inside its pneumatic movement system needed to carry the increased weight on the robot’s back.
‘As soon as you start thinking about putting the basic components you need to make this work — micro-compressors, controllers, and batteries — on an untethered robot, you need a design that can carry those parts,’ said Tolley.
‘You need to think about something that can handle much higher pressures, so there are materials challenges and there are design challenges and there are control challenges.’
The researchers tested the robot in snow, submerged it in water, walked it through flames, and even ran it over with a car, without causing significant damage.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Sweet Revenge
Honey is a popular sweetener, which means someone out there is trying to adulterate it with something cheaper that still tastes enough like the real thing. Chinese researchers are developing a new test using 3D fluorescence spectra to analyze honey samples for the presence of rice syrup, a common counterfeit component.
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Next Mars Rover Will Seek Life, Convert CO2 to Oxygen
The Mars Curiosity rover has been wildly successful, so how on Earth could NASA scientists top its stellar mission? With another Mars rover! The planned Mars 2020 rover will be based on Curiosity's design, but it will feature some new scientific instruments that will not only seek out life, but will figure out ways to support it. For example, the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, cleverly known as SHERLOC, is a fine-scale imaging spectrometer with a UV laser for detecting organic compounds. And, the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment, or MOXIE, will take the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere and convert it to oxygen, testing whether or not the red planet could possibly support human life.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Beneath the Surface of a Killer
Melanoma can be highly curable if caught early, and devastating if not. Better diagnostic tools can help doctors make better decisions about surgery and treatment. A new handheld photoacoustic microscopy device leverages the photoacoustic effect — turning light into mechanical vibrations — and uses a laser beam radiating into the skin to reveal how deeply the melanoma tumor extends
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Michelson Interferometers
Polarizing, non-polarizing, cemented, optically contacted (epoxy-free bonded), hexagonal, square, small (1 mm), large (45 mm), UV, visible, IR. A great breadth of expertise is required to manufacture a space qualified, wide-field Michelson interferometer. Material selection, coating design, modeling of phase and polarization, mechanical design, process development, quality planning, glass shaping and polishing, optical contacting, cementing and finally testing, testing, and testing.
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Determining Aromatic Content in Hydrocarbons
The ASTM D5292 test method covers the determination of the aromatic hydrogen content and aromatic carbon content of hydrocarbon oils using high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers. Applicable samples include kerosenes, gas oils, mineral oils, lubricating oils, coal liquids, and other distillates that are completely soluble in chloroform at ambient temperature.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Shape-shifting Robots
Today's robots are rigid mechanical machines. But imagine a robot that melts to squeeze through tiny crevices, then reshapes to handle typical chores requiring stiff appendages. Engineers at MIT have developed a material that could make Terminator-like morphing robots possible. It's a tunable wax and foam phase-changing material that can switch between hard and soft states
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ESA launches €1bn project to create next generation metals
Lighter vehicles, stronger nuclear reactors and more compatible medical implants are among the goals of a new billion-euro European Space Agency metals project.
The seven-year international research and development programme known as Metallurgy Europe aims to develop new types of metals and manufacturing techniques and create at least 100,000 jobs by involving hundreds of research organisation and companies across the continent.
‘We’ll be laying the technical foundations for the discovery of new materials – metallic compounds, alloys, composites, superconductors and semiconductors,’ said Prof David Jarvis, head of strategic and emerging technologies at ESA and chairman of Metallurgy Europe.
‘We’ll also be applying computer modelling to guide our alloy creation, as well as advanced manufacturing techniques, such as additive manufacturing or 3D printing, for the creation of new products.’
Organised along 13 topics, the potential results include novel heat-resistant alloys for space and nuclear systems, high-efficiency power lines based on superconducting alloys, thermoelectric materials converting waste heat into power, new catalysts for the production of plastics and pharmaceuticals, bio-compatible metals for medical implants, as well as high-strength magnetic systems.
ESA would be particularly interested in lightweight alloys and composites that could potentially slash the weight of spacecraft components, as well as reduce the mass of a typical car by more than half.
Additive manufacturing with new metals could help change aerospace structures.
‘The periodic table gives us around 60 commercial metal elements,’ said Jarvis. ‘In the world of materials it’s the mixing of these different chemical elements that is vital to us: we hardly use pure metals but we do use compounds, alloys and composites.
‘You’ve got those 60 elements and you can mix them in so many different ways. The actual number of combinations and ratios of mixing elements is infinite – we’ve only really scratched the surface.’
The various branches of the metals-related industry today accounts for 46% of the EU’s manufacturing value and 11% of its total gross domestic product – equivalent to €1.3tr (£1tr) annually or €3.5bn (£2.8bn) daily.
More than 180 industrial partners have signed up, including some of the largest engineering companies in Europe such as Airbus Group, BP, Siemens, Rolls-Royce, Thales, BAE Systems, Philips, Linde Group, Johnson Matthey and Tata Steel, as well as many small and medium-sized firms.
The projects making up the programme will begin next year, although preparatory work has already begun. ‘The amount of money invested and the size of our support network makes us the largest consortium of its type in metallic materials and advanced manufacturing,’ said Jarvis. ‘It stands us in good stead to be the front runner in this field for quite some time.’
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Con un cuore stampato in 3D salvato un bimbo di 14 mesi
Nel Kentucky, il chirurgo: 'con il modello ho seguito una procedura che non mi sarebbe mai venuta in mente'
Un cuore realizzato con una stampante 3D ha aiutato un chirurgo di Louisville, nel Kentucky, a salvare la vita di un bimbo di 14 mesi. La notizia è stata riportata dal quotidiano locale Courier-Journal, secondo cui il modello è risultato indispensabile per decidere come operare.
Roland, il piccolo paziente, era nato con quattro diverse malformazioni congenite al cuore. ''Mentre pianificavo l'intervento - racconta Erle Austin, il capo del team chirurgico - ho mostrato le immagini del cuore ad altri tre colleghi, ottenendo però opinioni contrastanti sul da farsi''. Per riuscire a capire come procedere allora Austin si è rivolto all'università di Louisville, che ha sviluppato un software in grado di tradurre le immagini della Tac e degli altri esami in istruzioni per la stampante 3D. In 20 ore e con 600 dollari di materiali il dispositivo ha realizzato un modello del cuore di Roland in tre parti uguale all'originale ma grande il doppio. ''Il modello mi ha aiutato ad effettuare l'intervento con una procedura che non mi sarebbe mai venuta in mente - spiega il chirurgo - con una grande riduzione dei tagli e delle suture necessarie e quindi del tempo di intervento''.
L'operazione è stata effettuata lo scorso 10 febbraio, e il bambino fino a questo momento sta bene.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
TUMORE AL POLMONE: CELLULE 'TINK' TRADISCONO IL SISTEMA IMMUNITARIO
Un team tutto italiano ha identificato un nuovo sottotipo di cellule immunitarie che infiltrandosi nei tumori “tradiscono” la loro naturale missione di proteggerci, sostenendo la crescita e progressione neoplastica. Si tratta di una particolare popolazione, battezzata TINK dei linfociti Natural Killer (NKs).
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Le NK sono cellule dell’immunità innata in grado di riconoscere in maniera spontanea (naturale, come suggerisce il nome) i tumori ed eliminarli. Il team di ricerca ha scoperto che i tumori e il microambiente tumorale sono in grado di ri-programmare, o meglio polarizzare queste cellule NK in modo da favorire la propria crescita e progressione attraverso l’induzione dell’angiogenesi.
Questo lavoro è stato condotto dal team di ricerca dell’IRCCS MultiMedica guidato dal prof. Douglas Noonan e dalla Dott.ssa Adriana Albini, Direttore Scientifico della Fondazione MultiMedica Onlus e direttore del Dipartimento Ricerca Statistica IRCCS "Tecnologie Avanzate e Modelli Assistenziali in Oncologia" Arcispedale S. Maria Nuova di Reggio Emilia, in collaborazione con l’Università degli studi dell’Insubria, l’Ospedale di Circolo-Fondazione Macchi e l’Università degli Studi di Messina con il Prof. Guido Ferlazzo.
Lo studio, che ha visto il sostanziale apporto del giovane borsista AIRC- FIRC Antonio Bruno, è stato appena pubblicato sul prestigioso Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), la più citata rivista internazionale di oncologia medica e traslazionale.
Questa ricerca è particolarmente importante perché evidenzia in modo dettagliato quali possono essere i meccanismi alla base dell’acquisizione, da parte delle cellule NK infiltranti tumori (TINKs) ed associate ai tumori (TANKs) di un fenotipo e funzionalità pro-angiogenica.
“Abbiamo identificato – spiega la Dott.ssa Albini – un sottogruppo di cellule NK che si infiltrano nelle neoplasie polmonari e non sono più attive nei confronti delle cellule tumorali, anzi, addirittura produce diversi fattori pro angiogenici, quali il VEGF, il PlGF e IL-8. In questo modo – prosegue la dottoressa del Gruppo MultiMedica – le cellule NK inducono il reclutamento e l’attivazione delle cellule endoteliali in sede tumorale, favorendo il fenomeno dell’angiogenesi, necessario affinché il tumore possa assicurarsi ossigeno, nutrienti e vie di disseminazione nell’organismo. Da difensori diventano attaccanti per la squadra nemica, quella del cancro e perdono la ‘licenza di uccidere’ i tumori”.
La ricerca di questo team non si ferma solo al tumore del polmone e grazie ad una preziosa collaborazione con i clinici dell’ Università dell’Insubria, stanno estendendo i loro studi anche ad altre neoplasie solide, quali il carcinoma colon-rettale e mammario ed ematologiche, quali il mieloma multiplo.
Conclude così la Dr.ssa Adriana Albini: “Stiamo inoltre valutando come poter rieducare le cellule NK tumorali in modo da ripristinare la loro attività citolitica nei confronti dei tumori. Per fare questo stiamo conducendo studi atti a valutare come la combinazione di chemioterapici, citochine e sostanze di derivazione naturale possa contribuire al ripristino delle funzioni ‘normali’ da parte delle cellule NK ‘angiogeniche’ infiltrate nei tumori”.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Amazing Samples: Antibodies
Antibodies are one of the most basic yet precise elements of the immune system: each antibody is associated with a specific antigen that fits to it like a key to a lock, and by binding to the antigen it serves to paint a target on the associated cell for other, more aggressive elements of the immune system to attack. Although antibodies were discovered more than a century ago – German immunologist Paul Ehrlich first coined the term Antikörper in an article he published in 1891—their use as therapeutic agents was limited by our lack of immunological methods.
Enter hybridoma technology. By fusing B-cells that produce the desired antibody with myeloma cells, it became possible to create a colony of hybridomas, all producing antibodies with identical antigen-specificity. Since the technology to humanize these monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) was developed in the late 1980’s, followed by chimeric and ‘fully’ human mAbs, many mAb-based therapies have been developed for a broad range of conditions, from viral to cancerous to inflammatory. However, these antibodies are very fragile and sensitive to temperature, and have to be stored and transported in ultra-low temperatures and sometimes down to liquid nitrogen, so we at Fisher BioServices have proudly had many opportunities to assist in the development and distribution of these biologics-based therapies. Last time, we discussed how cancer cells can be turned against themselves – this time, let’s showcase some of the different ways that monoclonal antibodies are truly Amazing Samples.
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Europe unveils asteroid-spotting 'fly's eye' telescope
The European Space Agency has unveiled a new telescope design based on a fly’s eye that could make asteroid spotting cheaper.
The new device, which will take multiple images of the sky in different directions using 16 separate lenses, is seen as a less-costly alternative to using telescopes that automatically track near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets.
Instead of finding and following these objects at high resolution, the new technology will capture several lower-quality images covering a wider area of the sky, enabling it to automatically detect movement and alert astronomers when there is an NEO worth investigating.
The telescope is also based on a modular design to enable mass production and allow for lower manufacturing and maintenance costs.
‘This novel technology is key to the future NEO survey network,’ said Gian Maria of ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme.
‘The new telescopes would provide the resolution necessary to determine the orbits of any detected objects. If the prototype confirms the expected performance, it will pave the way to full procurement and deployment of the operational network of telescopes.’
The fly’s eye telescope comprises 16 separate lenses to scan the sky.
Astronomers have already identified 11455 near-Earth objects, including around 1500 that are classified as “potentially hazardous asteroids”.
The fly-eyed telescope would provide performance equivalent to a 1m-diameter conventional system and a square field of view with a width and height of 6.7° – about 13 times the diameter of the Moon as seen from the Earth.
ESA says that, under favourable conditions, this should allow it to detect all objects as small as 40m in diameter at least three weeks before any potential impact with the Earth.
The fly’s eye concept was previously used to study ultra-high-energy cosmic rays at the University of Utah in the US. In this case, the entire sky was divided into 880 hexagonal pixels, each with its own cosmic ray detector module, enabling astronomers to track “showers” of cosmic rays across the sky.
ESA has already signed a €1m (£0.8m) contract with a consortium led by Italian company CGS to design the telescope, and expects to spend a further €10m building and deploying the first prototype.
‘The development of the first optical sensor specific to ESA’s NEO search and discovery activities is a fundamental step toward Europe’s contribution to safeguarding our planet from possible collisions by dangerous objects,’ said Nicolas Bobrinsky, head of the SSA programme.
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Two-blade Turbines on the Rise
Three-blade turbines are the standard configuration for megawatt-class machines for a good reason. Three blades increase power. They reduce vibrations induced when the hub yaws. And they are relatively quiet. Despite this, the MIT Technology Review reports on some two-bladed designs coming into production. Advantages include lighter weight, lower cost, and quicker construction. They're also louder and rotate faster, not to mention the risk of those thin blades flexing into the tower.
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Should Blade Repair be Regulated?
Turbine blade repair should be left up to the experts, warns Offshore Wind. One UK proponent for repair standards, Chris Little, is concerned that off-warranty repairs are often done with insufficient safety controls by technicians who lack knowledge of a manufacturer's composite chemistry and repair procedures. Adding a national standard would reduce both downtime and risks, he argues.
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Tip Velocity Treasure
Increasing tip velocity brings a slew of benefits, according to Sandia National Laboratories. Higher tip velocities reduce rotor torque, resulting in reduced demands on gearboxes and an overall weight, size, and cost reduction for the entire tower-head assembly. Their analysis looks at how tip velocity affects strength, stability, and blade deflection, and why blade mass is the ultimate enemy.
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Sensors and Robots Signal Bridge Damage
Are our bridges falling down? Federal reports claim that one in four U.S. bridges is in desperate need of repair. Tufts University has developed a wireless detection system made up of wireless sensors that are placed on beams and joints to monitor vibration. Changes in vibration signals would indicate damage. In addition, autonomous flying robots (similar to the one shown here) hover near the sensors and collect data while taking visual images of bridge conditions. The drone-like robots transmit data to a central collection point for analysis.
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Trailing Flaps for Top Performance
Controlling turbine output with blade pitch is difficult and dangerous. Actuators need to work in concert, and the power source must be absolutely reliable. There is an alternative: trailing edge flaps (TEF). A study from the TORQUE 2014 conference suggests that an 80% blade load reduction can be achieved with TEF alone, and proposes a computational fluid dynamics model for studying TEF designs and theoretical performance.
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Molecular sieve promises cheaper way to capture carbon
UK researchers have created a molecular sieve that could help cut the cost of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The scientists from Cambridge and Manchester universities have developed a method of baking polymer membranes to create specifically shaped channels in them that only allow certain molecules to pass through.
They claim this could be a cheaper and more energy-efficient of separating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse substances from the other gases in exhaust streams or the atmosphere than existing technologies.
‘The secret is that we introduce stronger forces between polymer chains,’ said Dr Qilei Song from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, lead author of a paper on the research in the journal Nature Communications.
‘Heating microporous polymers using low levels of oxygen produces a tougher and far more selective membrane which is still relatively flexible, with a gas permeability that is 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional polymer membranes.’
The synthetic membranes, made of materials known as polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs), mimic the hourglass-shaped protein channels found in biological membranes in cells. The tiny openings in these molecular ‘sieves’ – just a few billionths of a metre in size – can be adjusted so that only certain molecules can pass through.
Inducing a thermal oxidation reaction – essentially by baking in the presence of oxygen – in the PIMs causes the loosely-packed long chains of polymer molecules to form into a cross-linked network structure, with hourglass-shaped cavities throughout.
This structure not only results in a membrane which is more selective to gas molecules, but also the size of necks and cavities can be tuned according to what temperature the PIMs are ‘baked’ at.
Current methods for separating gases, such as passing them through liquid solvents, are more complex, expensive and energy-intensive, the researchers said.
However, conventional inexpensive polymers are not suitable for separating gases because the better they are at targeting specific molecules, the slower those molecules can pass through the membrane.
The new membrane is twice as selective for separation carbon dioxide as conventional polymer membranes, but allows carbon dioxide to pass through it a few hundred times faster.
It is also more stable than conventional solution-processed PIMs, which have a twisted and rigid structure – like dried pasta – that makes them unable to pack efficiently.
The researchers said that as well as separating carbon dioxide from air or power-station flue gas, the membranes could be used in natural gas processing, hydrogen gas production and even to making fossil-fuel combustion more efficient and less polluting.
‘This new way of modifying PIMs brings the prospect of large-scale, energy-efficient gas separation a step closer,’ said Manchester’s Prof Peter Budd, one of the inventors of PIMs materials.
This research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the European Research Council (ERC).
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A Big Bag of Energy
Can air and water combine to meet the challenge of storing energy from renewable sources? A Canadian start-up company called Hydrostor thinks so. The company's idea is to use renewable energy to produce compressed air that will be stored in large underwater bags, which could be located near offshore wind farms. When the stored energy is needed, the weight of the water forces the air back up to the surface, where it will be used to drive a turbine.
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The ‘living’ cell made of PLASTIC: Scientists create artificial structure that performs chemical reactions like those in the body
Researchers created artificial organelles, which are the membrane-bound compartments of a cell that each have unique and important functions
Tiny spheres were filled with chemicals and placed inside a water droplet
They then covered the water droplet with a polymer layer – the cell wall
Using fluorescent dye, the group were able to show the reactions within the artificial cell took place just as they would in the body.
The insides of a human cell boast incredible mechanical properties, and now researchers have been able to recreate that environment.
Dutch chemists claim to have successfully produced a fully-functioning artificial cell that could help scientists understand more about how the human body works.
The plastic cell is capable of carrying out various steps in a chemical reaction, in the same way as a living cell performs functions in the body.
Dutch chemists claim to have successfully produced a fully-functioning artificial cell that could help scientists understand more about how the human body works.
It does this using artificial organelles, which are membrane-bound compartments or structures of a cell, that each perform different and vital functions.
Jan van Hest at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands created the organelles by filling tiny spheres with chemicals and placing these inside a water droplet.
His team then covered the water droplet with a polymer layer – the cell wall.
Using fluorescent dye, the group were able to show that the planned cascade of reactions within the cell took place just as it would in the body.
HOW THE CELL WAS CREATED
Jan van Hest at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands created artificial organelles.
Organelles are membrane-bound compartments or structures of a cell.
They did this by filling tiny spheres with chemicals and placing these inside a water droplet.
His team then covered the water droplet with a polymer layer – the cell wall.
Using fluorescent dye, the group were able to show that the planned cascade of reactions within the cell took place just as it would in the body.
Just like real cells, the chemicals were able to enter the cell plasma following the reaction in the organelles, to be processed elsewhere in the cell.
Creating cell-like structures is currently a popular in the field of chemistry, with various methods being tried by scientists.
Professor Wilhelm Huck, for example, is making cells from tiny droplets of solutions very similar to cytoplasm, and Professor Van Hest’s group is building cells using polymers.
‘Competing groups are working closer to biology; making cells from fatty acids, for example. We would like to do the same in the future,’ said Professor Van Hest.
‘Another step would be to make cells that produce their own energy supply. We are also working on ways of controlling the movement of chemicals within the cell, towards organelles.
‘By simulating these things, we are able to better understand living cells. One day we will even be able to make something that looks very much like the real thing.'
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Raman Spectroscopy on Steroids
By implementing an advanced form of spontaneous Raman spectroscopy, researchers from NIST and the Cleveland Clinic have demonstrated a more powerful method of analyzing biological cells and tissues based on molecular vibration "signatures." The new NIST technique delivers signals 10,000x stronger than obtained from conventional spontaneous Raman scattering, and 100x stronger than from comparable "coherent Raman" instruments. It also uses a much larger portion of the vibrational spectrum of interest to cell biologists.
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Device Delivers In-vivo Drug Monitoring
In a marriage of engineering and biochemistry, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a sensor that tracks the levels of specific drugs in the bloodstream. Their tiny MEDIC device consists of a microfluidic chamber lined with gold electrodes from which drug-recognizing biomolecules extend. When perfected, the device could allow physicians to tailor prescriptions to a patient's specific biology.
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Ecco YuMi, il robot umanoide collaborativo di ABB
Si chiama YuMi il primo robot umanoide collaborativo presentato da ABB. YuMi è un robot a doppio braccio pensato per una nuova era dell’automazione, progettato per l’utilizzo ad esempio nel montaggio di minuteria, in cui gli esseri umani e i robot eseguono congiuntamente le stesse operazioni. YuMi è l’abbreviazione di ‘you and me’ cioè una collaborazione “tra me e te”.
YuMi non è solo un concept, ma sarà realmente disponibile alla vendita già nel 2015. Il lancio commerciale avverrà infatti il 13 aprile 2015 durante l’Hannover Messe in Germania.
YuMi è stato sviluppato in primo luogo per far fronte alle esigenze produttive di flessibilità ed agilità dell’industria dell’elettronica di consumo, ma verrà adottato sempre più in altri settori di mercato. YuMi offre una soluzione collaborativa di montaggio a doppio braccio, dotata di vista e tatto. La sicurezza degli operatori che collaborano con YuMi è garantita dal doppio braccio conimbottitura morbida del robot, a cui si abbina un’innovativa tecnologia con sensori di forza. I dispositivi di sicurezza sono inseriti nella funzionalità del robot stesso in modo che possa operare senza gabbia di sicurezza.
YuMi ha la capacità di maneggiare qualsiasi componente, dai delicati elementi di precisione di un orologio meccanico da polso ai componenti di telefoni cellulari, tablet e computer; è in grado di svolgere operazioni con precisione e accuratezza tali da poter addirittura infilare il filo in un ago!
“YuMi cambierà in maniera rilevante la logica umana di fondo riguardo i processi industriali e produttivi” ha dichiarato Pekka Tiitinen, responsabile della divisione Discrete Automation and Motion. “YuMi aprirà gli orizzonti a infinite possibilità. Siamo agli albori di un’entusiasmante nuova era dell’automazione industriale”.
Per Vegard Nerseth, responsabile mondiale del settore Robotica del Gruppo ABB, ha aggiunto: “Battezzare il robot con il nome ‘YuMi’ riflette lo spirito essenziale di questa collaborazione tra uomo e macchina, in cui i robot e gli esseri umani operano a fianco a fianco eseguendo mansioni che non avremmo mai immaginato prima”
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Synthetic "skin" helps create new chemical weapon decontaminant
Ministry of Defence (MOD) scientists have developed a synthetic “skin” to make testing decontamination of chemical weapons more realistic.
The skin, made of an undisclosed material, allows researchers to test decontaminants on large samples attached to a mannequin head instead of small flat samples, taking into account facial contours and interaction with equipment such as respirators.
The material, developed by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, mirrors the way real human skin spreads and absorbs liquid chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and allows any remaining contaminant to be extract for study after the test.
‘Once the procedure was done, the skin could be removed and the amount of contamination remaining quantified by solvent extraction,’ DSTL hazard management scientist Ian Shortman toldThe Engineer via email.
‘We’re able to apply controlled amounts of contamination to specific regions, and then cut the skin off the mannequin face to quantify the location of residual contamination following decontamination procedures.’
The researchers have already used the new skin to identify an alternative technology to the current standard Decontamination Kit Personal 1 (DKP1), which comprises a cloth pad containing liquid-absorbing powdered clay.
The skin, manufactured using an undisclosed method, had to be unreactive with CWAs and sufficiently robust and flexible that it could be applied to a bumpy surface but thick enough to prevent the mannequin underneath from being contaminated.
‘The primary challenge was that of ensuring contaminants didn’t run off the surface when mounted on an undulating surface,’ said Shortman. ‘This was addressed by modifying the topography and surface of the skin.
‘Further conditioning of the synthetic skin surrogate improved mechanical strength and removed interferents that affected subsequent analytical technique
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Photon seesaw mechanism demonstrates transport of light
Electrical engineering researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a nanoscale device claimed to demonstrate the mechanical transportation of light for the first time.
According to the university, the discovery could have implications for creating faster and more efficient optical devices for computation and communication.
The research paper by University of Minnesota electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Mo Li and his graduate student Huan Li has been published online and will appear in the October issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
The researchers’ nanoscale device can capture, measure and transport photons. The device is 0.7 micrometres by 50 micrometre (about .00007 by .005 centimetres) and has been likened to a ‘photon seesaw’. On each side of the ‘seesaw benches,’ researchers etched photonic crystal cavities that capture photons streamed from a nearby source.
Even though the particles of light have no mass, the captured photons were able to move the so-called seesaw because they generated optical force.
Researchers compared the optical forces generated by the photons captured in the cavities on the two sides of the seesaw by observing how the seesaw moved up and down. In this way, the researchers weighed the photons. Their device is claimed to be sensitive enough to measure the force generated by a single photon, which corresponds to about one-third of a thousand-trillionth of a pound or one-seventh of a thousand-trillionth of a kilogram.
Professor Li and his research team also used the seesaw to experimentally demonstrate for the first time the mechanical control of transporting light.
‘When we filled the cavity on the left side with photons and leave the cavity on the right side empty, the force generated by the photons started to oscillate the seesaw. When the oscillation was strong enough, the photons can spill over along the beam from the filled cavity to the empty cavity during each cycle,’ Li said in a statement. ‘We call the phenomenon ’photon shuttling.’‘
The stronger the oscillation, the more photons are shuttled to the other side. Currently the team has been able to transport approximately 1,000 photons in a cycle. For comparison, a 10W light bulb emits 1020 photons every second. The team’s ultimate goal is to transport only one photon in a cycle so that the quantum physics of light can be revealed and harnessed.
‘The ability to mechanically control photon movement as opposed to controlling them with expensive and cumbersome optoelectronic devices could represent a significant advance in technology,’ said Huan Li, the lead author of the paper.
The research could be used to develop an extremely sensitive micromechanical way to measure acceleration, or could be used as part of a gyroscope for navigation, Li said.
In the future, the researchers plan to build sophisticated photon shuttles with more traps on either side of the seesaw device that could shuttle photons over greater distances and at faster speeds.
They expect that such devices could play a role in developing microelectronic circuits that would use light instead of electrons to carry data, which would make them faster and consume less power than traditional integrated circuits.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
Tumour-simulating chip to test cancer treatments
Researchers have developed a chip capable of simulating a tumour’s microenvironment and plan to use the new system to test the effectiveness of nanoparticles and drugs that target cancer.
The tumour-microenvironment-on-chip (T-MOC) device will allow researchers to study the complex environment surrounding tumours and the barriers that prevent the targeted delivery of therapeutic agents, said Bumsoo Han, a Purdue University associate professor of mechanical engineering.
Researchers are trying to perfect so-called targeted delivery methods using various agents, including nanometre-size structures, to selectively attack tumour tissue.
According to the Indiana-based university, one approach is to design nanoparticles small enough to pass through pores in blood vessels surrounding tumours but too large to pass though the pores of vessels in healthy tissue. The endothelial cells that make up healthy blood vessels are well organised and have small pores in the tight junctions between them. However, the endothelial cells in blood vessels around tumours are irregular and misshapen, with larger pores in the gaps between the cells.
‘It was thought that if nanoparticles were designed to be the right size they could selectively move toward only the tumour,’ Han said in a statement.
However, one complication hindering the success of this strategy is that the pressure of interstitial fluid inside tumours is greater than that of surrounding healthy tissue. This greater pressure pushes out most drug-delivery and imaging agents, with only a small percentage of them reaching the target tumour.
New research findings suggest that the T-MOC system is capable of simulating the complex environment around tumours and providing detailed information about how nanoparticles move through this environment. Such information could aid efforts to perfect targeted delivery methods.
The findings are detailed in a research paper appearing online this month and will be published in the Journal of Controlled Release in November. The paper was authored by postdoctoral research associate Bongseop Kwak; graduate students Altug Ozcelikkale and Crystal S. Shin; Kinam Park, the Showalter Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering and a professor of pharmaceutics; and Han.
The T-MOC chip is about 4.5cm square and contains microfluidic channels where tumour cells and endothelial cells are cultured. The chip also incorporates extracellular matrix, which is a spongy, scaffold-like material made of collagen found between cells in living tissue.
The new chip is claimed to offer an alternative to conventional experimental methods. Studies using cancer cells in petri plates exclude the complex microenvironment surrounding tumours, and research with animals does not show precisely how proposed therapies might work in people.
However, the T-MOC system has the potential to mimic cancer in humans, Han said.
The researchers tested the technology using human breast cancer and endothelial cells and studied how nanoparticles moved within the microenvironment.
Future work will expand to the study of anticancer drugs. Eventually, the devices might be used to grow tumour cells from patients to gauge the effectiveness of specific drugs in those people.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
TAGLIARE IL CORTOCIRCUITO DELL'EPILESSIA
CON RADIAZIONI SOTTILI SI PUÒ INCIDERE I NERVI CHE PORTANO LE SCARICHE ELETTRICHE NEL CERVELLO, CAUSA DEGLI ATTACCHI EPILETTICI
Un fascio di radiazioni spesse poco più di mezzo millimetro per tagliare le fibre nervose che all'interno del cervello trasmettono le scariche elettriche causa degli attacchi epilettici e bloccare così il propagarsi della crisi: si tratta di un'innovativa terapia non invasiva basata sull'uso di acceleratori di particelle di cui si è parlato al Centro Diagnostico Italiano di Milano nel convegno "The future of neuro science. Novel treatment avenues for epilepsy, pain and brain tumors".
Rispetto alla terapia farmacologica di questa patologia il trattamento rappresenta una valida alternativa per i pazienti su cui i farmaci non hanno effetto e che corrispondono a una percentuale compresa tra il 30 e il 40% del totale.
Inoltre, questo trattamento, rispetto alla chirurgia delle epilessie, ha il vantaggio di non essere invasivo e quindi risultare privo di rischi di danni neurologici per il paziente.
Sottolinea Pantaleo Romanelli, direttore scientifico del Cyberknife Centre del Centro Diagnostico Italiano di Milano, responsabile scientifico del convegno e autore di studi su questa tecnica: "Questo trattamento riesce a modulare la risposta della corteccia cerebrale intervenendo sulla trasmissione degli impulsi nervosi e ciò può avere applicazione non solo sull'epilessia ma anche su un'ampia gamma di disordini neuropsichiatrici.
E', comunque, importante sottolineare che si tratta di una sperimentazione di laboratorio e non ancora di una terapia disponibile nella pratica clinica".
Gli impulsi elettrici che scatenano la crisi epilettica si propagano orizzontalmente dalla zona di origine alle zone circostanti della corteccia cerebrale, la parte del cervello dove si trovano le funzioni più evolute. L'innovativa tecnica utilizza fasci di radiazioni spessi 600 micron per creare, come se si trattasse di un vero e proprio bisturi, incisioni verticali che interrompono questa propagazione e bloccano la crisi sul nascere.
Questa tecnica rappresenta un passo in avanti rispetto alla chirurgia, l'altro trattamento ora disponibile per le epilessie che non rispondono ai farmaci.
Questo, però, senza essere invasiva: attualmente, infatti, quando si interviene chirurgicamente in aree della corteccia deputate al linguaggio e alle funzioni motorie o sull'ippocampo, la zona del cervello che genera i nuovi ricordi, si corrono elevati rischi di complicanze neurologiche.
La tecnica nasce dall'unione di due tecnologie molto avanzate quali la chirurgia stereotassica e la Multiple Subpial Transection.
Il tipo di radiazioni utilizzato per questo trattamento è molto avanzato ed è prodotto da uno strumento chiamato sincrotrone, un particolare tipo di acceleratore di particelle. I fasci di particelle sono generati nelle camere a vuoto anulari dei sincrotroni e di altri tipi di acceleratori di particelle che consentono ai fasci di elettroni di arrivare a velocità prossime a quelle della luce e di produrre radiazioni con una lunghezza d'onda compresa tra l'infrarosso e i raggi X.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
In Italia la dialisi polmonare: è la prima volta al mondo. La mortalità scende dal 35 al 7%.
Per la prima volta al mondo è stata sperimentata con successo alle Molinette di Torino e al Sant'Orsola di Bologna la dialisi polmonare: una tecnica che depura il sangue dei malati di broncopneumapatia cronica ostruttiva.
Una malattia che entro il 2015 sarà la terza causa di morte più frequente: la dialisi polmonare è un sistema mini-invasivo che riduce la mortalità dal 35% al 7%.
La dialisi polmonare è un sistema ideato e prodotto in Italia, che al pari della dialisi renale, permette di rimuovere parte dell'anidride carbonica dal sangue. Presso la Terapia intensiva universitaria dell'ospedale Molinette della Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, diretta dal professor Marco Ranieri, questo sistema mini-invasivo di rimozione dell'anidride carbonica è stato applicato con successo su 25 pazienti con grave riacutizzazione di broncopneumopatia cronica ostruttiva.
I ricercatori hanno dimostrato come l'applicazione dell'innovativa "dialisi polmonare", abbattendo i livelli di anidride carbonica nel sangue, abbia significativamente ridotto il rischio di intubazione (dal 33% al 12%) e le conseguenze negative che ne derivano, in pazienti con imminente fallimento della ventilazione non-invasiva.
Questo grande successo della Medicina, con i relativi risultati, è stato appena pubblicato sulla prestigiosa rivista scientifica internazionale 'Critical Care Medicine', organo ufficiale della Società americana di Terapia intensiva e Medicina Critica.
DA DOTT. COTELLESSA
For Biomedical Analysis: Enhanced Biological Thermal Sensor
XF's enhanced Thermal Sensor allows metals and other non-biological objects to be included in the temperature rise computation. The calculations are based on Penne’s Bio-Heat equation and consider the effects of conductive heat transfer between thermally connected materials, blood perfusion, metabolic processes, and general RF heating. The new sensor is well suited for analysis related to:
Therapeutic heating devices
MRI heating in patients, including effects of implants, probes, and electrodes
Microwave thermal ablation
Implantable devices
Output from the sensor includes the initial temperature, temperature rise, and final temperature distributions.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Humanoid Robot with 160 Artificial Muscles
Tendon-controlled humanoid robot created by the University of Tokyo with 93 brushless DC maxon motors ensures its humanlike movements. This robot has the greatest number of muscles ever installed in a humanoid robot. Demonstrate a movement and he imitates it by means of open-source intelligent software and a mechanical interface.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
illuminating Vision-guided Robotic Systems
When designing and choosing vision-guided robotic systems, "the number one pitfall is still incorrect lighting," explains vision systems designer Nick Tebeau. Cameras with smaller pixels, and correspondingly higher resolutions, are particularly sensitive to poor lighting. However, there are techniques that can help. CMOS sensors are an option if high resolution and a strong dynamic range are desired.
Not too Hot
Using temperature sensors, friction-stir welding (FSW) robots automatically maintain the welding temperature below the melting point of the metals being welded. The FSW robot manages the force and the tool rotation speed to control the temperature. Other benefits include decreased programming time, from days to hours, and improved weld quality.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Award-winning material set to reduce dental implant failure
A material that could help prevent artificial teeth implants falling out has won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s first launchpad competition for young entrepreneurs.
The material is twice as good at integrating with bone than existing graft substances, according to its creators at University College London, and so provides a more stable base into which a tooth implant can be fixed.
The founders of the spinout firm behind the Aerograft material, Dr Niall Kent and Dr Alessia D’Onofrio, will receive £15,000, as well as Academy support and mentorship, to help commercialise the technology.
After a tooth is removed, the remaining socket widens as the jawbone forming it gradually breaks down or “resorbs”, making it very difficult to screw a replacement tooth into the jaw. One in ten implants fail due to instability.
The graft made from the new granular material releases chemicals that form hydroxyapatite – a major component of bone – helping the graft to integrate with the surrounding bone, a process known as osseointegration.
This in turns helps speed up and improve the remodeling process by which the graft itself is eventually resorbed after three to six months and replaced with new bone.
‘We want there to be bone when the surgeon goes back to fit the implant,’ said Kent, who came up with the idea of using the material after his art student brother asked him to recreate it for a sculpture project.
‘If you can increase that remodeling rate you can have a much stronger implant fixation. That will increase the lifetime of the implant and decrease failure, which is fairly common with dental implants.’
He added: ‘The key advantage is the control you have over the resorbtion rate and also how well it osseointegrates: conventional products work at around 40 per cent, we bring that up to 80.’
This control means the material could be altered for other non-load-bearing bone graft applications – for example fusing verterbrae – to prevent it from being resorbed and instead provide a permanent artificial graft that creates greater stability.
The substance could also contribute to more effective sensitive toothpastes as it precipitates remineralisation much more quickly than existing products.
The Launchpad competition, funded by serial startup investor David Gammon, is an initiative of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub, which provides support to aspiring engineering entrepreneurs to help them commercialise technology breakthroughs.
The other finalists in the competition were Radial Genomics led by Hind Kraytem, which is developing an automated breast cancer detection technology based on gene analysis, and James Popper of Sinclair Fire, which is commercialising an infra-red fire alarm.
Also highly commended in the competition were Adeel Ali for a home 3D printing kit, and Jennie Morley for a home coffee bean roaster.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Here comes the sun for oil sands clean up
A novel technique developed by University of Alberta civil engineering professors uses solar energy to accelerate the reclamation of tailings ponds.
These ponds are created as settling basin/storage containers for the mixture of water, sand, clay and residual oil left over after oil sands processing.
Instead of using UV lamps as a light source to treat oil sands process affected water (OSPW) retained in tailings ponds, professors Mohamed Gamal El-Din and James Bolton have found that sunlight treats the wastewater as efficiently and at a lower cost.
In a statement Gamal El-Din said: ‘We know it works, so now the challenge is to transfer it into the field. This alternative process not only addresses the need for managing these tailings ponds, but it may further be applied to treat municipal wastewater as well. Being a solar-driven process, the cost would be minimal compared to what’s being used in the field now.’
Oil sands tailings ponds contain a mixture of suspended solids, salts, and other dissolvable compounds including benzene, acids, and hydrocarbons.
According to the university, these tailings ponds can take over 20 years before they can be reclaimed. When applied to the tailings ponds, the solar UV/chlorine treatment process would reportedly make OSPW decontamination and detoxification immediate.
The sun’s energy will partially remove these organic contaminants due to the direct sunlight but when the sunlight reacts with the chlorine (or bleach) added to the wastewater, it produces hydroxyl radicals (powerful oxidative reagents) that remove the remaining toxic organic contaminants more efficiently. The chlorine leaves no residuals as the sunlight causes it to decompose.
It is claimed that in laboratory-scale tests the solar UV/chlorine treatment process removed 75 to 84 per cent of these toxins.
Gamal El-Din said: ‘With this solar process, right now, the wastewater on the top of the tailings ponds is being treated. But because we have nothing in place at the moment to circulate the water, the process isn’t being applied to the rest of the pond.
‘Because we are limited by the sunlight’s penetration of the water, we now must come up with an innovative design for a mixing system like rafts floating on the ponds that would circulate the water. Installing this would still be much more cost effective for companies. It is expected that the UV/chlorine process will treat the OSPW to the point that the effluent can be fed to a municipal wastewater treatment plant, which will then complete the purification process sufficiently so the water can be discharged safely into rivers.
‘This process has been gaining a lot of attention from the oil sands industry. We’re now seeking funds for a pilot-pant demonstration and are looking at commercialising the technology.’
Graduate students Zengquan Shu, Chao Li, post doctorate fellow Arvinder Singh and biological sciences professor Miodrag Belosevic also worked on the project.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
La statua di San Michele Arcangelo e del Drago posta in sicurezza nel Museo del Duomo di Orvieto su basi antisismiche dell’ENEA
La statua di bronzo di San Michele Arcangelo e del Drago, originariamente collocata sulla facciata del Duomo di Orvieto, dopo il suo recente restauro è stata posta in sicurezza all’interno del Museo dell’Opera del Duomo di Orvieto su un basamento espositivo antisismico progettato dall’ENEA, che è in grado di preservare la statua in caso di terremoto grazie anche alla sua funzione di isolamento sismico. Si tratta della stessa soluzione tecnologica che l’ENEA ha messo a punto con la realizzazione delle basi antisismiche per la salvaguardia dei Bronzi di Riace all’interno del Museo Archeologico di Reggio Calabria. Questo basamento è particolarmente adatto per le statue a sviluppo verticale, che hanno una base di appoggio ridotta e che tendono a ribaltarsi o che possono subire danni strutturali in caso di scosse sismiche, proprio come la statua di San Michele Arcangelo, in equilibrio particolarmente instabile nel punto in cui i suoi piedi poggiano sul Drago.
Il basamento è costituito da due blocchi sovrapposti con al centro gli innovativi dispositivi antisismici dell’ENEA. Nel blocco inferiore sono state inserite quattro sfere portanti su cui poggiano quattro piastre con la superficie inferiore concava. In presenza di un terremoto sarà la parte inferiore a subire l’azione sismica, muovendosi con il terreno, senza trasmettere alla parte superiore le sollecitazioni, le quali verranno completamente assorbite dal movimento delle sfere. Pertanto, a fronte di una scossa di terremoto si verificheranno solo dei piccoli spostamenti rigidi del basamento superiore su cui è ancorata la statua e con un attrito molto ridotto, e l’effetto globale delle sollecitazioni sarà minimo.
Il basamento antisismico della statua di San Michele Arcangelo e del Drago è stato progettato da Gerardo De Canio, responsabile del laboratorio di Qualificazione di Materiali e Componenti dell’ENEA, su incarico della Direzione Regione MIBAC dell’Umbria.
La collaborazione tra ENEA e Opera del Duomo di Orvieto ha consentito negli anni di recuperare e salvaguardare alcuni importanti elementi del patrimonio artistico della cattedrale. In particolare, per la collocazione della copia del gruppo scultoreo della Maestà con Baldacchino ed Angeli nella lunetta del portale maggiore del Duomo, l’ENEA ha progettato il sistema di supporto in acciaio e il sistema di ancoraggio alla parete e alla guglia sottostante. Inoltre tecnologie e competenze dell'ENEA sono state messe a disposizione della Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici dell'Umbria per la valutazione della vulnerabilità sismica del Duomo e per il monitoraggio del quadro fessurativo, al fine di definire gli interventi conservativi necessari per ridurre i rischi in caso di terremoto.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Single electron is key to prolonged power in electronic devices
Researchers have created technology that could be the first step toward more efficient batteries for wearable computers and smartphones.
The technology, led by researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and published online inNature Communications, taps into the power of a single electron to control energy consumption inside transistors.
Researchers from the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science found that by adding a specific atomic thin film layer to a transistor, the layer acted as a filter for the energy that passed through it at room temperature. The signal that resulted from the device was said to be six to seven times steeper than that of traditional devices. Steep devices use less voltage but still have a strong signal.
‘The whole semiconductor industry is looking for steep devices because they are key to having small, powerful, mobile devices with many functions that operate quickly without spending a lot of battery power,’ said Dr. Jiyoung Kim, professor of materials science and engineering in the Jonsson School and an author of the paper. ‘Our device is one solution to make this happen.’
According to the university, tapping into the unique and subtle behaviour of a single electron is the most energy-efficient way to transmit signals in electronic devices. Since the signal is so small, it can be easily diluted by thermal noises at room temperature. To see this quantum signal, engineers and scientists who build electronic devices typically use external cooling techniques to compensate for the thermal energy in the electron environment. The filter created by the UT Dallas researchers is one route to effectively filter out the thermal noise.
Dr. Kyeongjae ‘K.J.’ Cho, professor of materials science and engineering and physics and an author of the paper, agreed in a statement that transistors made from this filtering technique could ‘revolutionise’ the semiconductor industry.
‘Having to cool the thermal spread in modern transistors limits how small consumer electronics can be made,’ said Cho, who used advanced modelling techniques to explain the lab phenomena. ‘We devised a technique to cool the electrons internally - allowing reduction in operating voltage - so that we can create even smaller, more power efficient devices.’
To create this technology, researchers added a chromium oxide thin film onto the device. That layer, at room temperature of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, filtered the cooler, stable electrons and provided stability to the device. Normally, that stability is achieved by cooling the entire electronic semiconductor device to about minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit.
Another innovation used to create this technology was a vertical layering system, which would be more practical as devices get smaller.
‘One way to shrink the size of the device is by making it vertical, so the current flows from top to bottom instead of the traditional left to right,’ said Kim, who added the thin layer to the device.
Lab test results showed that the device at room temperature had a signal strength of electrons similar to conventional devices at minus 378 degrees Fahrenheit. The signal maintained all other properties. Researchers will also try this technique on electrons that are manipulated through optoelectronic and spintronic means.
The next step is to extend this filtering system to semiconductors manufactured in Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology.
Researchers from the Lam Research Corporation in California, Nankai University in China, the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Arlington contributed to this work, which was funded by the US Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Perché lo pneumococco si trasforma da innocuo in letale
Streptococcus pneumoniae è un batterio che si trova normalmente nel corpo umano, ma che in alcune circostanze, in particolare in soggetti più deboli, provoca meningite batterica e polmonite. Un nuovo studio ha scoperto che all'origine delle drammatiche variazioni nella virulenza del batterio c'è una serie di riarrangiamenti genetici che danno luogo a sei diversi profili genomici. La scoperta, che ha visto la partecipazione dell'università di Siena, chiarisce finalmente perché questo batterio può passare da innocuo a mortale e apre la strada a nuove ricerche su altri tipi di batteri che potrebbero condividere lo stesso meccanismo di variazione genetica.
Riarrangiamenti genetici casuali sono all'origine delle misteriose variazioni di virulenza dello Streptococcus pneumoniae, il batterio responsabile di polmoniti e meningiti batteriche. È questo il risultato di un nuovo studio pubblicato su “Nature Communications” a firma di Marco Oggioni, ricercatore dell’Università di Siena e dell’Università di Leicester, nel Regno Unito, e colleghi di una collaborazione internaizonale.
Lo Streptococcus pneumoniae, o pneumococco, è uno dei patogeni di maggiore rilevanza in tutto il mondo, sia per il numero di persone che colpisce sia per i decessi che provoca. Il dato più difficile da spiegare è come mai gli pneumococchi, che sono presenti normalmente nel naso e nella gola degli esseri umani, in alcune circostanze possono diventare letali, specialmente nei bambini e nei soggetti fortemente immunocompromessi.
Il batterio, in sostanza, è in grado di passare da una forma innocua a una altamente virulenta, una capacità nota già dagli anni trenta del Novecento ma le cui dinamiche sono rimaste poco chiare, malgrado gli studi genetici degli ultimi anni.
Finora però era stato trascurato il ruolo dei cosiddetti sistemi di restrizione e modificazione usati da molti batteri per difendersi dai batteriofagi, i virus che infettano specificamente i batteri. Questi sistemi sono costituiti essenzialmente da enzimi chiamati endonucleasi o enzimi di restrizione, che hanno il compito di aggredire il materiale genetico introdotto nella cellula dal batteriofago e di tagliarlo in piccoli frammenti che verranno successivamente degradati.
Senza un sistema di protezione, tuttavia, rischierebbe di essere aggredito anche il DNA del batterio; per evitarlo, il batterio lo marca legandovi dei gruppi metile, grazie al processo denominato metilazione. La metilazione, in tutti gli organismi viventi, è il principale meccanismo epigenetico, deputato a regolare l’espressione di singoli geni.
In quest’ultimo studio, Oggioni e colleghi hanno scoperto che il responsabile della variazione di virulenza di S. pneumoniae è un particolare sistema di restrizione e modificazione - indicato dalla sigla SpnD39III - che va frequentemente incontro a riarrangiamenti casuali che danno luogo a sei diversi profili genomici. Ogni profilo è definito dalla metilazione di differenti sequenze di DNA lungo tutto il genoma batterico.
Il ruolo di SpnD39III nel determinare la virulenza di S. pneumoniae è stato confermato anche nelle colture batteriche in vivo, e potrebbe rappresentare un meccanismo di regolazione epigenetica di molte specie di batteri. Su questa ipotesi si dovranno concentrare le future ricerche.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Human tissue and gold nanoparticles form patch for damaged hearts
Researchers from Tel Aviv University have been developing micro-and nanotechnological tools to develop functional substitutes for damaged heart tissues.
The work, led by Dr Tal Dvir and his graduate student Michal Shevach, is predicated around heart tissue that is unable to repair itself after heart attack, a situation brought about because heart cells cannot multiply and cardiac muscles contain few stem cells.
Whilst searching for methods to restore heart function, especially cardiac ‘patches’ that could be transplanted into the body to replace damaged heart tissue, Dr Dvir and his team discovered that gold particles are able to increase the conductivity of biomaterials.
In a study published by Nano Letters, Dr Dvir’s team presented their model for a hybrid cardiac patch, which incorporates biomaterial harvested from patients and gold nanoparticles.
‘Our goal was twofold,’ Dr Dvir said in a statement. ‘To engineer tissue that would not trigger an immune response in the patient, and to fabricate a functional patch not beset by signalling or conductivity problems.’
Cardiac tissue is engineered by allowing cells, taken from the patient or other sources, to grow on a three-dimensional scaffold, similar to the collagen grid that naturally supports the cells in the heart.
According to TAU, the cells eventually come together to form a tissue that generates its own electrical impulses and expands and contracts spontaneously. The tissue can then be surgically implanted as a patch to replace damaged tissue and improve heart function in patients.
According to Dr Dvir, recent efforts in the scientific world focus on the use of scaffolds from pig hearts to supply the collagen grid, called the extracellular matrix, with the goal of implanting them in human patients. However, due to residual remnants of antigens such as sugar or other molecules, the human patients’ immune cells are likely to attack the animal matrix.
In order to address this immunogenic response, Dr Dvir’s group suggested a new approach. Fatty tissue from a patient’s own stomach could be easily and quickly harvested, its cells efficiently removed, and the remaining matrix preserved. Furthermore, this scaffold does not provoke an immune response.
The second dilemma, to establish functional network signals, was complicated by the use of the human extracellular matrix. ‘Engineered patches do not establish connections immediately,’ said Dr Dvir. ‘Biomaterial harvested for a matrix tends to be insulating and thus disruptive to network signals.’
At his Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, Dr Dvir explored the integration of gold nanoparticles into cardiac tissue to optimise electrical signalling between cells.
‘To address our electrical signalling problem, we deposited gold nanoparticles on the surface of our patient-harvested matrix, ‘decorating’ the biomaterial with conductors,’ said Dr Dvir. ‘The result was that the non-immunogenic hybrid patch contracted nicely due to the nanoparticles, transferring electrical signals much faster and more efficiently than non-modified scaffolds.’
Preliminary test results of the hybrid patch in animals have been positive. ‘We now have to prove that these autologous hybrid cardiac patches improve heart function after heart attacks with minimal immune response,’ said Dr Dvir. ‘Then we plan to move it to large animals and after that, to clinical trials.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New nanostructure enhances sensitivity of biosensors
Bionsensors could be made more sensitive with a new nanostructure developed at Northwestern University.
Biosensors convert a biological response into an optical or electrical signal and can be used to sense anomalies such as toxic chemicals and particles in the air, or enzymes, molecules, and antibodies in the body that could indicate diabetes, cancer, and other diseases.
According to Northwestern, an optical biosensor works by absorbing a specific bandwidth of light and shifting the spectrum when it senses minor changes in the environment. The narrower the band of absorbed light is, the more sensitive the biosensor.
‘Currently, plasmonic absorbers used in biosensors have a resonant bandwidth of 50 nanometres,’ said Koray Aydin, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, Illinois. ‘It is significantly challenging to design absorbers with narrower bandwidths.’
Aydin and his team have created a new nanostructure with a bandwidth of 12 nanometres, an ultra narrow band absorber that can be used for a variety of applications, including better biosensors.
‘We believe that our unique narrowband absorber design will enhance the sensitivity of biosensors,’ Aydin said in a statement. ‘It’s been a challenge to sense very small particles or very low concentrations of a substance.’
This research was described in the paper ‘Ultra narrow band absorbers based on surface lattice resonances in nanostructured metal surfaces,’ published in ACS Nano.
Typical absorber designs are said to use two metal sheets with a non-metallic insulating material in between.
By using nanofabrication techniques in the lab, Aydin’s team found that removing the insulating layer - leaving only metallic nanostructures - caused the structure to absorb a much narrower band of light. The absorption of light is also high, exceeding 90 per cent at visible frequencies.
Aydin said this design can also be used in applications for photothermal therapy, thermo-photovoltaics, heat-assisted magnetic recording, thermal emission, and solar-steam generation.
‘The beauty of our design is that we found a way to engineer the material by using a different substrate,’ Aydin said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Da un errore di laboratorio, nasce una nuova plastica termoindurente riciclabile.
Da un errore di laboratorio ad un nuovo genere di plastica “termoindurente” in grado per la prima volta di essere riciclato. Riportata sulla rivista Science, la scoperta è a cura dei ricercatori dell’IBM’s Almaden Research Center in California.
La nuova polimerizzazione conduce a due diversi tipi di materiale, a seconda della temperatura di reazione
UN ERRORE DI LABORATORIO -Creata “per caso”, o meglio da un errore di laboratorio causato da un’accidentale dimenticanza di un componente in una reazione: nasce così una nuova famiglia di plastiche riciclabili e adattabili. Prodotto a partire da ingredienti semplici, il “nuovo pezzo di plastica” creato in laboratorio, si è rivelato estremamente resistente e stabile ed in grado di essere “digerito” in acido, ritornando ai suoi componenti originali. Una reazione che permette così ai componenti chimici, o monomeri, di essere riutilizzati.
UNA NUOVA CLASSE DI PLASTICHE - Per gli addetti ai lavori si tratta di una scoperta entusiasmante che potrebbe cambiare il nostro modo di vivere la plastica. vetture, aerei e componenti elettronici potrebbero essere progettati e costruiti in modo più economico ed ecologico. Finora infatti tutti i precedenti materiali “termoindurenti”, come la bachelite, non erano riciclabili; la nuova classe di plastiche – che comprende plastiche rigide e gel flessibili – sembra essere in grado di ridurre drasticamente la quantità di rifiuti a partire dai materiali per gli aeromobili.
RIDUZIONE RIFIUTI - “Quando un componente di grandi dimensioni e costoso viene danneggiato o raggiunge la fine della sua vita utile potrebbe essere riparato o riciclato anziché gettato via“, ha spiegato James Hedrick , capo della ricerca presso IBM. “La capacità di rielaborare risparmia una enorme quantità di denaro e riduce i rifiuti”.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Liquid metal manoeuvred into new applications
A technique for controlling the surface tension of liquid metals could lead to applications in reconfigurable electronic circuits, antennas and other technologies.
Developed at North Carolina State University, the technique is said to hinge on the fact that the oxide “skin” of the metal – which can be deposited or removed – acts as a surfactant, lowering the surface tension between the metal and the surrounding fluid.
The researchers used a liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium. In base, the bare alloy has a high surface tension of about 500 millinewtons (mN)/metre, which causes the metal to bead up into a spherical blob.
‘But we discovered that applying a small, positive charge – less than one volt – causes an electrochemical reaction that creates an oxide layer on the surface of the metal, dramatically lowering the surface tension from 500mN/meter to around 2mN/meter,’ said Dr Michael Dickey, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work. ‘This change allows the liquid metal to spread out like a pancake, due to gravity.’
According to NC State, the researchers also showed that the change in surface tension is reversible. If researchers change the polarity of the charge from positive to negative, the oxide is eliminated and high surface tension is restored. The surface tension can be tuned between these two extremes by varying the voltage in small steps.
‘The resulting changes in surface tension are among the largest ever reported, which is remarkable considering it can be manipulated by less than one volt,’ Dickey said in a statement. ‘We can use this technique to control the movement of liquid metals, allowing us to change the shape of antennas and complete or break circuits. It could also be used in microfluidic channels, MEMS, or photonic and optical devices. Many materials form surface oxides, so the work could extend beyond the liquid metals studied here.’
Dickey’s lab had previously demonstrated a technique for 3D printing liquid metals, which used the oxide layer formed in air to help the liquid metal retain its shape, the opposite of what the oxide layer does to the alloy in a basic solution.
‘We think the oxide’s mechanical properties are different in a basic environment than they are in ambient air,’ said Dickey.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Golden Crown wins QEP design award
Euan Fairholm won the 2014 Create the Trophy Competition with his Golden Crown design, which was 3D printed for the completion by BAE Systems.
Fairholm, who is studying at Glasgow University, designed the trophy via the QEP App and will now work set to work on the final form.
he 20-year-old also won £2,000 as part of his prize for designing the trophy that will be presented by to the winner of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering in 2015.
The design criteria required all entrants to capture the creativity, power and importance of engineering.
‘I heard about the Queen Elizabeth Prize Trophy Competition through my university and thought it would be a great opportunity to put the skills I am learning on my course into practice and design something that had the potential to be seen internationally,’ said Fairholm.
Euan Fairholm, winner of the 2014 Create the Trophy Competition with his Golden Crown design
The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize) is an international, £1m engineering prize that rewards and celebrates the engineers responsible for a ‘ground-breaking innovation that has been of global benefit to humanity’.
The inaugural QEPrize was awarded in 2013 to Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Louis Pouzin, Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen for their seminal contributions to the fundamental architecture of the internet and worldwide web.
The second QEPrize cycle opened in March 2014 and the next winner/s will be announced early in 2015.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Building the World’s Largest Range, High-Speed Atomic Force Microscope
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is the only microscopy technique capable of providing subnanometer resolution in air, vacuum, or buffer solutions. This powerful microscope helps researchers observe atoms and gain unprecedented insight into the nanoworld. Although an AFM is a powerful instrument, mechanical constraints and problems with probe-sample interactions have limited its use to static or quasistatic observations. Enhancing the speed and accuracy of AFM would unlock the ability to observe nanoscale processes in real time and allow AFM to be used in a myriad of applications, ranging from semiconductor manufacturing to molecular biology. Several aspects of AFM operation such as controls, signal
processing, data acquisition and handling, instrumentation, and mechanical design need to meet stringent performance criteria to accommodate the requirements of high-speed imaging. Large scanning ranges should accompany high speed and accuracy to fully realize the scientific potential of this new instrument.
To achieve this goal, we designed and built a LRVR-AFM. The device includes five precisely controlled nanopositioners, a laser beam deflection sensing system, high-speed control, and synchronized data logging and image plotting platforms. Using this unique powerful instrument, we can study dynamic processes with nanometer resolution over scanning ranges of several hundred microns. This instrument leads to many new possibilities for novel scientific research and empowers us to explore processes at the nanoscale like never before.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Quantitative 2D liquid-state NMR
Two-dimensional (2D) liquid-state NMR has a very high potential to simultaneously determine the absolute concentration of small molecules in complex mixtures, thanks to its capacity to separate overlapping resonances. However, it suffers from two main drawbacks that probably explain its relatively late development. First, the 2D NMR signal is strongly molecule-dependent and site-dependent; second, the long duration of 2D NMR experiments prevents its general use for high-throughput quantitative applications and affects its quantitative performance. Fortunately, the last 10 years has witnessed an increasing number of contributions where quantitative approaches based on 2D NMR were developed and applied to solve real analytical issues. This review aims at presenting these recent efforts to reach a high trueness and precision in quantitative measurements by 2D NMR. After highlighting the interest of 2D NMR for quantitative analysis, the different strategies to determine the absolute concentrations from 2D NMR spectra are described and illustrated by recent applications.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Making Dense Tissue Transparent
Enhanced microscopy technology developed at California Institute of Technology can make cells and tissue transparent for better imaging, diagnostics, and analysis. The new technique, called PARS (perfusion-assisted agent release in situ), infuses a sample with a solution of lipid-dissolving detergents, rendering the cells transparent. Users can then apply confocal and other microscopy methods, and single cells marked with fluorescent proteins can be imaged.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Bacteria Helps Monitor Water Quality
Researchers at the UK's University of Bath have embraced a new weapon against water pollution: bacteria. Together with Bristol Robotics Lab, the Bath team developed a sensor filled with bacteria that produces a measurable current as bacteria feed and grow. When disturbed by pollutants, the electric current drops, alerting users to contamination.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Detecting Damaged DNA
Radiation, chemicals, and other factors constantly damage a body's DNA. Now scientists at Wake Forest University's Hall Lab have harnessed a new tool — solid state nanophores — to measure depurination, a major indicator of DNA damage. As reported in Nanowerk, DNA strands are pushed through the solid state nanophore device. The more damage to the DNA molecule, the more difficult the passage through the nanophores. Read on for potential benefits of this new diagnostic tool
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Smart Materials Detect Pathogens
A University of Alberta team is developing a material that will detect spoiled meat before it reaches grocery shelves, reports Food Quality. In the presence of E. coli, Salmonella, or Listeria, the material changes color from blue to white. The work involves three technologies: a stimuli-responsive polymer, a biological detection system, and food microbiology. Want more on food safety?
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Automated breast cancer diagnosis could help prevent unnecessary treatment
New technology that automates breast cancer diagnosis could help prevent thousands of women receiving unnecessary treatment, according to a UK startup firm.
A team of Cambridge University graduates are hoping to turn the genetic diagnosis system into a method for determining how likely a tumour is to spread – and have been recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering for their efforts.
The researchers claim this would mean at least half of the women currently diagnosed with certain breast cancers in the UK could avoid treatment they would otherwise receive because of the limits of existing screening techniques.
‘We’ve identified that 50-80 per cent of cases of early stage breast cancer don’t progress to become invasive in the next 20 years,’ Hind Kraytem, biomedical engineer and CEO of the team’s company Radial Genomics, told The Engineer.
‘But all these women right now are treated with surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy and obviously these can have toxic side effects. You’re also saving on the cost, the waste of resources that are associated with unnecessary surgery.’
The group formed Radial Genomics after winning a competition to license an unused technology developed by US government research agency the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and was recently a finalist in the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Launchpad competition for young entrepreneurs.
The technology marginally improves the speed and accuracy of genetic breast cancer diagnosis by replacing the subjective opinion of a human pathologist with the objective assessment of software.
However, the Radial Genomics team, which also includes business graduate Nikolaus Wenzl and biochemist Grecia Gonzalez, believes the full potential of the technology is in improving the prognosis of patients’ cancers.
The system relies on the fact that genetic markers for cancer are specifically positioned within the nucleus of a cell according to how likely it is that a tumour will develop and become invasive.
Radial Genomics’ technology uses fluorescent tags to illuminate the relevant genes and then software to determine their radial distance from the edge of the nucleus.
‘There are several other [similar tests] but the information they provide is on the likeliness of recurrence,’ said Kraytem. ‘We’re the only ones looking at the likelihood of breast cancer becoming invasive, particularly we’re looking at the early stages.’
The company plans to market the technology via a centralised lab that would perform all tests on behalf of doctors, rather than as a hospital-based system or a handheld point-of-care device, because early-stage breast cancer diagnosis generally doesn’t demand an immediate response and it is easier to navigate laboratory regulation with a single facility.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
effect of an antibiotic on the stability of injectable emulsions
The injectable lipid emulsions are dispersions made of purified natural oil (soya, sesame, olive, cod-liver oil and so on) in water. The emulsification is made with natural emulsifiers (for example egg or soya lecithins) or/and synthetic emulsifiers (for example glycerol monostearate). These emulsions are used for therapeutic nutrition in order to transport medicines or liposoluble drugs, instead of inorganic solvents. These emulsions must be stable with respect to phase separation as a function of time and uniform particle size even after being stirred (droplets size less than 5µm). But some constituents may destabilise these emulsions. So the formulators need to control the stability of these emulsions. The stability analysis of these products with the Turbiscan Classic, which is available from Fullbrook Systems, allows the study of the effect of the amphotericin B (antibiotic) introduction to different injectable emulsions available on the market.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Silicon solution for qubit quandary
Two research teams working in the same laboratories at UNSW Australia have found distinct solutions to challenges facing the realisation of super powerful quantum computers.
The teams are said to have created two types of quantum bits - qubits –that each process quantum data with an accuracy above 99 per cent. The two findings have been published simultaneously in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
‘For quantum computing to become a reality we need to operate the bits with very low error rates,’ said Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW, where the devices were made.
‘We’ve now come up with two parallel pathways for building a quantum computer in silicon, each of which shows this super accuracy,’ said associate Professor Andrea Morello from UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications.
According to UNSW, Dzurak has discovered a way to create an artificial atom qubit with a device similar to MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors).
In a statement, post-doctoral researcher Menno Veldhorst, lead author on the paper reporting the artificial atom qubit, said, ‘It is really amazing that we can make such an accurate qubit using pretty much the same devices as we have in our laptops and phones’.
Morello’s team is said to have been pushing the ‘natural’ phosphorus atom qubit to the extremes of performance.
Dr Juha Muhonen, a post-doctoral researcher and lead author on the natural atom qubit paper, said: ‘The phosphorus atom contains in fact two qubits: the electron, and the nucleus. With the nucleus in particular, we have achieved accuracy close to 99.99 per cent. That means only one error for every 10,000 quantum operations.’
Dzurak said: ‘Even though methods to correct errors do exist, their effectiveness is only guaranteed if the errors occur less than one per cent of the time. Our experiments are among the first in solid-state, and the first-ever in silicon, to fulfil this requirement.’
The high-accuracy operations for both natural and artificial atom qubits is achieved by placing each inside a thin layer of specially purified silicon, containing only the silicon-28 isotope.
This isotope is perfectly non-magnetic and, unlike those in naturally occurring silicon, does not disturb the quantum bit. The purified silicon was provided through collaboration with Professor Kohei Itoh from Keio University in Japan.
The next step for the researchers is to build pairs of highly accurate quantum bits. Large quantum computers are expected to consist of many thousands or millions of qubits and may integrate natural and artificial atoms.
Record
Morello’s research team also established a world-record coherence time for a single quantum bit held in solid state.
‘Coherence time is a measure of how long you can preserve quantum information before it’s lost,’ Morello said. The longer the coherence time, the easier it becomes to perform long sequences of operations, and therefore more complex calculations.
The team was able to store quantum information in a phosphorus nucleus for more than 30 seconds.
‘Half a minute is an eternity in the quantum world. Preserving a ‘quantum superposition’ for such a long time, and inside what is basically a modified version of a normal transistor, is something that almost nobody believed possible until today,’ Morello said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Battery advance promises faster recharging
Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) have developed a new battery that can be recharged up to 70 per cent in two minutes and has a lifespan of over 20 years.
NTU Singapore expect the breakthrough to an impact on a range of industries, particularly for electric vehicles which are inhibited by recharge times and the limited lifespan of batteries.
Similarly common in a range of electronic devices, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries usually last about 500 recharge cycles, which NTU said is equivalent to two to three years of typical use, with each cycle taking about two hours for the battery to be fully charged.
The battery technology, led by associate Professor Chen Xiaodong from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, is described in Advanced Materials.
Lithium-ion batteries usually use additives to bind the electrodes to the anode, which affects the speed in which electrons and ions can transfer in and out of the batteries.
In the new battery, NTU Singapore’s scientists replaced the graphite normally used for the anode in lithium-ion batteries with a new gel material made from titanium dioxide.
Naturally found in a spherical shape, NTU Singapore developed a method to turn titanium dioxide particles into nanotubes that help speed up chemical reactions taking place in the new battery, allowing for superfast charging.
‘Manufacturing this new nanotube gel is very easy,’ Prof Chen said in a statement. ‘Titanium dioxide and sodium hydroxide are mixed together and stirred under a certain temperature. Battery manufacturers will find it easy to integrate our new gel into their current production processes.’
Moving forward, Prof Chen and his team will be applying for a proof-of-concept grant to build a large-scale battery prototype. With the help of NTUitive, a wholly owned subsidiary of NTU set up to support NTU start-ups, the patented technology has already attracted interest from the industry and is currently being licensed for eventual production.
Prof Chen expects the new generation of fast-charging batteries to come to market in the next two years, bringing with them a key solution in overcoming longstanding power issues related to electromobility.
‘Electric cars will be able to increase their range dramatically, with just five minutes of charging, which is on par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars,’ said Prof Chen.
‘Equally important, we can now drastically cut down the toxic waste generated by disposed batteries, since our batteries last ten times longer than the current generation of lithium-ion batteries.’
The 10,000-cycle life of the new battery also means that drivers of electric vehicles would save on the cost of battery replacements, which could cost over $5,000 each.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Fruit flies help in detection of explosives and drugs
A fly’s sense of smell could be used in new technology to detect drugs and bombs, claim researchers at Sussex University.
Professor Thomas Nowotny has found that fruit flies can identify odours from illicit drugs and explosive substances almost as accurately as wine odour, which the insects are naturally attracted to because it smells like fermenting fruit.
Published in Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, the study is said to bring scientists closer to developing electronic noses (e-noses) that closely replicate the olfactory sense of animals.
The hope is that such e-noses will be much more sensitive and much faster than the currently commercially available e-noses that are typically based on metal-oxide sensors and are slow compared to a biological nose.
Prof Nowotny, Professor of Informatics at Sussex University, led the study alongside researchers from Monash University and CSIRO in Australia.
‘Dogs can smell drugs and people have trained bees to detect explosives. Here we are looking more for what it is in the nose - which receptors - that allows animals to do this,’ he said in a statement. ‘In looking at fruit flies, we have found that, contrary to our expectation, unfamiliar odours, such as from explosives, were not only recognised but broadly recognised with the same accuracy as odours more relevant to a fly’s behaviour.’
Prof Nowotny and his collaborators recorded how 20 different receptor neurons in fruit flies responded to an ecologically relevant set of 36 chemicals related to wine (the ‘wine set’) and an ecologically irrelevant set of 35 chemicals related to hazardous materials, such as those found in drugs, combustion products and the headspace of explosives (the ‘industrial set’).
By monitoring the so-called firing rate of each neuron, they were able to assess which smells elicited the strongest reactions from the flies. They then used a computer program to simulate the part of the fly’s brain used for recognition to show that the receptor responses contained enough information to recognise odours.
Of the wine set, 29 out of the 36 compounds are said to have elicited clear excitatory responses in at least one receptor neuron. According to Sussex University, they also found that the flies responded to 21 out of the 35 substances related to drugs and explosives.
Prof Nowotny said: ‘The long-term goal of this research direction is to ‘recreate’ animals’ noses for technical applications. As well as the detection of explosives, chemical weapons and drugs, there is a broad array of other possible applications, such as measuring food quality, health, environmental monitoring, and even geological monitoring and agriculture.
‘And, of course, the fly’s success in identifying the ‘wine set’ might prove useful for those in the winemaking industry.
‘But it would be quite difficult to recreate the entire nose; even adopting all sensors would be too difficult. One may be able to do five or maybe 10, out of 43 in the fruit fly or hundreds in the dog. So the question is, which 10 should we use and would it work? In this paper we show that it could work with as little as 10 fruit fly receptors and we identify the most likely candidates to use.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Lockheed claims fundamental fusion breakthrough
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works believes a new compact fusion reactor (CFR) can be developed and deployed in under a decade.
Skunk Works, which works on advanced development programmes, says it is building on over 60 years of fusion research to develop an approach that offers a significant reduction in size compared to mainstream efforts. Furthermore, several patents are pending that covers its approach.
‘Our compact fusion concept combines several alternative magnetic confinement approaches, taking the best parts of each, and offers a 90 per cent size reduction over previous concepts,’ said Tom McGuire, compact fusion lead for the Skunk Works’ Revolutionary Technology Programs. ‘The smaller size will allow us to design, build and test the CFR in less than a year.’
After completing several of these design-build-test cycles, the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years and will seek partners as the technology evolves.
Fusion reactions take place in the sun and are responsible for the energy it generates.
For a number of years, engineers and scientists have attempted to replicate this in order to create significant amounts of thermal energy from a relatively small amount of fuel that is made up of deuterium, which can be extracted from water, and tritium that is produced from lithium.
According to the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, one kilogram of fusion fuel can provide the same amount of energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel.
In the fusion process itself, a gas is heated up and separated into its ions and electrons. When the ions get hot enough, they can overcome their mutual repulsion and collide, fusing together and releasing energy that is around one million times more powerful than a chemical reaction and 3-4 times more powerful than a fission reaction.
Lockheed Martin says that to mimic the energy created by the sun and control it here on earth, it’s creating a concept that can be contained using a magnetic bottle.
It adds: ‘The bottle is able to handle extremely hot temperatures, reaching hundreds of millions of degrees. By containing this reaction, we can release it in a controlled fashion to create energy we can use.’
The heat energy created by the compact fusion reactor could have a myriad of uses, such as driving turbine generators by replacing the combustion chambers with simple heat exchangers. In turn, the turbines will then generate electricity or the propulsive power for a number of applications.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Surgical robot provides minimally invasive option for brain procedure
Engineers have developed a robotic system to assist surgeons with a brain procedure to treat epilepsy.
A surgical procedure to treat severe epilepsy involves drilling through the skull deep into the brain to destroy the small area where seizures originate.
Engineers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville considered whether it were possible to perform the operation in a less invasive way and decided that it was because the area of the brain involved is the hippocampus, a region in the bottom of the brain.
Their solution was to develop a robotic device that pushes through the cheek and enters the brain from underneath, which avoids having to drill through the skull and is much closer to the target area.
To do so meant developing a shape-memory alloy needle that can be precisely steered along a curving path and a robotic platform that can operate inside the magnetic field created by an MRI scanner.
The engineers have developed a working prototype, which was unveiled in a live demonstration at the Fluid Power Innovation and Research Conference in Nashville by David Comber, the graduate student in mechanical engineering who did much of the design work.
The 1.14mm nickel-titanium MRI-compatible needle operates like a mechanical pencil, with concentric tubes, some of which are curved, that allow the tip to follow a curved path into the brain. Using compressed air, a robotic platform controllably steers and advances the needle segments a millimetre at a time.
According to Comber, they have measured the accuracy of the system in the lab and found that it is better than 1.18mm, which is considered sufficient for such an operation. In addition, the needle is inserted in tiny, millimetre steps so the surgeon can track its position by taking successive MRI scans.
According to Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Eric Barth, who headed the project, the next stage in the surgical robot’s development is testing it with cadavers, estimating that it could be in operating rooms within the next decade.
Capabilities
‘I’ve done a lot of work in my career on the control of pneumatic systems,’ Barth said in a statement. ‘We knew we had this ability to have a robot in the MRI scanner, doing something in a way that other robots could not. Then we thought, ’What can we do that would have the highest impact?’‘
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert Webster had simultaneously developed a system of steerable surgical needles. ‘The idea for this came about when Eric and I…figured that his expertise in pneumatics was perfect for the MRI environment and could be combined with the steerable needles I’d been working on,’ he said.
The engineers identified epilepsy surgery as a high-impact application through discussions with Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery Joseph Neimat.
They discovered that neuroscientists use the through-the-cheek approach to implant electrodes in the brain to track brain activity and identify the location where the epileptic fits originate. However, the straight needles they use can’t reach the source region, so they must drill through the skull and insert the needle used to destroy neurons through the top of the head.
Comber and Barth shadowed Neimat through brain surgeries to understand how their device would work in practice.
‘The systems we have now that let us introduce probes into the brain – they deal with straight lines and are only manually guided,’ Neimat said. ‘To have a system with a curved needle and unlimited access would make surgeries minimally invasive. We could do a dramatic surgery with nothing more than a needle stick to the cheek.’
The engineers have designed the system so that much of it can be made using 3D printing in order to keep costs down. This was achieved by collaborating with Jonathon Slightam and Vito Gervasi at the Milwaukee School of Engineering who specialise in novel applications for additive manufacturing.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Moxtek's Next Generation Polarizing Beamsplitter Cube
Moxtek is pleased to introduce the ICE Cube™, a new Nanowire® polarizing beamsplitter cube optimized for a wide range of acceptance angles while maintaining color uniformity and image contrast. The cube enables compact designs with reduced optical paths. Engineers are able to design smaller systems while maintaining excellent optical performance.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
LEDs That Flex
A technological breakthrough could permit fabricating flexible LED displays out of inorganic materials. Researchers have grown gallium nitride (GaN) micro-rod-on-graphene to create transferrable LEDs capable of bending and stretching. Until now, engineers have constructed most flexible electronics from organics, but semiconductors like GaN offer superior optical, electrical, and mechanical properties
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Graphene formed into porous 3D structures for use in batteries
Researchers in Japan have developed a technique called diffusion driven layer-by-layer assembly to construct graphene into porous 3D structures for applications in devices such as batteries and supercapacitors.
The study, conducted at Kyoto University, was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
Graphene is an ultra-thin sheet of carbon that possesses properties that include high mechanical stability and excellent electrical conductivity.
However, the thin structure of graphene also acts as a major obstacle for practical uses. When piecing together these sheets into larger structures, the sheets easily stack with one another, resulting in a significant loss of unique material properties. While several strategies have been proposed to deal with this problem, they are often costly, time consuming, and difficult to scale up.
To overcome this challenge, the researchers from the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) at Kyoto University borrowed a principle from polymer chemistry and developed it into a technique to assemble graphene into porous 3D architectures while preventing stacking between the sheets.
By putting graphene oxide into contact with an oppositely charged polymer, the two components could form a stable composite layer, a process also known as interfacial complexation.
In a statement Jianli Zou, a co-investigator in the project said: ‘Interestingly, the polymer could continuously diffuse through the interface and induce additional reactions, which allowed the graphene-based composite to develop into thick multi-layered structures. Hence, we named this process diffusion driven layer-by-layer assembly.’
The resulting products are said to display a foam-like porous structure - which is conducive to maximising the benefits of graphene - with the porosity tuneable from ultra-light to highly dense through simple changes in experimental conditions.
Furthermore, the process is scalable for creating large-area films which will be highly useful as electrodes and membranes for energy generation or storage.
‘While we have only demonstrated the construction of graphene-based structures in this study, we strongly believe that the new technique will be able to serve as a general method for the assembly of a much wider range of nanomaterials,’ said Franklin Kim, the principal investigator of the study.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Is Hydrogen the Cure?
The big catch with wind power has always been its intermittent nature. No matter how steady the wind, there is always a gas turbine idling somewhere and ready to take over the load. It doesn't have to be that way, however. Batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro, compressed gas, and hydrogen are all being touted as high-capacity storage options. Renewable Energy World looks at the promise, and pitfalls, of hydrogen energy storage.
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Tunisian CSP plant to supply electricity to European grid
Plans have been announced for TuNur, a 2GW concentrated solar power (CSP) facility in Tunisia that would be connected to the European electricity grid.
The project, which is being taken forward in a partnership between London-based investors Low Carbon and utility scale solar developer Nur Energie, is currently undergoing permitting in Tunisia and Europe, and is set to reach financial close and start construction in 2016.
It is claimed that when the project comes online by late 2018 it will have the potential to provide power to more than 2.5 million UK homes.
According to Low Carbon, the majority of the project’s feasibility and preliminary licencing has now been completed including an offer of a 2GW grid connection solution (STMG) from Terna, the Italian grid operator, for an interconnection point in Italy. The project is now entering into the next stage of permitting and development, putting it on track to start construction by the end of 2016.
According to the European Commission’s Institute for Energy, 0.3 per cent of the sunlight that shines on the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts could supply all of Europe’s energy needs.
In a statement, Roy Bedlow, CEO of Low Carbon said: ‘With the right level of investment, large scale renewable projects such as TuNur can be very competitive in the energy market and demonstrates that renewables make business sense.
‘By harnessing the power of the sun, we can challenge other means of energy generation such as nuclear power or burning fossil fuels, which have multiple, long-term negative effects. Large scale solar projects, in Europe and Africa are a vital part of diversifying and securing Europe’s energy supply, while creating a low carbon economy.’
Kevin Sara, chief executive officer of Nur Energie said: ‘Recent news around Desertec (Dii) has raised some questions about the concept of North African solar. CSP is a proven technology and the Sahara is an area of optimum solar resource, as demonstrated by our three-year study showing direct normal irradiance (DNI) of 2,500kWh/m2/Yr.
‘Successful government programmes such as MASEN in Morocco prove that developing solar in the Sahara is a cost effective source of renewable energy today. This coupled with the growing energy demand and need for low carbon and non-intermittent power in Europe makes North Africa an optimum region for large scale solar development. Governments, investors and developers – including many of those involved in Dii – remain enthusiastic about the validity of this solution.’
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The holly and the UAV
With summer once more rudely hustled out of the door by the premature Christmas countdown there’s nevertheless a real buzz about this year’s festive season. Or perhaps that should be a high-pitched whine. Because this year promises to be the year of the drone.
Originally developed for the defence industry, drones - or unmanned air systems (UAS) - have been available as consumer devices for a couple of years now but many observers believe 2014 could be the year that the technology really takes off.
A quick google search uncovers a range of devices, mainly quadcopters, with a staggering range of capabilities. Indeed, just a couple of hundred pounds gives you access to kind of remotely operated, GPS enabled systems that once only the military had access to. High street technology chain Maplins – which now sells a wide range of devices - even features one of the vehicles in its latest tv advertising campaign.
It’s not difficult to see why the technology is generating so much excitement. The ability to hover above your home and shoot your own aerial movies will be attractive to many. Whilst the semi-autonomous behaviour of some current devices - for instance the ability to use GPS to pre-programmed routes – further broadens the technology’s appeal.
What’s more, the build-your-own drone kits that are now widely available are a great way to enthuse young people about the wonders of engineering, and teach them the kind of hands-on skills that they’ll rarely learn from a games console.
The problem is, that with these capabilities comes the potential for trouble, and the kind of systems that are now widely available have some obvious and far less benign potential applications.
Two recent football-related incidents highlight the technology’s potential to cause disruption. Earlier this month, the arrival of a drone carrying an Albanian flag sparked angry scenes at an Albania v Serbia football match. Closer to home, a man was arrested after flying a drone over Manchester City’s ground during a game against Tottenham.
Meanwhile, a report on drones published this week by the University of Birmingham Policy Commission – which is chaired by former director of GCHQ Prof David Omand - raises the terrifying prospect that terrorist groups could potentially use small, commercially available vehicles to mount attacks in the UK. ‘Fast, cheap, available micro RPA (remotely piloted aircraft), in particular, are difficult to defend against, given their ability to fly past and over obstacles to find their target,’ claims the report.
Clearly, there are genuine public safety concerns here, and as the policy commission’s report argues, preventing the technology being used for criminal purposes represents a major challenge.
Should industry be concerned about the impact of commercially available unammned systems on its ability to develop and test military UAVs? Winning this battle should also be a major priority for the UK’s wider UAV industry – which is keen to open up civil airspace to large unmanned air vehicle in order to make it easier to test and develop an area of technology that is of growing importance to the UK economy.
As one of those attending a roundtable on the topic hosted by The Engineer back in 2012 claimed, the irresponsible use of widely available consumer drones could irrevocably damage public opinion and hold back development of this emerging area of industry.
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Wind Power for Oil Recovery
Using a novel marriage of competing energy types — fossil and renewable- DNV GL has proposed using wind turbines to power the water injection process used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The company plans to incorporate compressors in the turbine's floating platform, taking advantage of offshore winds to both power the EOR process and eliminate the headaches of diesel-powered compressors. The hybrid system is expected to compete favorably with engine-based solutions, especially when carbon taxes are taken into account.
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evice monitors noisy knees to diagnose osteoarthritis
UK researchers have developed a device that identifies osteoarthritis through sounds emitted by the body.
The portable device could be used by health care professionals to assess patients with knee osteoarthritis regularly to see whether the knee is changing or responding to treatment.
In use, acoustic emissions (AE) sensors are attached to the surface of the knee to record short bursts of acoustic energy generated by stress on - and friction between - joints during weight-bearing movement.
UK researchers have developed a device that identifies osteoarthritis through sounds emitted by the body
An electrogoniometer is also attached to enable each acquired AE waveform to be linked to the angle of the knee. Data is processed and analysed based on the sound waveforms during different movement phases.
Lancaster University led the effort, which involved researchers from the University of Central Lancashire, Manchester University, the NHS and industry.
According to Lancaster University, published results demonstrate that AE can distinguish not only between healthy and osteoarthritic knees, but also between knees in different age groups and differences in joint condition.
In a statement, Lancaster University’s Prof Goodacre, who is also a consultant rheumatologist, said: ‘Unlike an MRI scan, this approach can tell you what happens when the joint moves and it can also measure how the knee is changing over time.
‘Researchers are only just starting to explore the idea of listening to structures like joints, arteries or the intestines and seeing if the sounds they make can tell us about diseases. So this is a new field and the UK is leading in this area.’
The team has received £560,000 from the Medical Research Council and the project will see the recruitment of over 200 patients with various types of osteoarthritis so the technique can be further verified.
The project is being delivered through the Lancaster Health Hub, which brings together Lancaster with the University of Cumbria and many NHS organisations throughout Lancashire and Cumbria to work together on clinical research to improve health care.
If the new technology proves effective, it will be taken forward into clinical practice through the North West Coast Academic Health Science Network (AHSN).
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New plant to convert waste cooking oil into aviation biofuel
Up to 500 million gallons of aviation biofuel will be made from waste cooking oil at a new demonstration facility in China.
The China-US Aviation Biofuel Pilot Project, which is sponsored by Boeing and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), will use technology developed by Hangzhou Energy & Engineering Technology Company (HEET) to clean contaminants from waste oils and convert it into jet fuel at a rate of 160 gallons per day.
According to Boeing, the project’s goal is to assess the technical feasibility and cost of producing higher volumes of biofuel.
Biofuel produced by the China-U.S. Aviation Biofuel Pilot Project is expected to meet international specifications approved in 2011 for jet fuel made from plant oils and animal fats. This type of biofuel has already been used for more than 1,600 commercial flights.
Sustainably produced biofuel, which is said to reduce carbon emissions by 50 to 80 per cent compared to petroleum through its lifecycle, is expected to play a key role in supporting aviation’s growth while meeting environmental goals.
The Boeing Current Market Outlook has forecast that China will require more than 6,000 new airplanes by 2033 to meet passenger demand for domestic and international air travel.
Boeing and COMAC have been collaborating since 2012 to support the growth of China’s commercial aviation industry. Their Boeing-COMAC Aviation Energy Conservation and Emissions Reductions Technology Center in Beijing works with Chinese universities and research institutions to expand knowledge in areas that improve aviation’s efficiency, such as aviation biofuel and air traffic management.
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North America's Biggest Biomass Plant
Canada can now lay claim to owning North America's biggest biomass power plant. Ontario's Atikokan Generating Station — formerly a coal power plant — is being supplied with 45,000 metric tons of wood pellets per year by Rentech and Resolute Forest Products Canada.
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Magnets for fusion energy: High-temperature superconductor achieves new world record for electrical current
Scientists have achieved an electrical current of 100,000 amperes, which is by far the highest in the world, by using the new idea of assembling the state-of-the-art yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting tapes to fabricate a large-scale magnet conductor.
The National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in Japan, has achieved an electrical current of 100,000 amperes, which is by far the highest in the world, by using the new idea of assembling the state-of-the-art yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting tapes to fabricate a large-scale magnet conductor.
NIFS is undertaking the development of a high-temperature superconducting coil that is appropriate for the fusion reactor magnet. Using the state-of-the-art yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting tapes which have been developed and produced in Japan through the new thinking that simply stacks the tapes, NIFS manufactured a conductor of exceptional mechanical strength. For the conductor joints, which are important for the production of the large-scale coils, NIFS developed low-resistance joint technology through collaborative research with Tohoku University.
As a result of the prototype conductor test, at the absolute temperature of 20 degrees Kelvin (minus 253 degrees Celsius) the electrical current exceeds 100,000 amperes. The overall current density exceeds 40 A/mm2 including the jackets, and this value is of practical use for manufacturing large-scale fusion reactor magnets. This result is of global importance. We use 54 yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting tapes. Each tape is 10 mm in width and 0.2 mm in thickness.
The electrical current flows only through one area. Together with the substrate used for this type of tape that is exceptional in strength and flexibility, by surrounding this area by a copper jacket and a stainless steel jacket an extremely strong conductor is produced. The current is induced by magnetic induction.
The revolutionary method by which the helical fusion reactor's massive magnet is manufactured by sequentially connecting the short high-temperature superconductors has received much attention. Further, the large current-capacity high-temperature superconductor with simple stacking of yttrium-based tapes and the so-called "joint winding method" have also impacted the development of high-temperature superconducting magnets used in medical instruments and power-electric devices. Ripple effects are anticipated in the future.
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Walking, Running, Jumping, Hopping Full-scale Dynamic Humanoid
Design engineers have developed a biologically analogous leg design which will give Byrun, the latest humanoid robot from Engineered Arts, the ability to walk, run, jump, and hop. Byrun is a full-scale dynamic humanoid that has the potential to revolutionize human-robot interaction. Maplesoft's MapleSim, was used in Byrun's design to simulate complex, nonlinear, compliant components such as his pneumatic muscles and parallel springs..
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Robots Expand Their Reach
Robots are reaching into new markets thanks to improvements in vision, human motion replication, and collaborative models. Current 3D vision-guided robotics (VGR) systems can multitask — seeing and determining the orientation of parts, while maintaining awareness of their own location, movement, and gripper orientation. Grippers have a new look and feel; many are shaped like a human hand and are capable of exerting variable force. Collaborative robots combine advances in both fields, as well as additional safety features, to be able to work safely and efficiently with mere mortals.
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Successo della collaborazione ricerca pubblica e industria hi-tech
È tutta italiana la tecnologia delle bobine superconduttrici che farà fare un passo in avanti alla fusione nucleare, l’energia prodotta con la stessa reazione che avviene nelle stelle.
Per ottenere questa energia occorre avere un gas riscaldato a temperature di milioni di gradi, il plasma. Per via di queste sue altissime temperature il plasma non può entrare in contatto con le superfici della macchina che lo contiene. La soluzione più usata, denominata “Tokamak”, prevede un campo magnetico in grado di tenere il plasma in sospensione all’interno di una struttura a forma di ciambella evitando così il contatto con le superfici (confinamento magnetico del plasma).
Dal 2009 è in corso la progettazione e realizzazione della macchina sperimentaleTokamak JT-60SA nell’ambito del programma di ricerca internazionale sulla fusione nucleare tra Europa e Giappone, denominato “Broader Approach”, che vede l’ENEA tra i partner.
Il campo magnetico utilizzato nella macchina Tokamak JT-60SA è prodotto da un set di bobine superconduttrici a forma di “D” di notevoli dimensioni, 8.5 metri in altezza e 4.5 metri in larghezza. L’ENEA, con l’ASG Superconductors Spa di Genova, suo partner industriale, ha già realizzato le prime due bobine del sistema magnetico, che sono le prime a livello mondiale di queste dimensioni e di fabbricazione completamente italiana.
Questo risultato, frutto della collaborazione tra il settore della ricerca pubblica e l’industria hi-tech nazionale, rappresenta un ulteriore passo in avanti per il completamento del Tokamak JT-60SA, che entrerà in funzione a Naka in Giappone per la seconda metà del 2019.
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L’ENERGIA DA FUSIONE
L’energia nucleare da fusione è generata dalla reazione di isotopi di idrogeno (deuterio e trizio) fra loro. Queste reazioni producono particelle alfa e neutroni, che asportano l’energia dal plasma, necessario per tenere le particelle alle energie cinetiche (dell’ordine dei 100 keV) richieste per far avvenire la reazione. Le particelle alfa sono arrestate nei primi centimetri di materiale
adiacente al plasma, mentre i neutroni, che, nella reazione deuterio-trizio (D-T), hanno un’energia pari a circa 14 MeV, devono essere rallentati da apposite strutture contenenti materiali a basso peso atomico. Nella reazione D-T, che, allo stato attuale delle conoscenze, è la più promettente, è richiesto il trizio, che non è disponibile in natura, avendo un periodo di dimezzamento di circa 12 a.
Quindi i neutroni prodotti nella reazione di fusione dovranno essere utilizzati, oltre che per la produzione di energia, anche per trasformare altri materiali in trizio. Il materiale più adatto a questo scopo è l’isotopo di litio avente peso atomico 6, che interagendo con un neutrone decade in trizio e particelle alfa.
Nelle attuali macchine sperimentali, operanti con deuterio o con quantità molto limitate ditrizio, e quindi in cui non sono generate grandi quantità di neutroni, non è necessario inserire una struttura di generazione di trizio e di asportazione di energia (blanket). Dovranno comunque essere previste strutture di protezione della parete che separa la camera da vuoto dall’ambiente esterno,
dato che un contatto diretto del plasma sulle strutture resistenti avrebbe effetti estremamente gravosi dal punto di vista delle operazioni della macchina.
Ottenere energia dalla fusione nucleare è uno sforzo che impegna molte branche della scienza e della tecnologia, a
partire dalla fisica del plasma fino ai metodi di progettazione meccanica più sofisticati. L’utilizzo di materiali con caratteristiche studiate appositamente per
questi impieghi richiede un approccio alla progettazione molto specialistico, ed in questo ambito la meccanica della frattura, sia per le macchine sperimentali attuali, sia per quanto riguarda i futuri reattori di potenza, gioca un
ruolo determinante per garantire alle macchine l’affidabilità richiesta per i loro impieghi.
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British scientists are to research whether a new type of supposedly safer, smaller, cheaper nuclear reactor could help reduce the UK’s radioactive waste stocks.
A team from Cambridge will investigate the potential for using thorium-based fuel in a new reactor under development in the US that would be small enough to manufacture in a factory but produce as much energy as current power plants.
Using a combination of the abundant material thorium and plutonium from the UK’s waste stocks to power a nuclear reactor could theoretically reduce reliance on the rarer element uranium and produce waste that was dangerously radioactive for a much shorter period.
The Cambridge team, led by Dr Geoff Parks, plan to use computer models to research how well this thorium fuel-cycle would work in the “integral inherently safe light water reactor” (I2S-LWR) being developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology.
‘This is a change of paradigm for light water reactors, which attempts to produce the output from a conventional reactor but with the footprint of a small modular reactor,’ Parks told The Engineer, adding that smaller reactors would be quicker and cheaper to build.
‘[We’re] looking at potential uses for that reactor technology both short term – as a means of getting rid of plutonium in a useful way rather than simply treating it as a waste – but also establishing a way forward for a longer-term view for the potential use of thorium in the future when uranium begins to run out.’
The designers of the I2S claim it is safer and smaller than current reactor designs because it incorporates its heat exchangers inside its main pressure vessel rather than relying on an external system.
It also features a number of passive safety features, such as a cooling system that relies on naturally circulating air rather than pumped air or water, which won’t stop working without a power supply.
The Cambridge research will explore the pros and cons of different fuel combinations, including thorium, plutonium and the main material the designers are focusing on, uranium silicide, which is more power dense and so more cost-effective than the uranium oxide currently used.
Parks said that because the I2S is an evolution of existing light water reactor designs it could be brought to market more quickly than other reactors proposed for use with a thorium fuel-cycle, suggesting it could even be deployed within a decade and be installed in old nuclear power stations such as Sizewell B.
However, he also admitted that with current uranium stocks there was no major economic necessity to move to a thorium fuel-cycle at the moment and that such a transition would only happen if the government committed to thorium through a long-term flagship research project.
A paper published by the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory in March 2012 found that ‘the thorium fuel cycle at best has only limited relevance to the UK as an alternative plutonium disposition strategy and as a possible strategic option in the very long term,’ and recommended ‘a low level of engagement in thorium fuel cycle R&D’.
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Fuel Cell Power Plant Dwarfs the Rest
The world's largest fuel cell plant is a 59 MW facility in South Korea that dwarfs the second-largest facility, a 14.9 MW system in Connecticut. Compared to a similar capacity solar plant, the facility has a small footprint making it attractive for urban areas.
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Solar Concentrator Lets the Sun Shine In
Your windows could help power your house someday if Michigan State University engineers have their way. The team has developed a luminescent solar concentrator material that captures sunlight and channels it to photovoltaics embedded in the window frame. The concept is not new, but previous versions carry unpleasant tints as a result of the dopants needed to capture the right wavelengths. The MSU material remains almost fully transparent.
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Feathers inspire turbulence avoidance system
Researchers have taken inspiration from bird feathers to develop a system that could end turbulence on flights.
The group, from the Unmanned Systems Research Team at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have lodged a provisional patent on the system, which is based on the concept of phase-advanced sensing, in which flow disturbance is sensed before it results in aircraft movement.
This can be achieved by early sensing of the pressures from gust effects on the leading parts of the wing or by measuring the gusts ahead of the wing.
Research supervisor Prof Simon Watkins said flight-testing on a micro-plane showed the system significantly reduced the effects of turbulence.
‘By sensing gusts and disturbances in air flow through their feathers, birds are able to fly gracefully rather than bouncing around in turbulent air,’ he said in a statement.
‘The system we have developed replicates this natural technology, with the aim of enabling planes to fly smoothly through even severe turbulence – just like birds.’
Prof Watkins said the system had great potential for all sizes of aircraft and could not only reduce the effects of turbulence on passengers but also reduce loads on plane wings, leading to lower fatigue and longer life.
’While we need to explore new sensor arrangements to apply this technology to larger and faster aircraft, we have proven the idea on the most challenging problem of keeping small, lightweight planes steady – since these are the ones that get bounced around the most,’ he said.
The patent submission for a turbulence mitigation system for aircraft represents the successful outcome of PhD research by Abdulghani Mohamed, supervised by Prof Watkins and Dr Reece Clothier in RMIT’s School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.
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Mercedes F1 power unit honoured as outstanding example of British engineering
The team behind the power unit at the heart of Mercedes’ recent Formula One success has been awarded the 2014 Dewar Trophy for outstanding British technical achievement in the automotive industry.
Developed by Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains (HPP) at Brixworth in Northamptonshire, the PU106A Hybrid power unit has been the dominant powertrain in the first season under new F1 rules, which have replaced the 2.4-litre normally-aspirated V8 engines with 1.6 litre charged V6 power unit that relies heavily on hybrid technologies.
The Mercedes-Benz PU106A Hybrid power unit.
Top flight motorsport has faced mounting criticism in recent years that it is not longer relevant to the wider automotive industry. It’s hoped that the new regulations - which align performance more closely with thermal efficiency - could have direct relevance to future the road car powertrains.
With a claimed thermal efficiency of more than 40 per cent the Mercedes is said to be the most thermally efficient gasoline powertrain ever produced and has been a key factor in helping Mercedes AMG Petronas secure the 2014 FIA Formula One Constructors’ Championship.
Previous winners of the Dewar Trophy - which is organised by the Royal Automobile Club - have included Rolls-Royce in 1907 for its 40.5hp engine; Dunlop in 1957 for work developing disc brakes and modern tyres; the British Motor Corporation and Alec Issigonis for the original Mini in 1959; Jaguar in 2003 for its all-aluminium chassis; and Ford for its EcoBoost drivetrain in 2012.
Awarding the 2014 trophy to HPP was a unanimous decision made by experts on the Dewar Technical Committee, chaired by John Wood MBE.
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Nuova auto volante, i sogni si avverano
Dopo la Terrafugia e diversi altri prototipi il mondo delle auto volanti si arricchisce di un nuovo modello, la PAL-V. In realtà più che un’auto questa sembra una moto, o meglio un ibrido simile al Carver che piega in curva, mentre poi più che un aereo la Pal-V si muove come un elicottero. Ma cambia poco. Quello che conta è che questo mezzo alla fine voli davvero.
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Un nuovo LED potente e a basso costo
Potrebbe aprire la strada a una nuova generazione di schermi e di tecnologie d’illuminazione il nuovo diodo a emissione di luce (LED) descritto su“Nature” da Xingliang Dai dell'Università di Zhejiang a Hangzhou, in Cina, e colleghi. Si tratta infatti di un dispositivo dotato di un’alta potenza di emissione associata a una vita operativa molto estesa, che può essere realizzato con procedure industriali a basso costo.
Dai fari per veicoli all'illuminazione per ambienti, negli ultimi anni i LED hanno conosciuto una diffusione esponenziale. Ma questo sviluppo applicativo è solo il riflesso degli enormi progressi ottenuti nel campo della ricerca e nei metodi di produzione industriale, progressi la cui importanza è testimoniata dall’assegnazione del premio Nobel per la fisica di quest'anno a Isamu Akasaki e Hiroshi Amano della Nagoya University, e a Shuji Nakamura dell’Università della California, Santa Barbara per le loro ricerche sul LED a luce blu.
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As of 2014, the application of fuel cell in automotive industry, despite of small scale, was the most important among other fields.
Toyota and Hyundai each plan to launch 1,000 fuel cell vehicles in 2015 priced at USD50,000-100,000, close to the price of pure electric vehicle Tesla Model S, with 90% cost cuts as opposed to the figure a few year ago. 2015 is expected to be the first commercialization year for fuel cell vehicles.
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Equator™ - the versatile gauge™
The Renishaw Equator is a radical alternative to custom gauging, which is designed for shop floor inspection and is capable of high-speed accurate comparative gauging of high-volume manufactured parts. The system is ‘thermally insensitive' through its innovative re-mastering technique, which enables the system to work outside of temperature controlled rooms.
Equator has been conceived and developed by working closely with automotive, aerospace and medical gauging users, alongside their manufacturing machines. The result is a lightweight, fast and highly repeatable gauge that operators can use with ‘push-button' simplicity. Equator can switch between parts in seconds, perfect for flexible manufacturing processes or accepting parts from multiple machines.
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Dishing Out Affordable Solar Power and Heat
Likened to a 10 m tall sunflower, a new high concentration PV thermal system produces electricity, potable water, and heat for various uses as it magnifies radiation 2,000x times to achieve an 80% conversion efficiency. Each 40 sq m parabolic dish designed by Switzerland-based Airlight Energy features 36 metallized foil elliptic mirrors. These concentrate radiation onto microchannel liquid-cooled receivers equipped with triple-junction PV chips. Active liquid cooling technology developed by IBM for use in supercomputers keeps the chips at a safe operating temperature of 105° C (221° F). Phys.org reports that the 12 kW power/20 kW thermal system will be available for off-grid deployment in 2017.
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Solar Irradiance Meter — TPI 510
The TPI 510 is an easy-to-use, state-of-the-art solar irradiance meter for measurement of not only solar radiation, but all measureable light sources including all visible light. The TPI Solar Meter is designed to measure solar power in W/m2 or BTU (ft2*h). Uses include finding the optimal angle of inclination for installing solar panels; determining the effectiveness of solar film/window tint; and more.
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Solar Battery Breathes and Recharges
Combining a solar cell and a battery into a single unit could reduce solar energy costs by 25%, say Ohio State University researchers. The hybrid device described in PV-Tech Storage is a dye-sensitized mesh solar panel that admits air as titanium dioxide rods trap light. Charged ions from a lithium backplate are stored as Li metal; during discharge, oxygen is consumed to convert the metal into lithium peroxide.
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Growing Grass-fed Cells
Organic solar cells can now join their inorganic counterparts in the grass — nanograss, that is. Vertical semiconductor nanopillars resembling blades of grass optimize light capture and charge collection in p-n junction cells. The modified thermal evaporation technique developed by researchers from the U.S. and Germany boosted polymer cell efficiency 32% relative to thin film performance.
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Progress in Low-cost Water Photolysis
A low-cost water splitter described in MIT Technology Review achieves a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 12.3% by combining a perovskite tandem solar cell and a bi-functional Earth-abundant catalyst. An iron-nickel hydroxide catalyst was added to porous nickel foam to increase the reaction area. Efforts are now underway to improve perovskite stability and service life.
Aerial robotics arena to open in London
A new arena for aerial robots at Imperial College London is expected to put Britain at the forefront of unmanned aerial systems and inspire the next generation of aeronautical engineers.
According to Imperial, the global market value of unmanned aerial robot manufacturing is expected to reach an estimated $89bn in the next ten years, with applications ranging from search and rescue, wildlife conservation and inspection and repair of industrial facilities, particularly in hazardous environments.
Imperial says it aims to capitalise on its position as one of the UK’s leading centres for aerial robotics research with the development of the new laboratory at its South Kensington Campus.
The development of this £1.25m facility has been made possible thanks to a gift from Imperial alumnus Brahmal Vasudevan, the founder and CEO of private equity firm Creador.
The Brahmal Vasudevan Aerial Robotics Lab will consist of a two-storey laboratory and workshop, hosted by the City and Guilds building, on its roof. It will have teaching facilities for undergraduates and postgraduates, housing a workshop for manufacturing aerial robots and an enclosed arena for test flights. It will also be one of only a handful of facilities in the world that will be able to test hybrid aerial robots that can fly and then dive into water.
Prof Jeff Magee, dean of the Faculty of Engineering, said: ‘The Brahmal Vasudevan Aerial Robotics Lab will be a focal point for our aerial robotics research and education activities. We also want this facility to a place for prospective students and school children to visit, inspiring them to become future aeronautical engineers.’
The flight arena will include sixteen high-speed 3D aerial tracking cameras that will wirelessly control how the robots fly, and also record their flight dynamics which will be fed in real-time back to computers. A further eight 3D tracking cameras will be positioned in a water tank, which will be used to test the combination aerial robots as they dive into and swim through the water.
The Brahmal Vasudevan Aerial Robotics Lab will also bring the testing facilities into closer proximity with manufacturing facilities at the College. These workshops have 3D printers and laser micromachining equipment, which is used to fabricate components, making construction of the aerial robots more efficient.
The new location is also expected to lead to more and varied collaborations between people across different scientific and engineering disciplines at the College and across the UK
DA DR. COTELLESSA
ENERGIA: TECNOLOGIA ENEA PER RECUPERARE MATERIALI PREZIOSI DAI RIFIUTI
Recuperare materiali preziosi da rifiuti di apparecchiature elettriche ed elettroniche, computer, cellulari, batterie al litio, pannelli fotovoltaici. Tutto questo è ora possibile grazie a ROMEO (Recovery Of MEtals by hydrOmetallurgy), una tecnologia brevettata dall'ENEA e presentata a Ecomondo, la manifestazione dedicata alla green economy.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
GEOSWIM - 23.000 km a nuoto per monitorare le coste del Mediterraneo. Terza tappa: le Egadi
L'ENEA e il Dipartimento di Matematica e Geoscienze (DMG) dell'Università degli Studi di Trieste presenteranno, il prossimo 18 novembre, i risultati della terza tappa del progetto GEOSWIM. Settanta chilometri di rilevamento a nuoto lungo le coste del Mediterraneo, alla scoperta del nostro mare.
Il progetto“Geoswim” nasce con l’obiettivo distudiare la geomorfologia delle coste del Mediterraneo da una prospettiva ancora inesplorata : la circumnavigazione a nuoto. Esplorando la costa da vicino, metro dopo metro e sotto il pelo dell’acqua, i ricercatori possono osservare ciò che satelliti ed imbarcazioni non riescono a vedere e, in tal modo, aggiungere, importanti tasselli nella ricerca sulle variazioni passate e future del livello marino. Le prime due edizioni del progetto GEOSWIM si sono svolte attorno all'Istria nel 2012 e a Malta nel 2013 ed hanno permesso di rilevare pareti, anfratti, sorgenti sottomarine e forme riconducibili agli antichi livelli del mare.
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Driving towards success with biomass-derived petrol
Chinese scientists have overcome previous limitations to generate high octane number petrol from biomass-derived γ-valerolactone (GVL), an organic compound that is already often blended in small amounts with petrol or diesel. Using an ionic liquid catalyst, the conversion churned out a 2,2,4-trimethylpentane-rich substance with an octane number of 95.4, the highest reported for biomass derived fuel.
Petrol, the liquid many of us use to run our cars, is typically obtained from fossil fuels. But, with energy demands rocketing, producing a renewable and sustainable alternative has become a challenge for many researchers.
Although the concept is not new, previous biomass-derived fuels have only seen success as substitutes for jet fuel additives or diesel. This is because the resultant alkanes are linear or have a single branch, ‘making them incompatible with those used in the petroleum industry,’ explains Suojiang Zhang from the Institute of Process Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, who led the work. ‘Reports on high octane number gasoline from biomass are very rare,’ he adds.
This is linked to a fundamental property of petrol, the anti-knock index, a measure of resistance to ignition best indicated by the research octane number (RON) and achieved through the presence of highly branched C8 alkanes.
And Zhang and his group have made just this, producing a fuel which meets European requirements for RON and surpasses those for lead, sulfur, olefin, aromatic and benzene levels, without the potentially toxic additives usually needed.
After generating GVL from commonly available lignocelluloisic biomass it undergoes decarboxylation to produce butenes, some of which are converted to isobutane. This is followed by alkylation using an ionic liquid catalyst, [CF3CH2OH2][CF3CH2OBF3], to give the isooctane product.
The key to the method’s success and arguably the biggest challenge is in the design of an ionic liquid catalyst with suitable acidity. Cracked products result if the acid strength is too high whereas oligomerisation to higher carbon fractions occurs when it is too low. The process is thus catalysed by protons in a chain-like manner. As a liquid catalyst, [CF3CH2OH2][CF3CH2OBF3] has sufficient active sites to ensure good activity and, due to its ionic nature, can be easily removed by phase separation. In short, a huge improvement without the need for hydrodeoxygenation and additives.
Green chemistry expert Liang-Nian He, from Nankai University in China, describes the work as a significant breakthrough that will ‘stimulate further interest in more cost-efficient processes to produce biomass-based gasoline on a larger scale’.
Indeed, this is what the group aim to do: whilst rolling out plans to scale up this valuable method they are continuing to develop more efficient and feasible routes to produce high quality fuels.
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UK shale gas potential has been hyped claims report
The UK Energy Research Centre warns that hopes for a shale gas bonanza in the UK may be overoptimistic.
Gas will play an essential short-term role as the UK moves towards a low carbon economy but domestic shale gas production is unlikely to have a much of an impact, a new report has warned.
According to the research, which has been published by the UK Energy Research Centre, gas will be an important “bridging fuel” over the next decade, but its use will have to be curtailed in order to prevent global temperatures rising above 2°C.
The report goes on to claim that whilst shale gas has been widely touted as a solution to domestic security of supply concerns, it’s unlikely that an industry which is still in its infancy will achieve sufficient scale over the next decade, the key time-period where gas could act as a transition fuel.
Instead of banking on shale, UKERC recommends rapidly expanding investment in alternative low-carbon energy sources and investing in more gas storage, which would help protect consumers against short-term supply disruption and price rises. Industry unwillingness to invest in additional storage is symptomatic of the high level of uncertainty surrounding future gas demand in the UK.
The report calls on government to develop a policy of ‘gas by design’ that plans now for the changing role of gas in the UK energy mix; ensuring future UK gas security and a smooth transition to a low-carbon economy.
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First flight for shape-changing wing flaps
NASA has carried out flight-tests a wing surface that changes shape in flight.
Earlier in 2014, researchers replaced an airplane’s conventional aluminium flaps with advanced, shape-changing assemblies that are said to form seamless bendable and twistable surfaces.
Flight-testing will determine whether flexible trailing-edge wing flaps are a viable approach to improve aerodynamic efficiency and reduce noise generated during take-offs and landings.
The Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) project is a joint effort between NASA and the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), using flaps designed and built by FlexSys, a company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
With AFRL funding the project through the Air Force’s Small Business Innovative Research program, FlexSys developed a variable geometry airfoil system called FlexFoil that can be retrofitted to existing airplane wings or integrated into brand new airframes.
Using conventional materials and actuators, FlexFoil - with no moving parts in the shape-adapting mechanism - is being applied to demonstrate camber changes (-9 to +40 degrees), span-wise twist and high response rates (50 degrees/sec), along with a control surface that is strong and stiff enough to support over 10,000lbs of air loads.
According to NASA FlexFoil’s inventor, FlexSys founder and CEO Sridhar Kota hopes July’s tests with the modified Gulfstream III will confirm the design’s flight worthiness and open doors to future applications and commercialisation. ACTE is being flown at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
The experimental control surfaces were locked at a specified setting during the initial ACTE flight. Different flap settings will be employed on subsequent flights to collect a variety of data demonstrating the capability of the flexible wings to withstand a real flight environment.
‘We have progressed from an innovative idea and matured the concept through multiple designs and wind tunnel tests, to a final demonstration that should prove to the aerospace industry that this technology is ready to dramatically improve aircraft efficiency,’ AFRL program manager Pete Flick said in a statement.
ACTE technology is expected to have far-reaching effects on future aviation as advanced lightweight materials will reduce wing structural weight and give engineers the ability to aerodynamically tailor the wings to promote improved fuel economy and more efficient operations.
‘The first flight went as planned - we validated many key elements of the experimental trailing edges,’ said Thomas Rigney, ACTE project manager at Armstrong. ‘We expect this technology to make future aircraft lighter, more efficient, and quieter. It also has the potential to save hundreds of millions of dollars annually in fuel costs.’
The flight test forms one of the NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project’s eight large-scale integrated technology demonstrations to show design improvements in drag, weight, noise, emission and fuel reductions.
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New Electric Field Measurement Technology
Based on the light absorption spectrum of vibrating atoms immersed in an electric field, a new instrument called the quantum probe measures field strength of frequencies ranging from 1 GHz to 500 GHz (from the radio bands to the sub-terahertz band). The new instrument calibrates itself and other instruments, directly links measurements to the International System of Units (SI), and offers 100x the sensitivity of conventional detection methods.
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Sensors? From Graphene-infused Rubber Bands?
Infusing graphene into rubber bands lets researchers produce conductive elastics that make excellent inexpensive strain detectors capable of measuring joint and muscle movement, heart rate, and breathing rate. Combining low cost, mechanical compliance, and reasonable sensitivity, the devices work at strains exceeding 800% and measure dynamic strains at frequencies up to 160 Hz.
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How to preserve 18,000 years of artwork
Discovered in 1940, the painted cavern of Lascaux in south-western France’s Dordogne region is the most famous ornamental prehistoric cave of the world. The cave consists of a large amount of images of animals such as bison, aurochs, deer, horses, lions and rhinos, as well as monumental hunting scenes and different objects and signs. The cave was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. Vaisala has supplied several measurement instruments in the air monitoring system used in the Lascaux complex, including the WXT520 multi-parameter sensor and CARBOCAP GMT221 carbon dioxide transmitters.
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L’ elettrica più scattante di sempre
Da 0 a 100 in meno di due secondi
Si chiama Grimsel ed è un prototipo realizzato al Politecnico di Zurigo
Per molti un’auto che va da 0 a 100 chilometri orari in 1,7 secondi è sicuramente una fuoriserie. Una Porche forse, un modello del Cavallino o una vettura americana elaborata a puntino. E invece no. Il nuovo record mondiale di accelerazione per vetture elettriche è stato segnato dalla Grimsel, un prototipo realizzato da 30 studenti del Politecnico federale (ETH) di Zurigo e dell’Alta scuola di Lucerna in meno di un anno. La carrozzeria in fibra di carbonio le consente un peso di soli 168 chilogrammi mentre i quattro propulsori elettrici, uno per ogni ruote, sviluppano una potenza totale di 147 kW (200 CV).
Abbastanza insomma per farla ruggire silenziosamente sulla pista dell’aerodromo militare di Dübendorf, in Svizzera, dove domenica scorsa la Grimsel ha raggiunto 100 km/h da ferma in 1,785 secondi e in meno di 30 metri. Un bel risultato se si pensa che il record precedente era di 2,134 secondi e facendo un paragone con le sorelle a benzina la piccola elettrica appare in forma smagliante. Tra le fuoriserie troviamo la Chevrolet Corvette del 2002 preparata da Lingenfelter che ha segnato un’accelerazione 0-100 km/h in 1.97 secondi, tra le stradali la Porsche 918 Spyder si ferma a 2,2, mentre le Formula 1 sono intorno ai 2,6. Anche le elettriche sono più “lente” con i 2,2 secondi della Rimac ConceptOne, i 3,7 della Tesla Roadste] e i 2.9 secondi della Wrightspeed X1 .
Insomma, una bella vittoria per questi giovani ingegneri che continuano a distinguersi anche nella Formula Student, la competizione universitaria che ogni estate vede le migliori facoltà di ingegneria meccanica sfidarsi su pista con veicoli elettrici che siano efficienti, sostenibili e, ovviamente, veloci come schegge. Ora si aspetta solo la registrazione ufficiale nel Guinness dei Primati, dove la squadra svizzera scalzerà il posto all’avversaria di sempre, l’Università Tecnologica di Delft, e abbasserà ancora di più l’assicella per le vetture elettriche più veloci del mondo.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Sounds aimed at people with hearing difficulties
A Southampton University researcher has developed a loudspeaker system to help people with hearing difficulties listen to television without affecting the sound for others.
Marcos Simón, a PhD researcher from the University’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, has devised a highly-directional system of so-called acoustical radiators, or loudspeaker arrays, which produce a sound ‘hot spot’ by boosting the audio signal in the area of a room where a hearing impaired person is sitting but maintaining the same audio levels elsewhere.
In a statement Marcos said: ‘It’s estimated that disputes over TV volume affect one in 10 households, and these are often caused by some family members having age-related hearing loss.
‘Because only about 20 per cent of such people wear hearing aids, the only way to resolve this problem is to improve the level of sound for them without annoying other viewers in the household with normal hearing who don’t want to be subjected to a loud volume.’
Marcos’s loudspeaker design, which comprises eight phase-shift sources in a line, aims to compensate for the hearing loss of a 70-year-old adult, which is of about 15dB at 3kHz.
The acoustical radiators send a boosted version of the TV audio towards one location, where a hearing impaired TV listener is present. Other listeners with healthy hearing are placed at positions where they do not listen to the amplification provided by the array.
Marcos, who won the 2013 Institute of Acoustics (IOA) Young Person’s Award for Innovation in Acoustical Engineering for his array design, said: ‘Although line arrays have been studied for many years, the approach previously used to reduce the radiation to the rear of the array – and hence reduce reverberant levels for other listeners – has been to position a second set of loudspeakers at the back of the array to cancel the sound in that direction.
‘My array uses individual loudspeaker elements that are specially designed first-order acoustic radiators, or phase shift sources, thus saving cost and improving the robustness of the array to variations in the sensitivity of the elements and in the reproduction environment.’
The operation of the array has been tested by performing behavioural experiments in a normal room, and it has been seen that using the device it is possible obtain about a 30 per cent of speech intelligibility improvement of the hearing impaired listeners, while maintaining a good audio quality in the zone where the healthy listeners are sat.
‘This is quite an encouraging result, as it confirms that it is possible to use the array as a complementary aid for the hard of hearing,’ said Marcos. ‘This means a 70-year old person can listen to a TV programme normally without disturbing others around them.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
mperial College opens miniature medical robot factory
A £4m mini-factory for developing the next generation of miniaturised medical devices and robots officially opened this week at Imperial College London.
The new EPSRC Micro-Machining Facility for Medical Robotics facility will be led by Prof Guang-Zhong Yang, director of Imperial’s Hamlyn Centre.
According to the university, the new facility will provide a national hub for academia and industry in Britain for developing miniaturised surgical robotics to improve the diagnosis of diseases and drug therapies.
The need for improvements in surveillance and earlier diagnosis of conditions, along with an increasing proportion of minimally invasive procedures being carried out by surgeons that target smaller lesions, requires the development of new types of miniaturised robots for surgery.
Thanks to advances in rapid prototyping technologies, micro-fabrication and micro-machining processes, along with the development of advanced materials that are compatible with the body, researchers at the facility will now be able to build a range of advanced surgical tools and smart implants that can deliver targeted therapies with micro-instruments that also have integrated sensing and imaging technology.
In a statement Prof Guang-Zhong Yang said: ‘At Imperial we are already in the process of developing a range of miniaturised medical robots and smart surgical devices that improve the way patients in the UK are cared for…This new Facility will speed up and improve development and production processes not only for the Hamlyn staff but also for researchers across the College and at other institutions.”
To develop miniaturised surgical robotic devices in the past, researchers at the College had to undergo a prolonged and costly design and construction process that involved getting parts made off-campus, a process that could take weeks and often months. The new Facility, which is funded by the EPSRC, brings the entire construction process in-house, which could cut development time down significantly.
The Facility will house advanced 3D printers for researchers to print components for surgical devices with features ranging in size from the microscopic to the nanoscale. The 3D printers will provide precision 3D rapid prototyping of components that will be made from advanced materials that range from thermoplastics, to photopolymers, and biocompatible metals.
In order to build these components, the researchers have also installed a range of machines including imaging technology such as the micro CT that uses x-rays that will enable the researchers to see in real-time the tiny components they are working on. The Facility is also equipped with a micro-machine assembly line for compiling new components.
The Facility is part of the UK Robotics Network, which is led by the Hamlyn Centre, to spearhead and coordinate the development of surgical robotics in the UK.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
NPL and Manchester Uni join forces on Graphene
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Manchester University of have signed a memorandum of understanding to help move the potential benefits of graphene closer to practical use, by accelerating the commercialisation of the remarkable 2D material.
The two organisations will work together on the development of graphene metrology, characterisation and standards essential to industry uptake, with a view to establishing a Joint Centre of Excellence.
The agreement was signed at NPL’s ‘Graphene & 2-D Materials Conference’, this week that looked at how to take the material from research to real world applications.
Graphene has many beneficial properties and characteristics, such as superior mechanical stiffness, elasticity, electrical and thermal conductivity. It is also optically active, chemically inert and impermeable to gases. The possession of all of these properties in a single material makes graphene a potentially disruptive technology in sectors like optoelectronics, flexible electronics, bioelectric devices, energy storage and ultrafiltration.
In a statement NPL said there are many early adopters of graphene, but without standardisation it is difficult for industry to be assured of the quality and properties of the material, and for graphene to be used to its full potential. Although achieving international standardisation is a key enabler for industry in any area, the process can take many years.
NPL and Manchester University are seeking to address this gap in standardisation in the meantime and accelerate the development of graphene-enabled technology through the accurate metrology and characterisation of the material to improve the understanding of the properties of graphene and the ability to produce it in a reliable and repeatable way.
Robin Hart, director of programmes at NPL said: ‘Graphene has the ability to totally transform entire industries. Consumers and manufacturers at different stages of the supply chain must be confident that they get what is written on the tin.
‘Introduction of metrology steps in the development and production chains will dramatically improve their efficiency and ensure that the government and business investment in graphene technology is used in the most effective way.
‘Manchester is widely regarded as the home of graphene R&D and by working with them in efforts to speed up the commercialisation of research, we can start to reap the benefits to industry and society that graphene can offer much sooner.’
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Fiber Optics Solutions for Wind Turbines
Plastic optical fiber or POF, is often specified in cost-effective solutions such as frequency conversion, power electronics control and industrial field buses.
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Get the Full Picture for 3D Surface Metrology
Highly accurate surface analysis is essential in multiple industrial and research environments today in order to ensure optimal performance of materials and components. Such surfaces can be made up of intricate structures with highly sloping areas demanding lateral resolution of a few microns, or critical micro peaks and valleys requiring vertical analysis on the sub-nanometer scale. While confocal microscopy offers high lateral resolution, interferometry is required to reach sub-nanometer vertical resolution, so which option to choose?
The Leica DCM8 unites confocal microscopy for high XY resolution and interferometry for accurate Z analysis to 0.1 nm. With intuitive software and no need to prepare samples or swap instruments, the Leica DCM8 will save valuable time in your R&D or quality control tasks. In addition we have integrated a wealth of other features such as true-color imaging, wide Field of View and long-life LED lighting.
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Lightweight 'solar cloth' photovoltaics have flexible future
A Cambridge start-up believes its flexible solar panelling solution could fundamentally change the landscape of solar installation in the commercial sector.
The Solar Cloth Company’s award winning flexible thin film photovoltaics (FTFP) are a few micrometres thick and can be integrated into flexible and lightweight tensile structures called building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). In doing so, they provide an alternative to traditional photovoltaic panels that are heavy and cumbersome.
The Solar Cloth Company’s Perry Carroll, CEO and founder, and Christopher Jackson, innovation director told The Engineer via email that copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) is used as a base technology because it is known for its higher light-to-electricity conversion rate and lightweight flexible properties. The technology is also 100 times thinner than conventional silicon (c-Si) glass backed solar panels.
Carroll said: ‘At the moment there is a lot of interest in carports and commercial roofing. Most steel portal commercial roofing cannot support the weight of heavy glass solar panels, but our lightweight solar cloth is ideal in these situations.
‘We estimate there is around 830 million square meters of commercial roof space and 350 million square meters of car parking space in the UK alone which, if covered with solar panels, could produce enough power to feed the UK’s national grid three times over.’
The duo added that CIGS is favoured because it is suited to northern latitudes such as the UK.
Jackson said: ‘To put this in numbers, the spectrum absorbed by silicon cells ranges from 400-700 nm, while the absorption range for CIGS cells is wider from 300-1300 nm. This means that the effective time for generating power is much longer each day for CIGS than other technologies.
‘There is also the lifetime degradation issue of silicon. Both crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon PV exhibit degradation following long-term exposure to strong light, which reduces their ability to generate electricity.
‘And finally, in terms of sustainability, because CIGS uses a 100 times less semiconducting material than silicon cells, the embedded energy used to manufacture them is less. According to the US Department of Energy, assuming a 30 year-life of the solar installation, crystalline silicon PV payback time is estimated to be 2-4 years. CIGS PV payback time is estimated to be 1-2 years.’
The company has already unveiled the world’s first solar fabric tensile structure car park in Cambridge and has been awarded BIPV innovation of the year at the UK Solar Industry awards. Similarly, RBS has awarded the technology winning status in their search for the next big innovation in sustainability.
Carroll said: ‘They will be testing our product in new carbon neutral branches throughout their estate of 2,500 buildings, We are also very excited to be in discussion with two well-known London museums who have set us the challenge of solarising their buildings in ways that complement their period design.’
Jackson added: ‘We are currently closing in on deals involving 27,000 car park spaces with leading UK retailers and 15 Local Authorities. We have built a growing sales pipeline worth £4.2 million for 2015 including park and ride projects, airport parking operators and retail park owners.
‘Further, we are trailing new-to-market flexible, lightweight building integrated solar installations with one of the UK’s biggest retailers in January 2015.’
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UK-led consortium kickstarts mission to the Moon
A Kickstarter campaign has been launched to send an unmanned robotic landing module to the South Pole of the Moon within a decade.
The aims of Lunar Mission One, which is being delivered by UK-led holding company Lunar Missions Ltd, include the use of innovative new technology to drill for samples unaffected by cosmic radiation and meteor bombardment.
By drilling down to depths of between 20m and 100m, the mission will be able to access and analyse lunar rock dating back around 4.5 billion years for the first time. In doing so, the mission will provide new and significantly advanced insights into the origins and evolution of the Moon and Earth.
It will also inform the practicality of a permanent manned base at the lunar South Pole, the company said in a statement.
Partners and advisors include RAL Space, University College London, Open University and the Institute of Education.
Lunar Mission One is using crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to fund the development phase of the project. Supporters who make pledges to the project via Kickstarter will become lifetime members of the Lunar Missions Club with access to information and experiences relating to the project, from ‘Meet the Experts’ events to the opportunity to have their name inscribed on the lunar landing module.
Kickstarter backers will also receive rewards including a digital ‘memory box’ for inclusion in a 21st Century time capsule that will be sent to and buried in the Moon as part of Lunar Mission One.
Following the development phase, funded by Kickstarter, the remaining funding requirements of the project will primarily be met through sales of digital memory boxes to the general public, as well as through public sector and commercial backing.
Also included in the time capsule will be a publicly assembled, owned and authoritative record of life on Earth. This ‘public archive’ will include a record of human history and civilisation to date alongside a species database showing the biodiversity of animals and plants. The project will make the public archive available online both during development and afterwards so it can be developed further.
Education and inspiration are central to the mission, which aims to inspire a generation to learn more about space, science, engineering and technology through a worldwide programme of educational engagement.
All surplus funds raised from the project will go to a non-profit charitable Trust for supporting future space science and exploration.
David Iron, founder of Lunar Missions Ltd and the Lunar Missions Trust said: ‘Governments are finding it increasingly difficult to fund space exploration that is solely for the advancement of human knowledge and understanding as opposed to commercial return.
‘The world class team of advisors and supporters we have assembled will address this issue and crucially, anyone from around the world can get involved for as little as a few pounds.
‘Lunar Mission One will make a huge contribution to our understanding of the origins of our planet and the Moon and will inspire a generation to learn more about space, science and engineering – in the same way that my generation was inspired by the Apollo Moon landings.’
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Enhanced ultrasound penetrates bone and metal
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a technique that allows ultrasound to penetrate bone or metal, using customised structures that offset the distortion usually caused by so-called aberrating layers.
‘We’ve designed complementary metamaterials that will make it easier for medical professionals to use ultrasound for diagnostic or therapeutic applications, such as monitoring blood flow in the brain or to treat brain tumours,’ said Tarry Chen Shen, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. ‘This has been difficult in the past because the skull distorts the ultrasound’s acoustic field.’
‘These metamaterials could also be used in industrial settings,’ said Dr. Yun Jing, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and senior author of the paper. ‘For example, it would allow you to use ultrasound to detect cracks in airplane wings under the wing’s metal ‘skin.’’
Ultrasound imaging works by emitting high frequency acoustic waves. When those waves rebound off an object, they return to the ultrasound equipment, which translates the waves into an image.
Some materials such as bone or metal have physical characteristics that block or distort ultrasound’s acoustic waves and these materials are called aberrating layers.
The researchers are said to have addressed this problem by designing customised metamaterial structures that take into account the acoustic properties of the aberrating layer and offsetting them. The metamaterial structure uses a series of membranes and small tubes to achieve the desired acoustic characteristics.
The researchers have tested the technique using computer simulations and are in the process of developing and testing a physical prototype.
In simulations, 28 per cent of ultrasound wave energy makes it past an aberrating layer of bone when the metamaterial structure is not in place. With the metamaterial structure, the simulation shows that 88 per cent of ultrasound wave energy passes through the aberrating layer.
‘In effect, it’s as if the aberrating layer isn’t even there,’ Jing said in a statement.
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In Sweden the most powerful neutron microscope in the World
Three of the main Italian research institutions, together with the Ministry for Education, University and Research, participate in one of Europe's most ambitious projects of recent years: the construction of the most powerful neutron microscope in the World: European Spallation Source (ESS). It will be built in Sweden and will be used for interdisciplinary studies, from life sciences to physics, from nanotechnology to pharmaceuticals. A collaboration between CNR, Elettra Synchrotron of Trieste, INFN and MIUR will put Italy among the largest investors in the project, for a total of 104 million euro invested, and perhaps first in Europe in terms of number of topics in which it collaborates. A research infrastructure involving a total cost of about 2 billion euro, whose construction will start in 2015 and that will see the development of the first research programs in 2022-2023. In short, the current Italian teenagers might obtain their own PhD in ESS.
We have asked about ESS to Eugenio Nappi, MIUR representative in the Steering Committee of ESS and recently nominated vice-president of the INFN.
“ESS is the last born research organization in Europe after CERN and ESA,” Nappi explains, “a new infrastructure capable of accelerating protons just as CERN accelerators do, with the difference that here the main focus is on producing a huge quantity of neutrons. In addition, unlike what is done at CERN, ESS will study both the structure of organic and inorganic matter by means of neutron scattering.”
But what is a neutron microscope and what is its function? “It is basically a proton accelerator,” says Nappi, “made to snatch neutrons from the target material, which are subsequently delivered to the experimental stations where experiments are performed. Since neutron scattering is a very challenging technique, intense and fast pulses of neutrons are required to achieve the desired performance; for this reason, the goal of ESS is to provide neutron beams featuring an intensity 30 times larger than that currently available at the brightest existing facility. The reason why neutrons are chosen is that they are the most suitable particles to study the biological matter.”
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SECONDA PARTE
The applications of this technique are many, starting from the radiographs of construction materials, such as those used for building nuclear power plants. “There is already an infrastructure similar to ESS in UK, which is called ISIS,” Nappi said. “It allowed English Government to save a considerable amount of money, since it was able to determine, with greater precision than other current techniques, how much life actually the materials of the nuclear plants still have, in order to dismantle them not before the time.” Another relevant area of application is the development of new materials, being the neutron scattering technique able to provide detailed images of molecular structures.
But what is perhaps of utmost interest is precisely the role that Italy played and will play in this huge international project. Certainly not a secondary one compared to the German model or to the English example. Although it is true that in recent years, when Italian Government had to cut financial resources, it has often started from the field of research, it is equally true that Italy is always at the top, when it comes to the highest level.
“We are currently on the fourth position – after Germany, which is in first place, UK and France – concerning the investment to ESS, with € 104 million,” Nappi explains. “Furthermore, we are among the few who have already signed the agreement for funding, along with Spain and UK.”
Finally, there is also another aspect to consider. “Of course, we are at the fourth position regarding funding committed, but at the same time we are the country that has wider expertise, because we are taking commitments for most aspects of the project,” concludes Nappi. “Through INFN, Italy has in fact contributed to the design of the neutron source and the accelerator section at low energies; Elettra Synchrotron Trieste is involved in the aspect of the accelerator system diagnostics, and CNR into the field of neutronics instrumentation. For this reason, EES is for our country a great opportunity and we have a prominent rolein EES just because we have been able to coordinate the involvement of these three excellent research institutions and benefited of the resulting large synergy.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il GONIOFOTOMETRO
Che cos’è?
Il goniofotometro serve a misurare la distribuzione spaziale dell’intensità luminosa e a rappresentarla su una curva fotometrica, che viene innanzitutto confrontata con quella tipica della sorgente luminosa attiva per verificarne il corretto funzionamento e poi elaborata per capire se la luce distribuita nell’ambiente sia conforme ai requisiti pretesi. Ciò significa che si possono processare le curve fotometriche rilevate con opportuni software che consentono di valutare la qualità dell’emissione luminosa da tutti i punti di vista e soddisfare le esigenze applicative di volta in volta richieste.
I goniofotometri possono servire per valutare l’illuminazione stradale negli incroci pericolosi, assicurarsi della corretta luminosità sul palcoscenico dei teatri e persino controllare la qualità delle superfici appena lavorate in catena di montaggio. Una particolare categoria di questi strumenti è il goniofotometro a specchio, o “mirror goniophotometer”, che misura la luce dopo averla riflessa da uno specchio rotante montato su un braccio mobile, che serve a stabilizzarla e a filtrarla dall’influenza della gravità, migliorando l’accuratezza di misura. In ogni caso, per le misure dei goniofotometri si usano spesso le coordinate C,γ, che rappresentano un semipiano perpendicolare all’asse di misura e ruotante per 360° con angolazione indicata da γ.
Il goniofotometro è senza dubbio fra gli strumenti che stanno conoscendo una seconda giovinezza, grazie al rinnovato interesse del mercato verso le tecnologie di illuminazione, che oggi consentono effetti di straordinaria qualità visiva soprattutto dopo la recente importante affermazione dei LED, capaci di offrire un eccezionale equilibrio, ottimo fra le prestazioni luminose, la versatilità di impiego, il costo dei materiali e la semplicità di installazione, pregi che appaiono senza dubbio notevolmente superiori a ogni altra tecnologia di illuminazione precedente.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Magnetic control key to stem cell fracture treatment
Particularly suited to fractures that will not heal, damage caused by osteoporosis and bone diseases, the technique works by stimulating stem cells to regenerate bone directly in the affected area.
Awkward fractures could be healed using directed stem cells.
Currently, difficult injuries such as these are primarily treated by grafting healthy bone into the area, but this is invasive, painful and carries the risk of infection, and can be especially difficult if the patient has a skeletal disorder that reduces the amount of healthy bone available for grafting. Stem cells are an obvious option, but encouraging them to differentiate into bone cells in large enough quantities has proved problematic.
The new research, led by James Henstock of Keele’s Research Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, used chicken foetal femurs and tissue-engineered collagen hydrogels to model injured bone. “We coated magnetic nanoparticles with specific targeting proteins then controlled them remotely with an external magnetic field to simulate exercise,’ Henstock explained. The nanoparticles released a protein growth stimulant in several stages once in place, resulting in an increase in bone formation and density without causing mechanical stress to either the forming bone or to the surrounding tissues, the team claims.
‘Injectable therapies for regenerative medicine show great potential as a minimally invasive route for introducing therapeutic stem cells, drug delivery vehicles and biomaterials efficiently to wound sites,’ Henstock commented. ‘This work demonstrates that providing the appropriate mechanical cues in conjunction with controlled release of growth factors to these injectable cell therapies can have a significant impact on improving bone growth.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Enea, il radar - laser Billi aiuta a prevedere eruzioni vulcani
Tecnologia presentata oggi all' Agenzia aerospaziale tedesca Roma, 25 nov. (askanews) - Si chiama Billi - acronimo di BrIdge voLcanic Lidar - il radar-laser messo a punto dall' Enea in grado, per la prima volta, di misurare la concentrazione di CO2 nei gas vulcanici così da affinare i modelli di previsione delle eruzioni. Questa nuova tecnologia tutta italiana è stata presentata oggi a Monaco di Baviera presso l' Agenzia Aerospaziale tedesca, in una conferenza di esperti europei ed aziende leader del settore. Billi, basato su una tecnologia molto sofisticata, è in grado di misurare la concentrazione di CO2 nei gas vulcanici, un' operazione che con altre tecniche è rara, lenta, pericolosa e complessa anche per la difficoltà della distanza. Sono stati i vulcanologi a chiedere all' Enea - spiega una nota - di sviluppare un radar laser capace di misurare rapidamente e a distanza il biossido di carbonio nei fumi, in modo da affinare i modelli di previsione delle eruzioni, sperando in futuro di poter allertare la popolazione in caso di pericolo."Misurare il biossido di carbonio in pennacchi vulcanici è una sfida scientifica e tecnologica di estrema importanza. Infatti, è ormai assodato che le eruzioni sono precedute dall' aumento di questo gas nel fumo che esce dal cratere'', spiega Luca Fiorani del Laboratorio Diagnostiche e Metrologia del Centro Enea di Frascati che ha sviluppato il radar-laser.Il laser-radar (o lidar) è stato messo a punto nell' ambito del progetto europeo BRIDGE (Bridging the gap between gas emissions and geophysical observations at active Volcanoes) dell' European Research Council, coordinato dal Prof. Alessandro Aiuppa dell' Università di Palermo. La peculiarità di questo strumento è che è in grado di misurare fino ad un chilometro di distanza e, grazie ad un sistema di specchi, il fascio laser può essere orientato in qualsiasi direzione, mirando con precisione la zona di pennacchio vulcanico da investigare. I primi test sul campo sono stati fatti dal 13 al 17 ottobre presso la solfatara di Pozzuoli con il supporto dei ricercatori del Laboratorio di Chimica Ambientale dell' Enea del Centro Ricerche Portici."Una misura del genere non era mai stata fatta in precedenza - osserva il Prof. Aiuppa - e il radar laser permetterà di effettuare scansioni dei pennacchi vulcanici, simili alle tomografie, con rapidità e continuità molto superiori a quelle ottenute finora, con lo scopo finale di sorvegliare le emissioni di fluidi dai vulcani attivi, comprenderne il comportamento, e contribuire alla previsione delle sue dinamiche". La tecnologia radar laser di Billi si presta anche ad altre applicazioni in ambienti ostili, come i luoghi dove si è sviluppato un incendio o in contesti industriali o cittadini dove ci sono emissioni dovute a processi di combustione.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Electronic implant dissolves after treating bacterial infection
Researchers have demonstrated a resorbable electronic implant that eliminated bacterial infection in mice by delivering heat to infected tissue when triggered by a remote wireless signal.
The silk and magnesium devices then harmlessly dissolved in the test animals. The technique, developed at Tufts University in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, had previously been demonstrated only in vitro. The research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
‘This is an important demonstration step forward for the development of on-demand medical devices that can be turned on remotely to perform a therapeutic function in a patient and then safely disappear after their use, requiring no retrieval,’ said senior author Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of biomedical engineering and Frank C. Doble professor at Tufts School of Engineering. ‘These wireless strategies could help manage post-surgical infection, for example, or pave the way for eventual ‘wi-fi’ drug delivery.’
Researchers at Tufts University School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time a dissolving electronic implant, made of silk and magnesium, that eliminated bacterial infection in mice by delivering heat to infected tissue when triggered by a remote wireless signal
According to Tufts, implantable medical devices typically use non-degradable materials that have limited operational lifetimes and must eventually be removed or replaced.
The new wireless therapy devices are robust enough to survive mechanical handling during surgery but designed to harmlessly dissolve within minutes or weeks depending on how the silk protein was processed, the paper’s first author, Hu Tao, Ph.D said in a statement.
Each fully dissolvable wireless heating device is said to have consisted of a serpentine resistor and a power-receiving coil made of magnesium deposited onto a silk protein layer. The magnesium heater was encapsulated in a silk ‘pocket’ that protected the electronics and controlled its dissolution time.
Devices were implanted in vivo in S. aureus infected tissue and activated by a wireless transmitter for two sets of 10-minute heat treatments. Tissue collected from the mice 24 hours after treatment showed no sign of infection, and surrounding tissues were found to be normal. Devices completely dissolved after 15 days, and magnesium levels at the implant site and surrounding areas were comparable to levels typically found in the body.
The researchers also conducted in vitro experiments in which similar remotely controlled devices released the antibiotic ampicillin to kill E. coli and S. aureus bacteria. The wireless activation of the devices was found to enhance antibiotic release without reducing antibiotic activity.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Walking, Running, Jumping, Hopping Dynamic Humanoid
Engineers have developed a biologically analogous leg design that enables the latest humanoid-robot from Engineered Arts to walk, run, jump, and hop. Maplesoft's MapleSim was used in Byrun's design to simulate complex, nonlinear, compliant components such as his pneumatic muscles and parallel springs.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Siemens hunts for buyer to take on Marine Current Turbines
German power and automation business Siemens this week confirmed its plan to divest its ocean power business, including Bristol-based Marine Current Turbines (MCT), which it acquired in full in early 2012.
A spokesperson for Siemens confirmed that the company is seeking a buyer to acquire MCT. The source confirmed that it does not yet have a buyer lined up to purchase the UK-based tidal stream technology developer.
The spokesperson said: ’We’re hoping [a] buyer will come forward [or] a potential partner. The plan is to divest. It all takes several months.’
Siemens’ exit from ocean power does not bode well for the UK marine energy sector, with Pelamis falling into administration after failing to secure adequate funding to support the rollout of its proprietary technology.
Pelamis’s administrators at KPMG reportedly hope to secure a buyer for the Scotland-based wave energy technology company and are in the process of assessing its assets.
Funding remains an issue for the marine energy sector, largely as a result of a pullback in venture capital and private equity capital flowing into cleantech. Riskier innovation plays have been hit the hardest by the paucity of institutional capital.
As early as 2011, before it was fully acquired by Siemens, MCT was seeking £100 million in project financing to support two commercial-scale projects, the company’s then CEO Andrew Tyler told Clean Energy Pipeline in an interview.
A lack of an established market and supply chain was cited as the reason behind Siemens’ decision to exit ocean power generation following a strategic review of the business.
’It’s because it’s taking too long for the technology to become commercial, both [in terms of] the market and the supply chain,’ the Siemens spokesperson said.
Siemens said in an emailed statement that it believes a dedicated tidal power industry of a ‘critical size’ will develop in the near future, but that due to the ‘limited resources’ available, it would only ever remain a niche market for Siemens.
The conglomerate bought MCT in February 2012 in a bid to expand its Solar & Hydro Division, after increasing its stake in the company to 45 per cent in November 2011. At that point, it sought to secure a leading position in the tidal stream business, predicting double-digit annual growth rates for the sector through until 2020.
The most significant progress MCT has made since deploying commercial-scale demonstration units of its SeaGen technology in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, in 2008 was to secure a lease to build three tidal stream projects from the Crown Estate in July this year. MCT planned to install the first phase of the project in 2017, with operations targeted for 2020. The project would involve the installation of 66 SeaGen tidal turbines throughout three phases.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Graphene has potential in fuel cells and armour
More potential uses for the carbon monolayer graphene have been described, but manufacturing the material continues to be a stumbling block
Graphene, it seems, has great potential as a material for armour, but it isn’t impenetrable, according to two strands of new research. It lets protons pass through; making it a promising material to improve the efficiency of fuel cells.
In paper co-authored by graphene discoverer André Geim, published in the journal Nature, a team at the University on Manchester describes how a sheet of grapheme could act as a perfect membrane in a fuel cell, separating allowing protons to flow inside the cell while electrons form a current in a circuit outside the cell. Current membranes allow hydrogen atoms to leak through in the opposite direction, which reduces the proton flow and thereby cuts the current the cell can generate.
The technique is not simple, though. It’s still largely theoretical, as it depends on being able to make graphene in sufficiently large and clean sheets: something which is currently not possible.
Another Nature paper, from Rice University in Houston, Texas, describes how graphene layers can disperse the impact force of silica spheres — the first time such impact tests have been described. The force dispersion works because graphene ‘ripples’ when struck, the team says, and the speed at which a ripple can spread through a material defines how much force it can disperse. The upper limit is the speed of sound in the material, and in graphene, this is 22km/sec —almost ten times as fast as sound can travel in air. This would make it a good candidate as a material for a composite ballistic armour, says paper co-authour Edwin Thomas.
Although promising, this application has the same drawback as the fuel cell use - manufacture of graphene in sufficient quantity and quality.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Addio aria condizionata, arrivano gli specchi che respingono il calore
Sono speciali pannelli realizzati da un gruppo di ingegneri dell'Università di Stanford. Potrebbero essere utilizzati sui tetti degli edifici per "combattere" i raggi solari PANNELLI a specchio costruiti con un nuovo materiale ultrasottile e a più strati in grado di raffreddare gli edifici, anche nei giorni più soleggiati, riducendo il bisogno di aria condizionata. Questi speciali specchi hi-tech sono capaci di respingere i raggi solari e spedirli nello spazio come radiazione infrarossa. A realizzarli sono stati alcuni ingegneri dell'Università di Stanford, coordinati da Shanhui Fan e Aaswath Raman, come spiega lo studio pubblicato sulla rivista Nature. Cuore dell'invenzione è un materiale dello spessore di appena 1,8 milionesimi di metro (micrometri) che "combatte" la luce, sia visibile sia invisibile, in modo nuovo. La luce invisibile, sotto forma di radiazioni infrarosse, è uno dei modi con cui tutti gli oggetti e le cose viventi si liberano del calore. Quando stiamo di fronte a un forno caldo, senza toccarlo, il calore che sentiamo è appunto luce a infrarossi. Anche la luce del sole scalda gli edifici. E il nuovo materiale, oltre a spazzare via la luce infrarossa mandandola nello spazio, è anche uno specchio efficiente che riflette virtualmente tutti i raggi solari che lo colpiscono. Un risultato che i ricercatori chiamano "raffreddamento radioattivo fotonico". In questo modo si hanno edifici più freschi che necessitano di meno aria condizionata. Il materiale, spiegano i ricercatori, è stato progettato per avere un buon rapporto costo/efficacia nella produzione di larga scala ed essere messo sui tetti degli edifici. E sebbene si tratti di una tecnologia giovane, nel lungo periodo potrà consentire di ridurre la domanda di elettricità.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Magnetic transmission could spell the end of gearboxes
Spanish engineers claim a new levitating transmission system developed for space applications could be used across many sectors.
It’s the sound every mechanic and technician dreads: the shriek of misaligned gears that tells you that something is very wrong in the gearbox. It heralds a probable equipment breakdown, outages and expensive repairs.
But this could be a thing of the past, according to researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, who have developed a transmission mechanism where none of the mechanical parts touch each other. Working by magnetism, the transmission system needs no lubrication and is immune to damage by wear and friction.
Developed under a European research project called MAGDRIVE, the system is essentially a magnetic gear reducer: in other words, it transforms the rotational speed of an input axle to a different speed of an output axle.
It does this without using toothed gears at all: as researcher Efrén Díez Jiménez explained, ‘it substitutes geared teeth with… magnets that repel and attract each other so that the transmission of couples and forces between the moving parts with contact is achieved.’
The stated goal of MAGDRIVE, which included four research institutions and three companies, was to develop a transmission system which could work at extremely low temperatures in space, such as in robot arms or antenna or solar panel positioners, or robotic rovers; these require high precision movements and a lack of contamination from lubricants.
However, the Madrid team has developed two prototypes: a cryogenic one, which works at -210°C and can operate in a vacuum, and another which uses permanent magnets at room temperature.
The cryogenic version integrates levitating superconducting bearings that generate stable forces of repulsion into its structure. This both allows it to turn and stabilises it against oscillating motion and imbalances.
‘It is the first time in history that the input axle as well as the output axle of a gear reducer are floating without any kind of contact, and it can keep a mechanism which contains nothing else spinning at 3,000 revolutions per minute at cryogenic temperatures,’ said team leader, José Luis Pérez Díaz.
The team expects that the room-temperature version will find more applications than the low-temperature type. Owing to the absence of lubricants, it might be particularly useful in production machinery in industries where cleanliness is paramount, such as pharmaceuticals, food and biomedicine, although it can also be used in railways, oil and gas, and any propulsion system.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Tumor saving lives
Cancer is one of the more feared afflictions plaguing modern man. Although the symptoms and anatomy of tumors have been known for thousands of years—the name was coined by Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, for the way the blood vessels resembled a crab’s legs—we are only now beginning to understand the molecular mechanisms behind the disease. Who could have imagined that a small mutation could so impair a single cell’s apoptotic machinery, allowing it to proliferate as ever-growing tissue, and eventually spread and destroy the entire body?
In modern times, the threat of cancer may seem more pronounced, because of our persistent failure to effectively treat many types of the disease. Many viruses and bacteria can be disabled and reintroduced to the body as vaccines, teaching us to fight off future infections, and other illnesses can be treated with antibiotics. Diseases that plagued us for centuries and millennia have lost their mystery, and have become simple "bugs" that can be prevented or easily cured. In comparison, while certain types of cancer can be removed with surgery (when caught at an early stage), many other types of cancer have traditionally been treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or other such therapies. While these are far more effective and refined than what we had a century ago, their efficaciousness of these treatments pales in comparison with advancements in treating viral and microbial infections.
Until, that is, recently.
With the advent of cell-based and gene therapies, we are beginning to chip away at this daunting condition. Even now, various immunotherapies are being developed that allow for a patient’s own tumor tissue to be used against the disease, both curing present affliction and preventing further occurrences. A patient’s tumor is no longer just a symptom of the disease, it is also the key to the cure. Last time, we discussed the amazing applications of DNA samples with genomic sequencing - this time, let's talk about how tumor tissue, too, can be an Amazing Sample.
Steven Rosenberg and Adoptive Immunotherapy
Dr. Rosenberg is Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the pioneer of adoptive immunotherapy. In 2002, he published his first study on the topic, in which he described treatment of advanced metastatic melanoma with antitumor T-cells (with IL-2). Using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) from the patient's tumor tissue to generate large numbers of the T-cells in vitro, Rosenberg and colleagues turned the disease against itself, leading to a complete remission of the melanoma for some of the patients. It also opened the door to an entirely new approach to the treatment of cancer: using tumor cells to trigger immune responses against the illness.
Argos Therapeutics and the Arcelis™ Personalized Immunotherapy Platform
Argos Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company based out of the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, just went public earlier this year, and their flagship technology is a new personalized adoptive immunotherapy – Arcelis. They collect both the patient’s tumor tissue and their dendritic cells, and use a proprietary process to train those dendritic cells to target the tumor cells’ antigens, specifically using the tumors’ RNA. Currently they are still in Phase 3 clinical studies, but the technology is showing a high level of promise, and they are already planning on using the technology for other previously-undefeatable conditions, starting with HIV.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Wireless material improves outlook for artificial retinas
An international team of researchers are developing wireless material capable of sparking neuronal activity in response to light.
New progress towards a prosthetic retina could help alleviate conditions that result from problems with the retina.
A new study published in Nano Letters describes the device, tested on animal-derived retinal models, that has the potential to treat a number of eye diseases.
The proof-of-concept artificial retina was developed by a team led by Prof Yael Hamelin of Tel Aviv University’s School of Electrical Engineering and head of TAU’s Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and including researchers from TAU, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Newcastle University.
‘Compared to the technologies tested in the past, this new device is more efficient, more flexible, and can stimulate neurons more effectively,’ Prof Hanein said in a statement. ‘The new prosthetic is compact, unlike previous designs that used wires or metals while attempting to sense light. Additionally, the new material is capable of higher spatial resolution, whereas older designs struggled in this area.’
The researchers combined semiconductor nanorods and carbon nanotubes to create a wireless, light-sensitive, flexible film that could potentially replace a damaged retina.
They tested the new device with chick retinas which were not yet light sensitive to prove that the artificial retina is able to induce neuronal activity in response to light.
Patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) will stand to benefit from the nanotube device if it is proved compatible in animals over the long term.
TAU doctoral student and research team member Dr Lilach Bareket said there are already medical devices that attempt to treat visual impairment by sending sensory signals to the brain.
While scientists are trying different approaches to develop an implant that can “see” light and send visual signals to a person’s brain, to counter the effects of AMD and related vision disorders, many of these approaches require the use of metallic parts and cumbersome wiring or result in low resolution images.
‘In comparison with other technologies, our new material is more durable, flexible, and efficient, as well as better able to stimulate neurons,’ said Prof. Hanein. ‘We hope our carbon nanotube and semiconductor nanorod film will serve as a compact replacement for damaged retinas.’
‘We are still far away from actually replacing the damaged retina,’ said Dr Bareket. ‘But we have now demonstrated that this new material stimulates neurons efficiently and wirelessly with light. If you compare this to other devices based on silicon technology, which require wiring to outside energy or light sources, this is a ground-breaking new direction.’
The research team received funding for their study from the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology, the European Research Council, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Gill Fuel Flow Meter
In 2014 new regulations were introduced by the FIA which restricted the total fuel usage and maximum fuel flow rate for Formula 1 and LMP1 world endurance cars. This was to drive the development of greater power output from smaller engines.
The Challenge
The FIA required a real-time fuel flow meter to ensure compliance with these regulations. The sensor required high accuracy and flow levels, very high update rates and the reliability to survive the extreme motorsport environment.
The Development
Working with the FIA to develop the final sensor specification, it was apparent that ultrasonic time-of-flight technology would be best suited to meeting the stringent requirements.
Utilising the extensive experience Gill has acquired in Ultrasonic flow measurement, prototype units were designed and manufactured. These were then tested and evaluated on engine dynamometers and cars. This process delivered a number of revisions that were required for accommodating different fuel types.
The testing also established the ultrasonic technology and custom algorithms provided the high update rates, accuracy, temperature performance, flow rates and reliability required.
A second, larger, batch of sensors was produced for car testing at the Young Driver Test Event at Silverstone which provided feedback for the final stage enhancements programme.
The Results
The final configuration of meters was then submitted to the FIA for them to conduct their own testing against specification, which successfully resulted in FIA homologation for the two motorsport series.
Production units were delivered ready for the 2014 winter testing programme, and for inclusion in the championship rounds themselves.
Time-of-flight Ultrasonics delivered a product performance that would not have been achievable with mechanical based units. The solid state design provided the reliability essential to ensure the new, exacting fuel use regulations could be successfully enforced.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Prosthetic legs improved with robot control theory
A University of Texas at Dallas professor has applied robot control theory to enable powered prosthetics to dynamically respond to the wearer’s environment and help amputees walk.
In research published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, wearers of the robotic leg could walk on a moving treadmill almost as fast as an able-bodied person.
‘We borrowed from robot control theory to create a simple, effective new way to analyse the human gait cycle,’ said Dr. Robert Gregg, a faculty member in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and lead author of the paper. ‘Our approach resulted in a method for controlling powered prostheses for amputees to help them move in a more stable, natural way than current prostheses.’
According to the university, humanoid robots can walk, run, jump and climb stairs autonomously, but modern prosthetics limit similar actions in humans. While prosthetics have been made lighter and more flexible, they fail to mimic the power generated from human muscles in able-bodied individuals. Powered prostheses, or robotic legs, have motors to generate force, but lack the intelligence to stably respond to disturbances or changing terrain.
Control engineers view the human gait cycle by studying the time interval at which each movement in the walking cycle needs to occur. Gregg, an assistant professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering, proposed a new way to view and study the process of human walking, namely by measuring a single variable that represents the motion of the body. In this study, that variable was the centre of pressure on the foot, which moves from heel to toe through the gait cycle.
‘The gait cycle is a complicated phenomenon with lots of joints and muscles working together,’ Gregg said in a statement. ‘We used advanced mathematical theorems to simplify the entire gait cycle down to one variable. If you measure that variable, you know exactly where you are in the gait cycle and exactly what you should be doing.’
Gregg first tested his theory on computer models, and then with three above-knee amputee participants at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, an affiliate of Northwestern University. He implemented his algorithms with sensors measuring the centre of pressure on a powered prosthesis. Inputted with only the user’s height, weight and dimension of the residual thigh into his algorithm, the prosthesis was configured for each subject in about 15 minutes. Subjects then walked on the ground and on a treadmill moving at increasing speeds.
‘We did not tell the prosthesis that the treadmill speed was increasing. The prosthesis responded naturally just as the biological leg would do,’ Gregg said.
The participants were able to move at speeds of more than 1m per second; the typical walking speed of fully able-bodied people is about 1.3m per second, Gregg said. The participants also reported exerting less energy than with their traditional prostheses.
Gregg said current powered prosthetic devices require a team of physical rehabilitation specialists spending significant amounts of time tuning hundreds of knobs and training each powered leg to the individual wearer.
‘Our approach unified multiple modes of operation into one and resulted in technology that could help people in the future,’ he said. ‘That and the feedback from participants were very rewarding.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Application report: biotribological investigation of cartilage
In order to improve the surface properties of implant materials it is crucial to understand the properties of the natural material before a suitable substitute can be developed. In this application report, Anton Paar describes a rotational tribology set-up that enables the investigation of cartilage under defined conditions both in oscillatory or rotational motion. This set-up allows performing friction measurements over a broad range of sliding velocities and normal pressures. Friction measurements were conducted using an MCR 102 rheometer equipped with TruStrain control and the Tack/Squeeze/Normal Force extension package. A T-PTD 200 tribology system was mounted onto this rheometer by replacing the Peltier plate that is typically used for rheology.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Wing research aims for energy-efficient spacecraft
Engineers from UK industry and academia are working on a £1m project to maximise energy efficiency on board future spacecraft.
The BAE Systems initiative will investigate solutions that save and maximise energy in order to enable extended space flight without the need to return to Earth to re-fuel or to avoid carry significant amounts of fuel on long-stay journeys.
Engineers at Lancaster University are major partners in the consortium
In a statement, principal investigator Prof Jianqiao Ye, from the University’s Engineering Department, said: ‘Our role is to look at saving the power used to support the monitoring system.
‘There needs to be frequent communication between the aircraft and Earth and power is needed to send huge constant quantities of data as well as receiving instructions from a communications centre.’
The Lancaster research team will look at how mechanical energy generated by the vibration of an aircraft’s wings can be transferred, stored and used to support communications systems.
To do so, sensors constructed from special spatial material are adhered to the surface of the aircraft wing panels. Vibration from the wings is then transferred to and collected by the sensor to generate electricity, thereby maximising the energy generated by the craft.
Lancaster researchers will examine the structure of the aircraft and estimate the amount of energy that can be ‘harvested’ in this way by looking at the location, geometry of the sensor and the distribution of the energy.
The consortium will also look to see how the process could be improved and built on from a design perspective and using wireless connections to reduce weight.
The EPSRC-funded project is a three-year collaboration led by Exeter University and includes UCLAN in Preston, BAE Systems, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Westland Helicopters, the Knowledge Transfer Network and several other companies.
‘There are many potential applications of this technology – not just for the aerospace industry but for others including offshore activity – and the potential for a commercial development,’ said Professor Ye. ‘It is the integration of different aspects of sensors, structure design, signals and software support – a full package of technology.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Organic electronics enable wearable pulse oximeter
Future fitness trackers could soon add blood-oxygen levels to the list of vital signs measured with new technology developed by engineers at UC Berkeley.
This is the claim of UC Berkeley engineers who have created a pulse oximeter sensor composed of organic optoelectronics that uses red and green light.
The red and green organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) are detected by the organic photodiode (OPD). The device is claimed to measure arterial oxygen saturation and heart rate as accurately as conventional, silicon-based pulse oximeters.
‘There are various pulse oximeters already on the market that measure pulse rate and blood-oxygen saturation levels, but those devices use rigid conventional electronics, and they are usually fixed to the fingers or earlobe,’ said Ana Arias, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and head of the UC Berkeley team that is developing a new organic optoelectronic sensor.
By switching from silicon to an organic design, the researchers said they were able to create a device that could ultimately be thin, cheap and flexible enough to be applied like a sticking plaster during exercise.
The engineers put the new prototype up against a conventional pulse oximeter and found that the pulse and oxygen readings were just as accurate. The team’s findings are reported in Nature Communications.
A conventional pulse oximeter typically uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to send red and infrared light through a fingertip or earlobe. Sensors detect how much light makes it through to the other side. Bright, oxygen-rich blood absorbs more infrared light, while the darker hues of oxygen-poor blood absorb more red light. The ratio of the two wavelengths reveals how much oxygen is in the blood.
For the organic sensors, Arias and her team of graduate students – Claire Lochner, Yasser Khan and Adrien Pierre – used red and green light, which yield comparable differences to red and infrared when it comes to distinguishing high and low levels of oxygen in the blood.
Using a solution-based processing system, the researchers deposited the green and red organic LEDs and the translucent light detectors onto a flexible piece of plastic. By detecting the pattern of fresh arterial blood flow, the device can calculate a pulse.
‘We showed that if you take measurements with different wavelengths, it works, and if you use unconventional semiconductors, it works,’ Arias said in a statement. ‘Because organic electronics are flexible, they can easily conform to the body.’
The US National Science Foundation and Flextech helped support this research.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Nuovo sistema ottico di scansione compatto per sensori laser radar in ambienti ostili
Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 sarà utilissimo per le applicazioni di questa innovativa invenzioni.
G. C.
Un sistema ottico di scansione compatto di sistemi laser radar, pilotato da motori resistenti alla radiazione (cosiddetti hard rad) di bassa potenza per applicazioni in ambienti ostili (presenza di alta temperatura, vuoto, campo magnetico, radiazione gamma e flussi neutronici, agenti chimici ecc.), è l’ultimo brevetto depositato dall’ENEA.
Il sistema ottico è costituito da specchi e basi motorizzate rotanti in grado di eseguire scansioni di fasci laser in dispositivi laser radar incoerenti (a modulazione di ampiezza, impulsati e a modulazione di frequenza) su tutto l’angolo solido, a parte il cono d’ombra posteriore determinato dall’ingombro del sistema ottico di lancio e ricezione dei segnali radar. La compattezza e la robustezza di questa nuova configurazione risolvono in modo completo le problematiche dei sistemi di scanning in luoghi nei quali non è possibile l’impiego dei dispositivi tradizionali a causa della criticità dell’ambiente, come nel caso dei reattori nucleari a fusione o fissione.
Il sistema può pertanto essere applicato nel monitoraggio di strutture e ambienti in condizioni operative avverse e con limitate aree di accesso.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Protective suit keeps aid workers cool in the fight against Ebola
An advanced protective suit developed at Johns Hopkins University is one of five awardees in a federal funding contest aimed at devising new tools to combat Ebola.
The Johns Hopkins University prototype is designed to do a better job than current garments in keeping health care workers from coming in contact with Ebola patients’ contagious body fluids, both during treatment and while removing a soiled suit. In addition, it is expected to keep the wearer cooler.
The first projects selected for the federal funding were announced on December 12 by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its new program, launched in October, called Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development.
Source: Johns Hopkins University
An advanced protective suit for health care workers who treat Ebola patients, devised by a Johns Hopkins team, is one of the first five awardees in a federal funding contest aimed at quickly devising new tools to combat the deadly disease
The improved protective suit is being developed by a team of engineers, medical experts, students and other volunteers under the supervision of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) and Jhpiego, a non-profit Johns Hopkins affiliate that focuses on international health programs.
‘If ever there was a public health crisis that merits the finest science, medicine and innovation the world has to offer, it is this one,’ Leslie Mancuso, Jhpiego president and CEO said in a statement. ‘The personal protection suit we are developing with our partners at the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design is purposefully designed to address safety and climate issues now putting health workers at risk.’
Some of these enhancements include a large clear visor in the hood, which is integrated into the suit; air vents in the hood; a rear zipper to reduce infection risks while removing the garment; a cocoon-style doffing process that requires far fewer steps than existing garments; and a small battery-powered, dry air source to cool the user by blowing air into the hood.
The cooling technology used in the garment was originally developed for cooling patients in cardiac arrest by Johns Hopkins cardiologist Harikrishna Tandri.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Case study: Europe's first hydrogen laboratory — KIWA is test centre for the fuel of the future
‘Europe’s first hydrogen laboratory: KIWA is the test centre for the fuel of the future’
Dutch company KIWA Automotive specialises in, among many other things, testing, certification and research in the field of alternative fuels for the automobile industry, and specifically in hydrogen-powered cars. The company has established its own hydrogen laboratory, which is to date the only one of its kind in Europe. Experiments are conducted under extreme conditions in the laboratory. Tests are run at pressures of up to 1,100 bar and environmental simulation tests demand temperatures ranging from -40°C to +120°C. KIWA has selected Series MK climate chambers from BINDER, distributed by Teslatest Systems, to carry out its experiments.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Chernobyl's giant shield takes shape
As this stunning time-lapse video shows, engineers have made huge progress on the construction of Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement, an immense shield that will replace the infamous reactor’s crumbling sarcophagus.
In order to protect engineers from unsafe levels of radiation the development of this vast steel arch called for an innovative construction approach that has seen it assembled 600m away from the reactor and then slid into place along specially built tracks.
Funded by 46 different countries and organisations through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the shelter is the key element in a €2.15bn international effort to clean up the remains of mankind’s worst nuclear accident. Completion of the project is scheduled for the end of 2017.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Sarà un’azienda italiana a costruire il più grande impianto fotovoltaico argentino
E’ stato approvato dal governo locale argentino il progetto per la realizzazione di un mega impianto fotovoltaico destinato ad essere attualmente il più grande del Paese.
Si tratta di una centrale fotovoltaica da 30 MW che sarà costruita dalla ditta italiana ECOS del gruppo Todini nella regione di La Rioja. A questo scopo la ECOS ha siglato un accordo con ENARSA, l´impresa statale argentina per l’energia.
La realizzazione dell’impianto, costituito da tre moduli da 10 MW ciascuno, richiederà un investimento complessivo di circa 69 milioni di dollari. L’avvio del cantiere è previsto entro il mese con allacciamento alla rete del primo modulo entro la metà del 2015. A progetto completato l’intero impianto occuperà una superficie di 90 ettari.
Secondo molti analisti del settore questo progetto mette in evidenza il grande potenziale del fotovoltaico in America Latina, area in cui sono attualmente in fase di realizzazione impianti fotovoltaici per 1 GW e progetti per 22 GW in varie fasi di sviluppo.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Combustione “flameless”: ENEA brevetta un nuovo bruciatore per turbine a gas
L’ENEA ha brevettato un bruciatore innovativo per turbine a gas. Il sistema è espressamente concepito per realizzare il più completo e definitivo trasferimento della tecnica di combustione “Flameless” dalle fornaci, dove è nata e progredita in questi ultimi anni, alle turbine a gas.
La tecnologia “Flameless” realizza condizioni di combustione distribuita e volumetrica, essendo caratterizzata dall’assenza del “fronte di fiamma” che nei sistemi a combustione tradizionali è fonte di produzione di inquinati (NOx) e motivo di instabilità di combustione.
Il tentativo di applicazione al settore delle turbine a gas è da sempre oggetto di ricerca, viste le peculiarità delle fiamme distribuite (volumetriche) in termini di maggiore efficienza di combustione, ridotte emissioni inquinanti, resistenza alle instabilità di origine termoacustica, nonché uniformità di temperatura della fiamma e quindi degli elementi strutturali ad essa esposti (combustore e primi stadi di turbina).
È, inoltre, allo studio una variante del sistema che, al posto di singoli bruciatori, prevede una camera anulare continua direttamente alimentata dal flusso uscente dall’ultimo stadio del compressore.
Più in generale, il sistema brevettato può trovare applicazione in combustori per turbogas stazionari (produzione di potenza elettrica), turbomotori aeronautici e ferroviari.
Il sistema è stato validato tramite simulazioni numeriche stazionarie (RANS) e non stazionarie (LES) del flusso turbolento reattivo (fiamma turbolenta). La fase successiva riguarderà la sperimentazione di un prototipo “al vero”.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
INDUSTRIA: DOPPIA VITTORIA ITALIANA NELLO
SVILUPPO DI MATERIE PRIME STRATEGICHE
L’EIT assegna gara a consorzio internazionale con ENEA– Il MISE fra i partner - Fondi per 2 miliardi in 7
anni per creare 10mila posti di lavoro e 50 start up
Roma, 18 dicembre 2014 – Doppia vittoria italiana sul fronte della creazione di nuove imprese e
occupazione. Il consorzio internazionale “RawMatTERS”, al quale partecipano ENEA con alcune università e industrie nazionali, ha vinto il bando per un progetto europeo da 2 miliardi di euro per creare 50 start up e 10mila posti di lavoro nel settore delle materie prime ‘strategiche’. Inoltre, il polo di riferimento del progetto per il Sud Europa sarà in Italia, presso il Centro Ricerche Casaccia dell’ENEA a Roma.
Il bando è promosso dall’Istituto Europeo per la Tecnologia e l’Innovazione (EIT) e prevede la
creazione di una ‘Comunità della conoscenza e dell’innovazione’ (KIC Knowledge and Innovation
Community ) per migliorare l’estrazione, il riciclo, il riuso e la sostituzione delle materie prime ‘critiche’
quali, ad esempio, terre rare, indio, germanio, magnesio.
Il consorzio RawMatTERS è composto da 20 paesi e oltre 100 partner. Per l’Italia, oltre alla capo la
ENEA, sono coinvolti Trento Rise, ASTER, Marangoni, le Università di Padova e di Milano Bicocca e,
come partner associati, Pirelli Tyre, Politecnico di Milano; Zanardi Fonderie, più 16 partner a progetto,
principalmente PMI di Italia, Spagna e Malta, più 15 partner di supporto fra i quali Unioncamere,
Regioni Lazio e Lombardia e il Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico.
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SECONDA PARTE
Le attività partiranno da gennaio 2016 per una durata di sette anni, fino al 2022.
"E’ una vittoria per il sistema Paese e dell’ENEA che è riuscita a mettere insieme tutti i principali attori
italiani intorno a un progetto strategico per la ricerca e l’innovazione applicate all’industria
manifatturiera’’ ha dichiarato il Commissario dell’ENEA Federico Testa – “Ci sono voluti due anni di
lavoro, per i quali ringrazio i nostri funzionari e i ricercatori, per arrivare a questo risultato che
consolida l’eccellenza ENEA nel binomio ricerca-industria’’.
“Nello speci co, la KIC non nanzierà attività di ricerca in senso stretto, bensì la valorizzazione delle
ricerche pregresse, in forma di nuove concrete iniziative di business compreso lo sviluppo delle nuove
professionalità ad esse necessarie” spiega Marco Vittori, responsabile dell’Unità Tecnologia dei
Materiali dell’ENEA che ha curato il progetto insieme all’Ufficio di Bruxelles dell’Agenzia.
Nella scienza e tecnologia dei materiali, l’ENEA è impegnata principalmente nella ricerca applicata alla
realizzazione di nuovi materiali e di nuovi componenti. Riguardo alla KIC ‘materie prime critiche’, le
attività si baseranno su competenze sviluppate grazie a finanziamenti regionali, nazionali ed europei,
ad esempio nel recupero di metalli preziosi da prodotti ad alto valore aggiunto (display, lampade,
schede elettroniche), la sostituzione delle materie prime critiche incorporate nei prodotti elettronici e
del settore illuminotecnico, il recupero di terre rare dai magneti permanenti utilizzati in hard disk ed
altri prodotti elettronici, la progettazione e realizzazione di nuovi prodotti che riducono o annullano l’utilizzo di materie prime critiche (OLED, celle solari).
Le materie prime strategiche sono essenziali per produrre beni di usi quali telefoni cellulari, cavi di fibre ottiche,
celle fotovoltaiche. Le terre rare, ad esempio, servono per realizzare le turbine eoliche, il germanio per i rivelatori all’infrarosso, il magnesio per le leghe leggere in alluminio.
Tuttavia, a fronte di una domanda in forte crescita, l’approvvigionamento sta diventando problematico a causa della concentrazione dell’o erta da pochissimi paesi: Cina , Russia, Repubblica democratica del Congo e Brasile; a ciò si aggiungono il basso grado di sostituibilità e i tassi ridotti di riciclaggio.
Già nel 2010 la Commissione europea aveva segnalato l’esigenza di interventi e individuato 14 materie
prime “strategiche”: antimonio, berillio, cobalto, spato fluoro, gallio, germanio, grafite, indio, magnesio,
niobio, platinoidi, terre rare, tantalio e tungsteno. E nel maggio scorso la lista è stata portata a 20.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New design improves methanol fuel cell efficiency
Researchers from South Korea’s Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have proposed a way to increase the efficiency of direct methanol fuel cells (DFMC) while reducing their production of toxic heavy metals.
DFMCs, which were invented in the early 1990s, use a liquid fuel that is easier to store and transport than other energy carriers such as hydrogen but have traditionally been seen as inefficient.
Scientists at the IBS Center for Nanoparticle Research have now found a way to prevent the fuel cell’s catalyst becoming “poisoned” by carbon monoxide as part of the process, by reacting the gas with another dangerous byproduct, a carcinogenic form of chromium.
‘Fuel cells have presented obstacles such as low performance and CO poisoning which have prevented them from becoming possible, next generation energy sources until now,’ said Prof Yung-Eun Sung, co-author of a paper on the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.
‘This new hybrid fuel cell technology is expected to propel the deployment of direct methanol fuel cells.’
The production of carbon monoxide hinders the chemical reaction that drives the fuel cell by blocking its platinum catalyst.
Reacting the carbon monoxide with the hexavalent chromium [Cr (VI)] effectively cleans the catalyst’s surface by turning the reactants into carbon dioxide and the much less toxic trivalent chromium [Cr (III)].
The researchers showed that with this method the fuel cell could maintain a constant voltage for 10 hours and enhance its power density by 20 per cent at 70°C without producing Cr (VI).
Methanol is seen as potential alternative fuel because of the lower carbon dioxide emissions it produces than conventional petrol or diesel and its relative ease of use compared to hydrogen.
However, it has a much lower energy density than petrol or ethanol and is considered toxic and corrosive so couldn’t be used in existing fuel infrastructure without modification.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
UK researchers use “spooky” quantum mechanics to create low-light photos
Whilst conventional digital cameras sample around 100,000 photons per pixel to make an image, a team from Glasgow University has harnessed the strange power of quantum mechanics to create a digital image using fewer than one photon per pixel.
Researchers from the University’s Optics Group used a technique known as quantum ghost imaging to create an image of a wasp wing using just 50,000 particles of light.
The process - which is described in a paper published in Nature Communications - works using quantum ghost imaging, which harnesses what Einstein called the ‘spooky action at a distance’ property of quantum entanglement, where photons are paired so that any measurement of one instantaneously gives knowledge of the state of the other, no matter the space between them.
The project - which was supported by EPSRC funding - is the latest in a series of quantum imaging breakthroughs at Glasgow University, which was recently announced by the UK government as the lead in a £29m Quantum Imaging Hub.
Developed in collaboration with researchers in Ottawa, Canada the system works by sending ultraviolet light from a laser to a non-linear crystal similar to a piece of quartz. The crystal splits every incident ultraviolet photon into two infrared photons, which exit the crystal on separate trajectories in a state of quantum entanglement.
Peter Morris, a graduate student working on the project, explained that whilst one photon illuminates the wasp wing the other photon goes to the camera sensor. Because the photons are entangled and share information between them on a quantum level, the image is formed on the camera’s sensor by photons which have never actually ‘seen’ the object for themselves.’
Head of Glasgow’s Optic Group Prof Miles Padgett said in a statement that low-light imaging techniques underpinned by the process could be used to image fragile materials that can be damaged by intense light.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Smoothing steering to prevent accidents
A new fuel cell design could pave the way for methanol’s use as a lower emission vehicle fuel that’s easier to use than hydrogen.
Researchers from South Korea’s Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have proposed a way to increase the efficiency of direct methanol fuel cells (DFMC) while reducing their production of toxic heavy metals.
DFMCs, which were invented in the early 1990s, use a liquid fuel that is easier to store and transport than other energy carriers such as hydrogen but have traditionally been seen as inefficient.
Scientists at the IBS Center for Nanoparticle Research have now found a way to prevent the fuel cell’s catalyst becoming “poisoned” by carbon monoxide as part of the process, by reacting the gas with another dangerous byproduct, a carcinogenic form of chromium.
‘Fuel cells have presented obstacles such as low performance and CO poisoning which have prevented them from becoming possible, next generation energy sources until now,’ said Prof Yung-Eun Sung, co-author of a paper on the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.
‘This new hybrid fuel cell technology is expected to propel the deployment of direct methanol fuel cells.’
The production of carbon monoxide hinders the chemical reaction that drives the fuel cell by blocking its platinum catalyst.
Reacting the carbon monoxide with the hexavalent chromium [Cr (VI)] effectively cleans the catalyst’s surface by turning the reactants into carbon dioxide and the much less toxic trivalent chromium [Cr (III)].
The researchers showed that with this method the fuel cell could maintain a constant voltage for 10 hours and enhance its power density by 20 per cent at 70°C without producing Cr (VI).
Methanol is seen as potential alternative fuel because of the lower carbon dioxide emissions it produces than conventional petrol or diesel and its relative ease of use compared to hydrogen.
However, it has a much lower energy density than petrol or ethanol and is considered toxic and corrosive so couldn’t be used in existing fuel infrastructure without modifications.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Virtual guide star helps focus light for medical imaging
A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis has revealed a new technique that focuses diffuse light inside a dynamic scattering medium containing living tissue.
The advance, by Lihong Wang, PhD and colleagues, is detailed today in Nature Communications.
In addition, the University team are said to have improved the speed of optical focusing deep inside tissue by two orders of magnitude, a development that represents an important step toward non-invasive optical imaging in deep tissue and photodynamic therapy.
In the new research, Wang and his team have built on a technique they developed in 2010 to improve the focusing speed of time-reversed ultrasonically encoded (TRUE) optical focusing for applications in living tissue.
To focus light, the engineers use a virtual internal guide star at the targeted location. By detecting the wavefront of light emitted from the guide star, they can determine an optimum phase pattern that allows scattered light moving along different paths to focus at the targeted location.
When light is shined into living biological tissue, breathing and blood flow changes the optical interference - or speckle pattern - which can cause previous methods to focus diffuse light inside scattering media to fail. Scientists have to act quickly to get a clear image.
The new TRUE technology combines two techniques: focused ultrasonic modulation and optical phase conjugation. Researchers use a type of mirror to record then time-reverse the ultrasound-modulated light emitted from the ultrasonic focus to achieve the best focus. Previously, technology limited the speed of TRUE focusing to no more than 1Hz.
To overcome this obstacle, the team is said to have used a fast-responding photorefractive crystal that is sensitive to light at the 790-nanometer wavelength, making it suitable to focus light deep into biological tissue.
The new TRUE technology is able to focus light inside a dynamic medium with a speckle correlation time as short as 5.6 milliseconds. The improved speed allowed Wang, the Gene K. Beare Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University, to achieve the first optical focusing of diffuse light inside a scattering medium containing living biological tissue.
The team now plans to implement the system in a reflection configuration, where light is shined and detected on the same side of the tissue.
Renault inventa l'auto da 100 km con un litro: nasce EOLAB
In tempi di crisi tutti gli automobilisti tendono a stare particolarmente attenti ai consumi, economizzando quando possono. Renault ha probabilmente tenuto a mente questo concetto quando ha progettato EOLAB, un'auto ibrida caratterizzata da consumi che possono tranquillamente essere definiti "trascurabili". Il prototipo della casa francese è infatti in grado di percorrere 100 km con appena un litro di benzina.
Ovviamente, grazie ad un'efficienza energetica così marcata, la EOLAB è una vettura particolarmente rispettosa dell'ambiente, con emissioni pari ad appena 22 grammi di CO2 per km. Per ottenere questo straordinario risultato, gli ingegneri Renault si sono focalizzati su tre aspetti: ridurre al massimo il peso, trovare le migliori soluzioni aerodinamiche ed utilizzare la tecnologia Z.E. Hybrid, che permette consumi estremamente bassi con un utilizzo fino a 60 inferiore a 60 chilometri e fino a 120 km/h e sarà il punto di forza dei futuri veicoli elettrici ed ibridi della casa francese.
Un consumo di un litro per percorrere 100 km è tra l'altro quanto promesso ad inizio 2013 da Wolkswagen con la sua XL1, con emissioni garantite appena al di sotto di quelle della EOLAB: 21 grammi di CO2 per chilometro. Ad ogni modo, in quel caso l'autonomia a propulsione solo elettrica era stata fissata in 50 km, ossia 10 in meno di quanto promesso dall'ibrida francese.
Essendo un prototipo, EOLAB è stata pensata più come un laboratorio di test per mettere alla prova un centinaio di tecnologie che verranno gradualmente inserite nella gamma Renault. Gli ingegneri francesi hanno sottoposto la EOLAB ad una "cura dimagrante" che ha permesso di risparmiare circa 400 kg di peso rispetto ad un veicolo di segmento B, come ad esempio la Clio IV.
"Si può sempre risparmiare peso se si è disposti a pagarne il prezzo", spiega il responsabile del progetto EOLAB Laurent Taupin, riferendosi agli alti costi richiesti per soluzioni interamente in alluminio o miste carbonio/alluminio. "Ma questo sarebbe contrario alla filosofia Renault. La nostra strategia è ridurre il peso in modo che tutti possano trarne beneficio. Il che significa trovare soluzioni economiche e fattibili che i nostri clienti possano permettersi. Il nostro approccio può essere riassunto nella frase: 'Il giusto materiale per un determinato lavoro' ". Questa filosofia si è tradotta nell'utilizzo combinato di alluminio, acciaio, magnesio e leghe plastiche per la EOLAB.
SEGUE SECONDA PARTE
DA DR. COTELLESSA
SECONDA PARTE
Ma l'elemento centrale per ridurre i consumi fino a 100 km con un litro non può che essere il motore, che in questo caso è un 3 cilindri benzina da 999 cm3, con una potenza di 57 kW (75 cv) e una coppia di 95 Nm, abbinato ad una batteria da 6,7 kWh di potenza. La tecnologia Z.E. Hybrid alla base della EOLAB inizierà ad essere integrata sulle vetture di serie Renault entro il 2020.
A rendere il gruppo motopropulsore così efficiente dal punto di vista dei consumi è anche la trasmissione senza frizione, dotata di un cambio a tre marce che secondo l'azienda francese è sufficiente a coprire tutta la gamma di velocità dell'auto.
Ma l'elemento che Renault considera fondamentale nella sua auto ibrida è rappresentato dall'alloggiamento della frizione, che contiene un motore elettrico a magneti permanenti. Si tratta di una soluzione tecnica che, eliminando i contatti elettrici striscianti sull'albero motore come invece avviene per i motori a spazzole, garantisce una migliore efficienza energetica, riducendo inoltre i costi per la manutenzione periodica.
Nel caso specifico del nuovo prototipo Renault, stiamo parlando di un motore di tipo discoide a flusso assiale, compatto ed economico, ed in grado di coprire senza problemi le necessità di coppia extra, essendo in grado di erogare fino a 50 kW e 200 Nm.
"Abbiamo lavorato direttamente con le squadre che sviluppano le auto di serie Renault", spiega Taupin. "E ci hanno suggerito nuove soluzioni per la nostra esigenza di bassi consumi. Ad ogni modo, non hanno soltanto proposto queste nuove soluzioni, ma ci hanno anche aiutato a comprendere che cosa significherebbe la loro implementazione su larga scala. Il processo di innovazione di questo progetto è già pronto per i futuri veicoli della gamma Renault".
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Al Consumer Electronics Show di Las Vegas sfrecciano le auto senza pilota
Anche quest’anno in migliaia si sono dati appuntamento a Las Vegas per trasformare la capitale del gioco d’azzardo nella città del futuro. Al Consumer Electronics Show non manca davvero nulla: dispositivi indossabili che leggono le onde cerebrali, stampanti 3D e, soprattutto, un’infinità di oggetti connessi. A questo punto il salto tra una Chevy dotata di tecnologia per collegarsi ad Internet 4G e i veicoli senza pilota è davvero breve.
“L’auto che si guida da sola sarà una delle maggiori attrazioni del CES. A questa fiera ci sono tutti i maggiori produttori. Sono qui per mostrare i modi in cui le loro auto si connettono agli smartwatch, ai telefoni”, spiega Lindsey Turrentine della rivista tecnologica Cnet. “E per parlare di cose come il parcheggiatore automatico, con cui potete chiedere alla vostra macchina di venire a prendervi e quella arriva da sola”, conclude.
Tra i marchi in griglia di partenza c‘è Mercedes, che ha svelato la sua F 015. A batterie, dotata di quattro sedili disponibili a salotto, questa concept car non rinuncia al lusso in termini di materiali e rifiniture, come i pannelliLCD sistemati sulle pareti. Il sistema monitora a 360° quanto accade intorno attraverso videocamere, radar e sensori ad ultrasuoni. Non solo: può proiettare delle luci per rincuorare un preoccupato pedone che voglia attraversare la strada.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Ebola test aims to deliver results in an hour
Cambridge Consultants is taking part in a $1m project to develop a device that uses a relatively new DNA amplification technique to provide a cheap and fast method of testing for Ebola in the field.
The product design and development company is working with US non-profit enterprise and molecular diagnostics specialist Diagnostics For All to develop the low-cost point-of-care device, using a grant from Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
The goal of the project is to develop, produce and complete in field testing for the resulting technology within six months, producing a device that is simple to use and can deliver results quickly in areas where there may be little or no access to medical facilities or trained doctors, nurses and lab technicians.
With the new device, a minimally trained health worker will be able to administer and run the test, without a lab, and get results within an hour
To test for the presence of Ebola in blood, DNA from the virus needs to be extracted and replicated to amplify it, as there may not be that much of the virus in a single blood sample.
‘The test will extract the nucleic acid from the virus in a sample, replicate this and deposit the replicated nucleic acid onto a testing strip, where it can react with other ingredients to create a red positive line - if the person has Ebola - and a control line to show the device is working. It is similar to the process in a pregnancy test kit,’ explained David Chastain, programme manager at Cambridge Consultants.
At present, diagnosing Ebola is extremely challenging. It can be hard for patients in remote areas to get to a clinic to have their blood drawn – and the sample must then be transferred to a lab and tested by trained technicians. Once there, the current gold standard test for Ebola is the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. Invented in the 1980s, this involves cycles of heating and cooling a sample to create more copies of a piece of DNA, and the process takes several hours. By the time the results are produced and returned to a clinic - often hours or days later - the patient may have left or infected others.
However, the test under development uses loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technology, which depends on a simple electric heater within the unit to heat the sample to a single constant level, and does not require cycling of the temperature to produce results. It can be used outside of clinics by minimally trained workers on those who are showing symptoms such as fever, vomiting and diahorrea - symptoms that are also typical of other diseases common to Ebola infected areas, such as malaria.
‘We think that the Ebola virus sequesters in the spleen and liver and then comes out in force into the rest of the body later in the infection,’ said Chastain. ‘This makes it hard to detect earlier in the infection process. However, this test would let us separate the malaria and other patients from the Ebola patients, minimising the risk [of] infecting the first group with Ebola when they come to clinics.’
The test will cost less than $10, and will consist of a handheld, single-use disposable device that is smaller than a deck of cards. It will only require a health worker to prick a patient’s finger and directly apply a droplet of blood on to the device. Everything else needed to test the blood will be fully integrated inside the device and the entire process will be completed in 45 minutes.
‘It’s cheap, small and lo-tech,’ concluded Chastain.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Adapted graphene has promising temperature and humidity resistance
Resilience to extreme conditions by the most transparent, lightweight and flexible material for conducting electricity could transform the electronic industry, according to a new study.
Researchers from Exeter University have discovered that GraphExeter - a material adapted from graphene - can withstand prolonged exposure to both high temperature and humidity.
The research showed that the material could withstand relative humidity of up to 100 per cent at room temperature for 25 days, as well as temperatures of up to 150oC - or as high as 620oC in vacuum.
The previously unknown durability to extreme conditions are claimed to position GraphExeter as a viable and attractive replacement to indium tin oxide (ITO), the main conductive material currently used in electronics, such as ‘smart’ mirrors or windows, or even solar panels.
According to the University, the research also suggests that GraphExeter could extend the lifetime of displays such as TV screens located in highly humid environments, including kitchens.
These research findings are published in Scientific Reports.
In a statement, lead researcher Dr Monica Craciun said: ‘This is an exciting development in our journey to help GraphExeter revolutionise the electronics industry.
‘By demonstrating its stability to being exposed to both high temperatures and humidity, we have shown that it is a practical and realistic alternative to ITO. This is particularly exciting for the solar panel industry, where the ability to withstand all weathers is crucial.’
Exeter University’s Dr Saverio Russo said: ‘The superior stability of GraphExeter as compared to graphene was unexpected since the molecules used to make GraphExeter (that is FeCl3) simply melt in air at room temperature.
‘Having a metallic conductor stable at temperatures above 600C, that is also optically transparent and flexible, can truly enable novel technologies for space applications and harsh environments such as nuclear power centrals.’
At just one atom thick, graphene is the thinnest substance capable of conducting electricity. It is very flexible and is one of the strongest known materials. The race has been on for scientists and engineers to adapt graphene for flexible electronics. This has been a challenge because of its sheet resistance, which limits its conductivity.
In 2012 the teams of Dr Craciun and Prof Russo, from Exeter University’s Centre for Graphene Science, discovered that sandwiched molecules of ferric chloride between two graphene layers make a whole new system that is the best known transparent material able to conduct electricity.
The same team have now discovered that GraphExeter is also more stable than many transparent conductors commonly used by, for example, the display industry.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Saving the Brain
With brain injuries, a quick diagnosis is crucial to successful treatment. A new diagnostic method, coherent hemodynamics spectroscopy (CHS), developed by researchers at Tufts University, can measure blood flow, blood volume, and oxygen consumption in the brain in real time, all while using non-invasive near-infrared (NIR) technology.
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Sound Helps Scientists See
Force spectroscopy uses precise techniques to study the bonds between individual molecules. Conventional systems force apart the molecules using mechanical or magnetic forces. But these approaches only allow scientists to study one molecule at a time. A new technique, acoustic force spectroscopy, uses a piezo element that vibrates when an oscillating voltage is applied. The element is immersed in a flow cell filled with liquid to propagate a wave that can interact with many molecules at once.
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Biomolecular Structures Revealed
Instrument manufacturer Bruker recently announced the development of its biological atomic force microscope, which features the highest resolution available for use with an inverted optical microscope. The new scope uses the company's proprietary PeakForce Tapping® technology, which oscillates the microscope's cantilever below the system's peak resonance, imaging crucial nanomechanical characteristics while protecting both the sample and the probe.
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Capturing Cancer
Thanks to Pap smear screening, cervical cancer is more easily detected in its early stages, but many women around the world still suffer from the disease. A new photoacoustic imaging technology developed by researchers at Central South University in China promises to improve diagnosis and staging of cervical cancer. The technique combines the high optical contrast of conventional optical microscopy with the spatial resolution and imaging depth of ultrasound.
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Selexis SA, a serial innovation company with proven technologies for characterized mammalian Research Cell Banks used for drug discovery to commercial manufacturing, announced today the first therapeutic biologic generated with the Selexis SUREtechnology Platform™ has been approved for market.
“This market approval represents a major milestone for Selexis,” said Dr. Igor Fisch, CEO, Selexis SA. “There are currently 56 clinical programs utilizing the SUREtechnology platform, including two Phase 3 programs. The increasing number of Selexis generated Research Cell Banks used in clinical programs, and now in a marketed product, is validation of our on-going scientific innovation and our commitment to delivering the highest quality work in biologic drug discovery and manufacturing.”
The Selexis SUREtechnology Platform™ is based on Selexis Genetic Elements™ — novel human DNA-based elements that control the dynamic organization of chromatin across mammalian cells. These elements increase transcription rates of transgenes by rendering the expression cassette independent of the locus of integration and thus allowing higher and more stable expression of any recombinant proteins. The SUREtechnology Platform™ improves the way cells are used in the discovery, development and manufacturing of recombinant proteins.
The Selexis SURE CHO-M Cell Line™ is a proprietary high-performance mammalian cell line derived from CHO-K1 cells. The genome of Selexis SURE CHO-M Cell Line™ has been fully sequenced and is used to characterize the sequence of the transgene, identify transgene integration loci and to document the monoclonality of cell populations. Selexis SURE CHO-M Cell Line™ is used for the production of therapeutic recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies. Finally, growth and production properties of the Selexis SURE CHO-M Cell Line™ are well defined, and the feed strategy optimized allowing faster and more efficient scale-up into bioreactors.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Dagli Usa le scarpe che ricaricano il cellulare camminando
Messe a punto da ricercatori dell'Università di Pittsburg.
Dagli Stati Uniti arrivano le SolePower: sono scarpe che camminando producono energia. I ricercatori dell'Università Carnegie Mellon di Pittsburgh hanno messo a punto delle speciali solette in grado di ricaricare un cellulare mentre si passeggia sfruttando l'energia cinetica.
I particolari accessori - che possono essere posizionati all'interno di qualsiasi calzatura - possiedono un sistema meccanico che consente di convertire il movimento lineare, generato mentre si cammina, in un moto rotatorio in grado di azionare un micro generatore. L'energia così prodotta viene immagazzinata in una batteria impermeabile posizionata all'esterno della scarpa. Per non rovinare il design della calzatura, la batteria - chiamata Power Pac - può essere inserita all'interno di una custodia di tessuto e "mimetizzata" legandola ai lacci. Attraverso una porta Usb, secondo i ricercatori, l'invenzione riesce a fornire due ore e mezzo di carica per un telefono con una sola ora di cammino. "Il PowerPac è attaccato ai lacci delle scarpe e si carica mentre si cammina - ha spiegato Davit Davitian, responsabile del progetto per SolePower - Quando si desidera ricaricare il telefono, è sufficiente staccare la batteria dai lacci delle scarpe e collegare il dispositivo alla porta Usb disponibile".
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il primo eco-distributore d’Italia
Si trova a Garbagnate Milanese e non vende né benzina né gasolio. Solo Gpl, metano ed elettricità (ha una colonnina per la ricarica rapida). «Il futuro passa di qui»
Gpl, metano ed elettricità. Sono gli unici prodotti in vendita nel primo distributore di energia pulita in Italia. Si chiama «Eko Point» e si trova a Garbagnate Milanese, in via Trattati di Roma. All’apparenza è un normale impianto di rifornimento per le auto, ma al posto delle pompe di benzina ha due erogatori di metano di ultima generazione, con rifornimento fai-da-te veloce, uno di Gpl e una colonnina «fast charge» per le auto elettriche, che consente la ricarica delle vetture in appena 15-20 minuti.
Energia alternativa
«Con questo format siamo i primi in Italia», dice Stefano Cantarelli, titolare dell’impianto e presidente di Anisa Confcommercio. «Siamo convinti che il futuro della mobilità passi dalle energie pulite non solo perché stanno cambiando gli stili di vita, ma anche per motivi economici. È il mercato a dirci che ormai si consuma sempre meno benzina e sempre più energia pulita: dal 2008 al 2013 il consumo di carburanti tradizionali è calato del 25,6%, la sola benzina del 35,7%. Accanto a questo fenomeno c’è invece l’impennata dei prodotti ecologici, che hanno una crescita del 50% circa».
Buona la prima
Il comune di Garbagnate Milanese aveva indetto un bando per una stazione di servizio tradizionale. «Con la mia proposta innovativa ho sbaragliato la concorrenza», racconta Cantarelli. Aperto da pochi giorni, i risultati sono già notevoli: «Faccio parte di questo settore dal 1979 e posso dire che perché un distributore vada a regime ci vuole almeno un anno. Su questo impianto, invece, inaugurato alla fine di novembre, ho già le vendite di una stazione con 3-4 mesi di vita. Abbiamo sicuramente indovinato la zona e dato risposta alla domanda degli automobilisti». Per il futuro, l’intenzione è quella di ripetere il format e di aprire altre pompe di questo tipo.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Un articolo pubblicato ieri su Nature presenta uno studio condotto da un gruppo di ricercatori sotto la guida di Kim Lewis della Università di Boston: la nuova sostanza scoperta attraverso un batterio del terreno, è stata battezzata teixobactin e, benché non sia ancora stato testato nella specie umana, dimostra, negli animali da esperimento, una buona attività ed efficacia contro il temuto stafilococco aureo resistente alla meticillina (MRSA) ed anche contro altri ceppi batterici resistenti.
L'attività e l'efficacia battericida della nuova sostanza sono tali da avere suscitato grandi aspettative e secondo la prestigiosa rivista scientifica Nature la ricerca ed i suoi risultati potrebbero rivelarsi un vero e proprio trionfo contro la resistenza microbica agli antibiotici.
La scoperta riveste notevole rilevanza scientifica, visti i timori espressi lo scorso anno dall'OMS, che vedeva finita l'epoca degli antibiotici, proprio a causa dei ceppi resistenti. Il temuto MRSA purtroppo è abbastanza diffuso negli ospedali e nel 2013 vi sono stati 480.000 casi di tubercolosi resistente ai diversi farmaci tradizionali, ma il teixobactin sembra mostrare una buona efficacia anche su questi ceppi batterici. La nuova sostanza non ha però alcun effetto sui microrganismi gram negativi, tra quali pure si annoverano forme resistenti e pericolose come la Klebsiella pneumonae, che pure ha sviluppato ceppi resistenti a tutti gli antibiotici fin qui conosciuti.
Gli studiosi hanno scoperto la sostanza ricercando i batteri nel suolo con un dispositivo, chiamato ichip capace di classificare i batteri raccogliendoli in singoli spazi separati, in seguito sono state testate 10.000 delle colonie batteriche ottenute per verificare se qualcuna di esse era in grado di arrestate la crescita del MRSA ed in tal modo sono state individuate 25 sostanze con proprietà antibiotiche, la più promettente delle quali è appunto il teixobactin: naturalmente, una volta valutata la efficacia antibiotica, è necessario testarne la tossicità.
Gli effetti collaterali tossici infatti sono ancora la prima fra e cause che impediscono di utilizzare un potenziale battericida come farmaco: nel caso nelle successive ricerche e verifiche la sostanza risultasse ben tollerata, si tratterebbe effettivamente dell'apertura di una seconda era antibiotica.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
IL procedimento del brevetto ENEA può risultare utilissimo in quest’applicazione.
G. Cotellessa
Revolution CT, il macchinario per la Tac ultraveloce
Il device, utilizzato in via sperimentale in Florida al West Kendall Baptist Hospital, è in grado di ridurre drasticamente le quantità di radiazioni per ogni scansione
GE Healthcare rivoluziona il modo di fare le Tac attraverso Revolution CT, un nuovo scanner superveloce. Il device, nato per rendere le visite mediche meno stressanti, è utilizzato in via sperimentale in Florida al West Kendall Baptist Hospital.
Revolution CT è in grado di catturare l'immagine dell’intero cuore con un singolo scatto attraverso una rotazione di circa 0,28 secondi.
Questa velocità, abbinata ad una migliore rilevazione del contrasto e ad una riduzione del rumore, è inoltre in grado di ridurre drasticamente le quantità di radiazioni per ogni scansione. GE tende a sottolineare che i passi avanti fatti con questa nuova tecnologia non compromettono in alcun modo la qualità delle immagini in 3D finali.
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Two Automakers Adding Pedestrian Detection
Using combinations of radar and optical sensing, pedestrian detection and collision-avoidance systems from automakers Ford and Honda warn drivers of pedestrians walking into the street in front of the vehicle, and (depending on model and circumstance) will brake or veer away. The two car-makers thus join selected Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and Suburu models — and all Volvos — which already offer this capability
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Detecting Pressure with Radio Waves
Already successful in wirelessly monitoring intracranial pressure inside the skull of laboratory mice, a newly developed prototype sensor detects pressure changes using a tiny rubber insulator sandwiched between two copper electrodes. As the video that accompanies this article shows, these components form part of an electronic resonant circuit where the fundamental frequency shifts in response to changes in distance between the electrodes.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Two Automakers Adding Pedestrian Detection
Using combinations of radar and optical sensing, pedestrian detection and collision-avoidance systems from automakers Ford and Honda warn drivers of pedestrians walking into the street in front of the vehicle, and (depending on model and circumstance) will brake or veer away. The two car-makers thus join selected Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and Suburu models — and all Volvos — which already offer this capability.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Engineered nanostructure transforms polarisation state of light
A single layer of metallic nanostructures has been designed, fabricated and tested by a team of Penn State University electrical engineers that can provide exceptional capabilities for manipulating light.
It is claimed that the engineered surface, which consists of a periodic array of strongly coupled nanorod resonators, could improve systems that perform optical characterisation in scientific devices, such as ellipsometers; sensing, such as biosensing of proteins; or satellite communications.
‘We have designed and fabricated a waveplate that can transform the polarisation state of light,’ said Zhi Hao Jiang, a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering and lead author of a paper describing the research in Scientific Reports. ‘Polarisation is one of the most fundamental properties of light. For instance, if we transform linearly polarised light into circularly polarised light, this could be useful in optical communication and biosensing.’
According to the Pennsylvanian university, optical waveplates with broadband polarisation conversion over a wide field of view are highly sought after. Conventional waveplates have difficulty achieving broadband and wide-angle conversion. Thin waveplates have been demonstrated, but their efficiency was low, with an average power efficiency of less than 50 per cent.
The Penn team’s nanofabricated waveplates are said to have achieved measured polarisation conversion rates higher than 92 per cent over more than an octave bandwidth with a wide field-of-view of around 40 degrees.
‘In this paper, we demonstrated with simulation and experiment both quarter-waveplate and half-waveplate metasurfaces, which are thin artificial surfaces that operate both in the visible spectrum as well as in the near infrared,’ said team member Jeremy Bossard in a statement. ‘It also has a wide field of view, which means that if you illuminate the surface from a wide range of angles, it would still give the same reflective performance.’
As a component in an optical setup, the nanostructured waveplate is claimed to offer a thinner form factor and reduced weight for space applications, a wider field of view, which can reduce the number of optical components in a system, and can achieve very wide broadband functionality in the visible to near infrared wavelength range.
This represents a new advance for optical meta-surface based devices and will enable other types of ultrathin highly efficient optical components, the authors said.
The paper published in Scientific Reports is titled ‘Broadband and Wide field-of-view Plasmonic Metasurface-enabled Waveplates.’ The work was supported by the US National Science Foundation through Penn State’s Center for Nanoscale Science.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Grid-connected Energy Storage
Energy storage is sometimes called the missing link in the electricity system. Seen as an essential technology to cope with the intermittency of renewables — storing the energy generated at times of low demand, and releasing it to the grid if generation can’t happen at peak demand — it also has utility to back up coal-fired generation, which is inefficient on start-up, and as a back-up for isolated communities which are vulnerable in extreme weather.
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Materials research aims for safety and integrity of new nuclear reactors and waste facilities
A £1m project at Huddersfield University aims to provide the nuclear power industry with the data it needs to produce future reactors and radioactive waste storage facilities that remain safe and reliable.
The University believes the three-year project will also help in addressing the UK’s shortage of nuclear scientists and engineers.
The University is home to the MIAMI (Microscope and Ion Accelerator for Materials Investigations) electron microscope facility. One of only two such facilities in Europe, MIAMI uses ion beams to simulate the effects of radiation damage on materials.
MIAMI was co-developed by Prof Stephen Donnelly, the Dean of the School of Computing and Engineering who is leading a Huddersfield University team in the project to investigate the damage caused by irradiation of materials used in the construction of reactors and for the long-term disposal of radioactive waste.
Particles such as neutrons can weaken and alter the physical dimensions of materials and a build-up of helium can result in them becoming brittle and likely to fracture. Prof Donnelly and Senior Research Fellow Dr Jonathan Hinks – also a member of the team that developed MIAMI – will lead a group that will investigate these issues with the help of funding worth £889,839 from EPSRC.
‘The project is about producing a base line of experimental evidence,’ Dr Hinks said in a statement.
Using electrons in the same way that a conventional microscope uses light, MIAMI enables researchers to see inside the ultra-thin samples of material and witness changes caused by irradiation, including the build up of gas bubbles.
According to the University, the amount of ion energy and temperatures can be varied during the experiments and the result will be a database of information about the effects of irradiation at the nanoscale that can then be scaled up by scientists and engineers selecting materials for reactors and for waste disposal.
The University further claims that findings of the project will be relevant to the Generation III+ reactors soon to be constructed in the UK. The materials for these have already been selected, said Dr Hinks, but regulatory authorities need constant updates on safety issues and the MIAMI data will enable engineers to predict how reactors will perform over time.
The research is also expected to make a contribution to the choice of materials for the Generation IV reactors due to come on stream from the 2030s onwards.
There are two strands to the EPSRC-backed project – structural nuclear materials, and nuclear waste storage. The MIAMI research group will be augmented by two post-doctoral researchers who are due to be appointed in early 2015.
‘Because there was a lack of investment in nuclear research and development in the 80s and 90s, the demographic of the people who work in the industry has shifted towards retirement age,’ Dr Hinks. ‘So there is a skill gap, particularly serious when you consider the expansion of the UK’s nuclear capacity that is now planned.’
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Chaotic cavity key to high-quality laser images
A new semiconductor laser developed at Yale University is claimed to have the potential to improve the imaging quality of next generation high-tech microscopes, laser projectors, holographs and biomedical imagery.
Based on a chaotic cavity laser, the technology is said to combine the brightness of traditional lasers with the lower image corruption of light emitting diodes (LEDs). The new laser is described in a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In a statement, co-author A. Douglas Stone, the Carl A. Morse Professor and chair of applied physics, and professor of physics said: ‘This chaotic cavity laser is a great example of basic research ultimately leading to a potentially important invention for the social good.
‘All of the foundational work was primarily motivated by a desire to understand certain classes of lasers - random and chaotic - with no known applications. Eventually, with input from other disciplines, we discovered that these lasers are uniquely suited for a wide class of problems in imaging and microscopy.’
One of those problems – dubbed ‘speckle’ - is a random, grainy pattern caused by high spatial coherence that can corrupt the formation of images when traditional lasers are used. A way to avoid such distortion is by using LED light sources, which are often not bright enough for high-speed imaging.
The new, electrically pumped semiconductor laser is said to offer a different approach by producing an intense emission with low spatial coherence.
‘For full-field imaging, the speckle contrast should be less than ~4 per cent to avoid any disturbance for human inspection,’ said Hui Cao, professor of applied physics and of physics, who is the paper’s corresponding author. ‘As we showed in the paper, the standard edge-emitting laser produced speckle contrast of ~50 per cent, while our laser has the speckle contrast of three per cent. So our new laser has completely eliminated the issue of coherent artefact for full-field imaging.’
Co-author Michael A. Choma, assistant professor of diagnostic radiology, paediatrics, and biomedical engineering, said laser speckle is a major barrier in the development of certain classes of clinical diagnostics that use light. ‘It is tremendously rewarding to work with a team of colleagues to develop speckle-free lasers,’ Choma said. ‘It also is exciting to think about the new kinds of clinical diagnostics we can develop.’
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Battery-powered train enters service
After a gap of more than 50 years, battery-powered train technology has returned to Britain’s rail network.
Between now and the middle of February the new vehicle, known as the Independently Powered Electric Multiple Unit (IPEMU), will run in a weekday timetable service between Harwich International and Manningtree stations in Essex.
Jointly developed by industry partners including train manufacturer Bombardier, train operating company Abellio Greater Anglia, and Network Rail the vehicle is effectively a modified version of the 379 Electrostar, the train type currently being used on a number of routes including the Stanstead Express.
As previously reported by The Engineer the train was adapted by Bombardier and fitted with lithium (iron magnesium) phosphate and hot sodium nickel salt batteries that underwent a series of lab tests before being fitted to the train. The train’s public debut follows trials in 2014 at test tracks in Derby and Leicestershire
According to Network Rail - which has pledged to reduce the network’s running costs by 20 per cent over the next five years - the project could ultimately lead to the development of a whole fleet of battery powered-trains that could help make Britain’s rail network quieter and more efficient.
Any future IPEMU would most likely be designed as a new train and not an adapted unit, to minimise energy consumption, but this project will also provide useful information for retrofit.
The network operator has also claimed that the technology could be used to bridge gaps between electrified parts of the network and branch line where installing overhead electrification is considered to be too expensive.
The new vehicle is also expected to lead to a noticeable improvement in passenger comfort. ‘Most travellers will recognise how quiet and smooth the ride is compared to a diesel-powered train’ claimed Network Rail principal engineer James Ambrose.
Battery locomotives have been used on railways for around 100 years, including in munitions factories during World War 1 to avoid the risk of explosion from sparks emitted by steam locomotives. However widespread adoption has – until now – been held back by battery technology.
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Taking the Measure of an Atom
Using two powerful techniques — synchrotron X-rays (SX) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) — a team from Argonne National Lab and Ohio University has simultaneously determined the chemical characterization and topography of nanoscale materials down to the height of a single atom. The work creates new opportunities for chemical imaging of nanoscale materials. Until now, a spatial limit of about only 10 nm was attainable; the researchers have improved the spatial resolution to 2 nm.
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Big Jolt for Rechargeable Batteries
A metal hydride that proved ineffective for hydrogen storage turns out to be a world beater as an ion conductor. That's what the NIST Center for Neutron Research found in researching a particular sodium-based, complex metal hydride, Na2B10H10, which could be a cheap but powerful substitute for lithium in rechargeable batteries. Heated to near water's boiling point, the hydride's atoms repack to create numerous corridors for sodium ion flow, vastly outperforming other complex hydrides.
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Rx for Sampling Headaches
If your samples tend to be very small, move very fast, or bleach very quickly, the ZEISS LSM 880 confocal microscope with Airyscan could be the solution. The instrument lets you select the optimal acquisition strategy for your sample, such as higher resolution, greater sensitivity, or faster image acquisition. One researcher in the food science field notes that the microscope "easily improves resolution along the viewing axis and permits optical sectioning of the sample."
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Capturing Ultrafast Protein Reactions
A microscopy innovation enabled Osaka University researchers to view protein reactions at the molecular level, giving new insights into formation of fibrils associated with Alzheimer's disease, reports Asian Scientist. Researchers previously tried to integrate a system for measuring affinity between proteins with fluorescent microscopy, but the metal coating on chips prevented optical penetration. Find out how shifting to a quartz-crystal microbalance clarified a protein reaction associated with Alzheimer's disease.
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Cheaper Way to Mimic Photosynthesis
A team from the Australian National University has created a protein which, when exposed to light, displays the electrical heartbeat found in photosynthesis, reports Engineering.com. The system uses a naturally-occurring protein — Ferritin — and does not need batteries or expensive metals, making the process affordable. A key breakthrough: removing the iron from Ferritin and replacing it with manganese to closely resemble the water-splitting site in photosynthesis.
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Teesside collective launches industrial CCS vision
A group of energy intensive firms based in the north east of England has unveiled plans to establish Europe’s first industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) zone in the region.
The so-called Teesside Collective, which includes BOC, Lotte Chemical UK, steel maker SSI UK and fertilizer manufacturer GrowHow, hopes to use CCS technology to capture emissions, plug them into a shared pipeline network and send them for permanent storage beneath the North Sea.
The group claims that as well as making a significant contribution to UK carbon emissions cuts, CCS in Teesside would help local firms deal with escalating carbon permit prices, and put the UK at the forefront of worldwide industrial CCS development.
According to Amec Foster Wheeler – which has this week outlined the initial findings of engineering work – retrofitting carbon capture technology to the four anchor projects’ different industrial processes - steel, ammonia, hydrogen and polyethylene terephthalate production – is operationally and technically feasible. The firm also notes that Teesside is well located for the transportation of the carbon to permanent storage facilities under the Central or Southern North Sea.
The collective has been awarded £1m by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change to develop a business case for the proposals that it hopes to present in summer 2015.
Commenting on the plans, Sir David King, the UK’s Special Representative for Climate Change said: ‘CCS on industrial plant is going to be a critical part of the global effort to prevent serious climate change. Teesside is in the right place, at the right time, to get ahead of the curve, insulating itself from future carbon costs and putting the UK on the map as the go to place for clean industrial investment.’
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Mobile Intelligence Off-Road
Areas inaccessible to humans nearly always demand vehicles that are maneuverable and can handle difficult terrain. Investigations of mining accidents, searching demolished sites, and mine detection all call for a high degree of power, reliability, and autonomy — all features of the new "Shrimp" rover vehicle.
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269 Sunken Turbines To Make Scotland Home To World’s Largest Tidal Farm
The world’s largest tidal energy project, capable of powering nearly 175,000 homes in the U.K. with 400 megawatts of power, will break ground in northeast Scotland. Atlantis, majority owner of the MeyGen project, announced that its flagship project had met all the conditions required to start drawing down finance through the U.K.’s Renewable Energy Investment Fund.
The completed project will have 269 sunken turbines, according to Atlantis, which expects to have about 60 of these installed and delivering power by 2020.
In the announcement to investors, Atlantis said: “The major construction and supply contractors to this iconic project have commenced design, engineering and procurement works in readiness for commencement of onshore construction at the project site in Caithness in January 2015.”
Tim Cornelius, Chief Executive Officer of Atlantis, said that Lockheed Martin’s project-specific 1.5 megawatt turbines were scheduled to be delivered on time for construction purposes. In November, the MeyGen project was awarded the first-ever Navigator Award at the International Conference on Ocean Energy, in recognition of the “project’s significant contribution to global marine renewable industry.”
Scotland is trying hard to harness all forms of renewable energy as part of its goal of generating 100 percent of its electricity demand from renewables by 2020. The wind-rich country is home to around a quarter of Europe’s total offshore wind capacity. In October, the Scottish Government approved four huge new offshore wind farms that could produce more than 2.2 gigawatts of power, enough to power 1.4 million homes.
Atlantis is also working on tidal energy projects off the coast of Canada. The firm was recently awarded a Feed-in Tariff for up to 4.5 megawatts of tidal generation to be deployed at the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) in Nova Scotia, Canada.
“We are delighted that the Nova Scotia Government has chosen to make this substantial award to Atlantis,” said Cornelius. “Having also reached financial close on the first phase of our MeyGen project in Scotland, we are building momentum on our projects around the world, realizing our goal of bringing cost-effective clean energy to market at commercial scale — on both sides of the Atlantic.”
However there are still many challenges ahead for the company and the tidal and wave power industries. Atlantis’ share price dipped on Friday, with the company saying it “knows of no trading or operational reason to warrant this change.”
The Scottish government is also struggling to support large wave energy companies, and has been accused of “pulling the rug” out from under at least two of these major companies as commercial success had yet to materialize.
In the wake of these recent wave power failings, Brian Wilson, U.K. energy minister between 2001 and 2003, wrote that “we should not give up on marine renewables” even if they are oversold to the public and overhyped for their benefits, making them almost guaranteed to disappoint.
“The same problems and challenges exist around the world. But for heaven’s sake, spare us the political hype and downright deceptions. If these technologies are ever going to deliver anything, it will be on the basis of technology — not the spin of politicians.”
DA DR. COTELLESSA
ARRIVANO GLI OCCHIALI PER I NON VEDENTI, DOTATI
DI SATELLITARE SARANNO PRONTI PER IL 2020
Un paio di occhiali con antenna satellitare che consentiranno ai non vedenti di poter camminare e girare per le città senza altri aiuti.
È la novità introdotta dal sistema operativo satellitare Galileo resa possibile grazie al lancio di trenta satelliti entro il 2020.
Il nuovo sistema è decisamente rivoluzionario e potrà essere utilizzato anche in altri modo, come ad esempio nel settore della pesca ma anche in quello della protezione.
Il nuovo sistema per ipovedenti e non vedenti è stato già sperimentato con successo a Londra. Nel caso in cui dovesse diventare realtà potrebbe significare una svolta.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Kevlar is key to fire-preventing lithium ion battery membrane
New battery technology should prevent the incidents that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013, claim researchers at the University of Michigan.
The University said the innovation is an advanced barrier between the electrodes in a lithium-ion battery. Made with nanofibres extracted from Kevlar the barrier is said to stifle the growth of metal tendrils that can become unwanted pathways for electrical current.
A U-M team of researchers also founded Ann Arbor-based Elegus Technologies to bring this research from the lab to market. Mass production is expected to begin in the fourth quarter 2016.
‘Unlike other ultra strong materials such as carbon nanotubes, Kevlar is an insulator,’ said Nicholas Kotov, the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Engineering. ‘This property is perfect for separators that need to prevent shorting between two electrodes.’
Lithium-ion batteries work by shuttling lithium ions from one electrode to the other. This creates a charge imbalance, and since electrons can’t go through the membrane between the electrodes, they go through a circuit instead.
However, if the holes in the membrane are too big, the lithium atoms can build themselves into dendrites, which are fern-like structures that eventually push through the membrane. If they reach the other electrode, the electrons have a path within the battery, shorting out the circuit. This is how the battery fires on the Boeing 787 are thought to have started.
‘The fern shape is particularly difficult to stop because of its nanoscale tip,’ said Siu On Tung, a graduate student in Kotov’s lab, as well as chief technology officer at Elegus. ‘It was very important that the fibres formed smaller pores than the tip size.’
While the widths of pores in other membranes are a few hundred nanometres, the pores in the membrane developed at U-M are 15-to-20 nanometres across. They are large enough to let individual lithium ions pass, but small enough to block the 20-to-50-nanometer tips of the fern-structures.
The researchers made the membrane by layering the fibres on top of each other in thin sheets. This method keeps the chain-like molecules in the plastic stretched out, which is important for good lithium-ion conductivity between the electrodes, Tung said in a statement.
‘The special feature of this material is we can make it very thin, so we can get more energy into the same battery cell size, or we can shrink the cell size,’ said Dan VanderLey, an engineer who helped found Elegus through U-M’s Master of Entrepreneurship program. ‘We’ve seen a lot of interest from people looking to make thinner products.’
Thirty companies have requested samples of the material.
Kevlar’s heat resistance could also lead to safer batteries as the membrane stands a better chance of surviving a fire than most membranes currently in use.
While the team is satisfied with the membrane’s ability to block the lithium dendrites, they are currently looking for ways to improve the flow of loose lithium ions so that batteries can charge and release their energy more quickly.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Petrol-electric hybrid aircraft is first to charge in-flight
A hybrid power aircraft has been successfully tested in the UK in an important step towards cleaner low-carbon air travel.
The aircraft, developed by researchers from Cambridge University with funding support from Boeing, is powered by a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system where an electric motor and petrol engine work together to drive the propeller.
It uses up to 30 per cent less fuel than a comparable plane with a petrol-only engine, and is also able to recharge its batteries in flight, the first time this has been achieved.
Source: Cambridge University Dept of Engineering
An aircraft with a parallel hybrid engine – the first ever to be able to recharge its batteries in flight – has been successfully tested in the UK, an important early step towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel
Until recently, although such hybrid systems were suitable for cars, the technology could not be transferred into the aviation sector as the batteries required were too heavy and had insufficient capacity. However, the development of improved lithium-polymer batteries has made hybrid planes a possibility.
The current demonstrator is a commercially available single-seat aircraft, which uses a combination of a four-stroke piston engine and an electric motor and generator coupled through the same drive pulley to spin the propeller.
During take off and climb, when maximum power is required, the engine and motor work together to power the plane. Once cruising height is reached, the electric motor can be switched into generator mode to recharge the batteries or used in motor assist mode to minimise fuel consumption.
A power electronics module designed and built by the Cambridge team controls the electrical current to and from the batteries - a set of 16 large lithium-polymer cells located in special compartments built into the wings.
Although development of such as system for airliners is some way off, the technology has other uses.
’We are looking at downscaling the hybrid system for UAVs which, aside from any military uses, would be applicable to surveying and search and rescue applications where endurance is important,’ said Dr Paul Robertson of Cambridge’s department of engineering, who led the project. ‘Also, we are looking to upscale to larger aircraft in our simulation work to see what benefits the technology might offer - although airliner scale systems are still some decades away yet.’
Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/petrol-electric-hybrid-aircraft-is-first-to-charge-in-flight/1019786.article#ixzz3Q6bCsA7U
DA DR. COTELLESSA
New Approach Makes X-ray Imaging Portable
Researchers have developed an X-ray image sensor fabricated with an innovative electronics printing technique. In contrast to costly, time-consuming conventional semiconductor fabrication processes, the new technique directly deposits metallic or semiconductor patterns, similar to how a printer deposits ink patterns. In this technology demonstration, the research team printed X-ray image sensing arrays onto plastic films, making them not only flexible, but much more portable than conventionally fabricated sensors.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Southampton scanning system will detect composite aircraft flaws
Innovate UK has provided funding for a project to develop imaging technology used in the design, manufacture and maintenance of current and future carbon composite aircraft.
Led by Qinetiq, the UK consortium of Southampton University and University College London (UCL) and four companies in ProjectCAN brings together experts from academia, the aerospace industry and X-ray inspection equipment manufacture.
As part of the government’s Aerospace Technology Institute, Innovate UK has provided the team with funding to develop two new non-destructive testing processes for the detection of flaws in composite aerospace components.
According to a statement, Southampton University’s µ-VIS Centre for Computed Tomography is host to one part of this three-year project. Together with Nikon Metrology UK, it aims to develop and test methods for scanning and visualising the insides of large, flat components using X-rays. The partners will develop the system for acquiring scan data and software to reconstruct it into a 3D volume image, allowing manipulation and visualisation using standard software.
‘Conventional computed tomography (CT) techniques are widely used but are not well suited to image extended flat objects,’ said Dr Thomas Blumensath of Southampton University. ‘We will be developing an alternative technique, which applies computed laminography (CL) techniques, to overcome the limitations of conventional CT for large, flat components. This will enhance our ability to find defects in large composite parts, such as those which are increasingly used in modern aircraft.
‘This will ultimately help in the production and maintenance processes and will assist in the development of more environmentally-friendly aeroplanes, as well as enhanced overall aircraft safety.’
According to Southampton University, traditional CT requires the scanned components to be fully rotated, and will yield optimal results only when the X-ray attenuation for each angle is broadly similar. It is impossible to scan very large parts due to space restrictions; when scanning smaller flat panels, the variation of attenuation across the angles can become too large for optimal imaging. CL systems use a different motion, such as linear translation or limited-angle rotation, to scan components where CT is impossible or ill suited.
A laminography system comprises the hardware that positions the sample, source and detector to acquire 2D projection data, as well as an algorithm to reconstruct a 3D volume image from the data. ProjectCAN will develop both this hardware and software to allow laminographic imaging within the custom Nikon Metrology 225/450kV X-ray scanner already in service in the µ-VIS centre at Southampton.
In parallel with the work at Southampton University and Nikon Metrology, the team at Axi-Tek and UCL will be developing a new backscatter x-ray inspection technique to non-destructively inspect large area composite structures such as wing sections, engine cowlings and fuselage components.
Backscatter allows the x-ray investigation of the structural integrity of composite materials from a single side of the component, that is, the x-rays do not have to pass through and out the other side of the component. To enhance this technique, the team also intend to combine the backscatter x-ray with more conventional optical surface inspection.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il procedimento del brevetto ENEA RM2012A000637 sarà utilissimo per la creazione di un occhio artificiale se integrata nella seguente applicazione.
OrCam, gli occhiali con processore Freescale che aiutano gli ipovedenti
Chissà se anche i Google Glass saranno dotati di questa funzionalità. Per il momento è una startup israeliana ad aver messo a punto l’applicazione che aiuta le persone ipovedenti ad interagire più facilmente con il mondo che li circonda.
La soluzione OrCam è composta da una minuscola telecamera da fissare alla montatura degli occhiali collegata con un piccolo box dove è inserito il resto dell’elettronica.
Il compatto sistema utilizza sofisticati algoritmi di computer vision gestiti da un processore ad alte prestazioni ed elevata efficienza energetica, il modello i.MX 6Quad di Freescale che interpreta gli input visivi e comunica il loro significato in tempo reale alla persona che indossa il dispositivo.
Il processore i.MX 6Quad di Freescale è l’ideale per questa applicazione in quanto dispone di un’interfaccia video integrata, una potenza di elaborazione adeguata ad eseguire in tempo reale sofisticati algoritmi ed un bassissimo consumo energetico indispensabile in applicazioni portatili come questa. Inoltre, grazie alle ridotte dimensioni ed alla necessità di pochissimi componenti esterni, consente una miniaturizzazione spinta del dispositivo.
“Il processore i.MX 6Quad presenta prestazioni eccezionali che combinate col bassissimo consumo energetico consentono di progettare sofisticate soluzioni portatili come questa che permette alle persone con disabilità visiva di interagire con l’ambiente circostante” ha affermato Amnon Shashua, co-fondatore di OrCam e professore di informatica presso la Hebrew University di Gerusalemme. “OrCam è in grado di aiutare le persone con scarsa capacità visiva migliorando notevolmente la qualità della loro vita”.
Il sistema OrCam comprende anche un microfono e un altoparlante a conduzione ossea: chi lo indossa punta semplicemente ad un oggetto o al testo scritto e il dispositivo interpreta l’immagine e fornisce una interpretazione vocale.
Il processore Freescale i.MX 6Quad integra quattro core ARM Cortex-A9 che lavorano fino a 1,2 GHz offrendo le prestazioni necessarie per gestire ed elaborare le enormi quantità di dati acquisiti dalla telecamera di OrCam.
Un singolo chip permette l’esecuzione di tutti gli algoritmi di elaborazione e della codifica vocale; gli algoritmi di computer vision permettono ad OrCam di riconoscere una vasta gamma di immagini, dalle facce degli amici ai testi di giornali e libri, dai cartelli stradali agli oggetti di uso quotidiano.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Buckyball insulation additive reduces electricity transmission losses.
Future power grids could be made far more efficient by adding nanometre-sized carbon balls to the insulation plastic used in high-voltage alternative current cables.
Researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology have discovered that adding these carbon balls – or fullerenes - provide protection against breakdown of the insulation plastic caused by leaking electrons.
They can handle a 26 per cent higher voltage, meaning less power is lost when transporting electricity from remote generation locations such as offshore wind farms to the consumer. Currently, the voltage in the cables has to be limited to prevent the insulation layer from getting damaged.
‘Reducing energy losses during electric power transmission is one of the most important factors for the energy systems of the future,’ said Chalmers researcher Christian Müller. ‘Being able to increase the voltage to this extent would result in enormous efficiency gains in power transmission all over the world. A major issue in the industry is how transmission efficiency can be improved without making the power cables thicker, since they are already very heavy and difficult to handle. The cost of C60 is currently about €15 per gram. But this will come down substantially with increasing demand.’
The breakthrough will help renewable energy generation - such as sea-based wind farms - contribute more to the grid. It could also allow solar power to be transported to Europe from North Africa and from Southern Europe to Northern Europe.
The cables will now be tested on a large scale in high-voltage cables for alternating current. The researchers will also test the method in high-voltage cables for direct current as it is more efficient than alternating current over very long distances.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Graphene has potential in fuel cells and armour
More potential uses for the carbon monolayer graphene have been described, but manufacturing the material continues to be a stumbling block
Graphene, it seems, has great potential as a material for armour, but it isn’t impenetrable, according to two strands of new research. It lets protons pass through; making it a promising material to improve the efficiency of fuel cells.
In paper co-authored by graphene discoverer André Geim, published in the journal Nature, a team at the University on Manchester describes how a sheet of grapheme could act as a perfect membrane in a fuel cell, separating allowing protons to flow inside the cell while electrons form a current in a circuit outside the cell. Current membranes allow hydrogen atoms to leak through in the opposite direction, which reduces the proton flow and thereby cuts the current the cell can generate.
The technique is not simple, though. It’s still largely theoretical, as it depends on being able to make graphene in sufficiently large and clean sheets: something which is currently not possible.
Another Nature paper, from Rice University in Houston, Texas, describes how graphene layers can disperse the impact force of silica spheres — the first time such impact tests have been described. The force dispersion works because graphene ‘ripples’ when struck, the team says, and the speed at which a ripple can spread through a material defines how much force it can disperse. The upper limit is the speed of sound in the material, and in graphene, this is 22km/sec —around 65 times as fast as sound can travel in air. This would make it a good candidate as a material for a composite ballistic armour, says paper co-authour Edwin Thomas.
Although promising, this application has the same drawback as the fuel cell use -
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Graphene used to deliver anticancer drugs
An international team of researchers has developed a drug delivery technique that utilises graphene strips to deliver two anticancer drugs sequentially to cancer cells.
The development, made by researchers at North Carolina State University (NC State), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and China Pharmaceutical University (CPU), reportedly sees each drug targeting the distinct part of the cell where it will be most effective.
According to NC State, the technique was found to perform better than either drug in isolation when tested in a mouse model targeting a human lung cancer tumour.
The researchers also found that an anticancer protein, TRAIL, can serve as an active targeting molecule to bind directly to the surface of cancer cells, which had not been demonstrated previously.
In this study, the researchers attached two drugs - TRAIL and doxorubicin (Dox) - onto graphene strips. Graphene is a two-dimensional sheet of carbon that is only one atom thick. Because TRAIL is most effective when delivered to the external membrane of a cancer cell, while Dox is most effective when delivered to the nucleus, the researchers wanted to deliver the drugs sequentially, with each drug hitting a cancer cell where it will do the most damage.
The Dox is physically bound to the graphene due to similarities in the molecular structure of the drug and the graphene. The TRAIL is bound to the surface of the graphene by a chain of amino acids called peptides.
‘These drug-rich graphene strips are introduced into the bloodstream in solution, and then travel through the bloodstream like nanoscale flying carpets,’ said Dr. Zhen Gu, senior author of a paper describing the work and an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Once in the bloodstream, the graphene strips take advantage of the fact that cancer tumours cause nearby blood vessels to leak by using those leaks to penetrate into the tumour.
When the graphene strips come into contact with a cancer cell, receptors on the surface of the cell latch onto the TRAIL. Meanwhile, enzymes that are common on the surface of cancer cells sever the peptides linking the TRAIL and the graphene. This allows the cell to absorb the Dox-laden graphene and leaves the TRAIL on the surface, where it begins a process to trigger cell death.
After the cell takes up the graphene strip, the acidic environment inside the cell promotes the separation of the Dox from the graphene, thereby freeing it to attack the nucleus.
‘We’ve demonstrated that TRAIL itself can be used to attach a drug delivery system to a cancer cell, without using intervening material - which is something we didn’t know,’ Gu said in a statement. ‘And because graphene has a large surface area, this technique enhances our ability to apply TRAIL to its target on cancer cell membranes.’
The researchers tested the drug delivery technique in preclinical trials against human lung cancer tumours (cell line A549) in laboratory mice. The technique was said to be significantly more effective than Dox or TRAIL by themselves, or to a combination of Dox and TRAIL in which the peptide link between the graphene and the TRAIL couldn’t be severed.
‘We’re now trying to secure funding to support additional preclinical studies in order to determine how best to proceed with this new technique,’ Gu said.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
A new generation of semi-transparent, flexible and more efficient electronics could be on the way, thanks to research carried out at the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield.
Scientists there have made use of graphene’s unique properties to fashion new 2D designer materials that could be utilised to create light emitting devices for the next-generation of mobile phones, tablets and televisions that are incredibly thin as well as flexible, durable and even semi-transparent.
The team was led by Sir Kostya Novoselov, joint winner for the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics for ground-breaking experiments with graphene, and the breakthrough was made by creating LEDs that were engineered on an atomic level, constructing them by combining 2D crystals made from varying materials.
Being so thin, at only 10-40 atoms thick, the new components are capable of forming the basis for the first generation of semi-transparent smart devices, which emit light from across their whole surface. The components could be used to build heterostructures – stacked layers of various 2D materials – to create new possibilities for graphene-based optoelectronics, tailoring the devices’ capabilities by varying the materials used to make them. They could also be used to introduce new types of quantum wells to control the movement of electrons.
Novoselov said: ‘By preparing the heterostructures on elastic and transparent substrates, we show that they can provide the basis for flexible and semi-transparent electronics.
‘The range of functionalities for the demonstrated heterostructures is expected to grow further on increasing the number of available 2D crystals and improving their electronic quality.
‘The proof of principal has been demonstrated and the device worked nicely but there is still a long way to go. The LED comprises less than 10 atomic layers and is very flexible and bendable, and is semi transparent as it is so thin. It could one day be used for any applications requiring flexible, semi transparent lighting, whether this was a display or a regular light.
‘The technology is so different from the LED technology used today - it allows the inclusion of other elements into the LED by adding extra layers, and you could also put a logic circuit in this. I expect that the first application will be something unusual; a multifunctional device rather than a mobile phone screen.’
According to the research team, the LED structures are robust and have shown no significant change in performance over many weeks of measurements, while the quantum efficiency - the number of photons emitted per electron injected - is already comparable to that of organic LEDs. The technology builds on the discovery of one-atom thick graphene, which was first isolated and explored in 2004 at Manchester University.
‘There are three different directions to take with our next step,’ Novoselev explained. ‘We can combine more types of different materials to create more complex quantum wells, and we can explore the use of other materials so that the pool of materials used to make the heterostructures is bigger. The latter could possibly increase the efficiency of the devices or explore how we can change the colour they display. Finally, we will be looking at how to mass-produce the devices.’
At present, the researchers are not working with a commercial partner. However, they hope that - as with the case of previous developments around transistors and diodes in this field - industrial partners will soon show an interest in the work.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Drug-delivery pioneer wins Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
The second Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has been awarded to the American chemical engineer and drug-delivery pioneer Prof Robert Langer.
The prize, designed as the ‘Nobel prize for engineering’ and a way to promote the profession, went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor for his work developing a wide range of medical innovations using material science.
Arguably his most notable achievement was the use of polymer capsules to slowly deliver large-molecule drugs inside the body over a long period of time, but Langer has also developed artificial skin and, more recently, wirelessly controlled electronic drug implants.
Langer was selected for the extent to which his engineering has impacted people’s lives, said Lord Browne, former BP chief executive and chair of trustees for the QE Prize.
‘He is an extraordinarily talented engineer with incredible determination and vision whose work has transformed the lives of billions of people across the globe,’ said Browne, speaking at the announcement ceremony at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.
Langer’s key innovation in drug delivery was to design polymer microspheres that would slowly release large molecules, which can be tailored to attack specific cells in order to treat conditions like cancer, mental illness and diabetes, but which can be damaged by the body’s internal environment making them unsuitable for administration through conventional means.
His polymer design created long, winding water-filled channels through which the large molecules gradually pass, meaning they are released slowly over a period as long as five years without being destroyed.
‘Robert Langer took the guesswork out of designing controlled drug delivery systems, using his profound knowledge of chemical engineering, chemistry, biology and polymer science,’ said QE Prize judge and Cambridge University’s professor of chemical engineering, Lynn Gladden.
‘There was originally great doubt that a polymer delivery system would be able to deliver the macromolecules required for various medical treatments, but he challenged that thinking and produced a methodology that is now the foundation of much of today’s drug delivery technology.’
Langer’s later work includes synthetic polymers that deliver cells to form specific tissue structures and form a kind of artificial skin. This technology has since been adapted to repair cartilage and spinal cord tissue.
More recently, he has developed a wirelessly controlled microchip-based implant capable of storing and releasing precise doses of a drug, either on demand or over scheduled intervals for up to 16 years.
‘Obvious choice’
QE Prize judge and the Royal Society’s recently-appointed professor for public engagement in science, Brian Cox, said Langer was the almost-obvious choice because of the nature of his work.
‘What I found unique about this is it’s something that has demonstrably already changed people’s lives, and will change billions more lives in the future. There was a whole new area of research opened up by Bob Langer’s work.
‘But also what struck me personally was the list, many tens if not hundreds of engineers who supported this nomination, who said I’m in engineering because I was given inspirational teaching by Robert Langer.’
Langer has also founded numerous companies to commercialise his innovations and, with over 1,000 patents and 1,300 published articles to his name, he is reportedly the most cited engineering researcher in history.
The biannual QE Prize was created in 2013 as a way to celebrate engineering, promote the profession to young people and highlight Britain’s pre-eminence in the field. The first prize was jointly awarded to five pioneers of the internet including the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
ENEA, CON L'EOLICO D'ALTA QUOTA PIU' ENERGIA A COSTI MINORI
"Lo sfruttamento dell'energia eolica sopra i 500 metri di altezza sembra promettente: il vento d'alta quota, forte e costante, permetterebbe di ottenere un 33% di energia in piu', riducendo il costo dell'energia da fonte eolica E' quanto ha evidenziato il responsabile del settore eolico dell'Enea, Giacomo Arsuffi nell'audizione in commissione Attivita' Produttive della Camera ne corso delal quale, afferma una nota, ha fatto il punto sullo stato dell'arte della tecnologia per sfruttare l'energia eolica ad alta quota, sopra i 500 metri di altezza, 'estraendola' dal vento troposferico. Attualmente l'energia eolica viene prodotta ad una quota non superiore ai 200 metri. "Lo sfruttamento del vento troposferico - ha aggiunto - sembra promettente perché il vento d’alta quota e' piu' forte e costante e un incremento del 10% della velocita' del vento permette di ottenere un 33% di energia in piu', riducendo il costo dell'energia da fonte eolica, fino quasi a un terzo del costo per MWh degli impianti eolici a torre. Le tecnologie per lo sfruttamento del vento troposferico - ha concluso - sono attualmente nella fase dimostrativa e hanno bisogno di essere supportate con investimenti economici per arrivare sul mercato".
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Swansea tidal energy project recieves funding boost
The Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon has full equity funding following a decision by InfraRed Capital Partners to commit up to £100m into the £1bn project.
Led by Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd, the project is expected to generate around 500GWh of electricity every year for 120 years, helping to save more than 236,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
Furthermore, the project establishes a scalable blueprint for a total of six UK lagoons that could between them provide eight per cent of the UK’s electricity.
The tidal power station is scheduled to reach financial close in the summer with construction scheduled to begin immediately after, creating almost 2,000 jobs.
InfraRed, the a global investment manager focused on infrastructure and real estate, will make the investment from existing funds.
In a statement, Werner von Guionneau, chief executive, InfraRed Capital Partners, said: ‘We are proud to be playing a key role in securing the future of this world-leading renewable energy project.
‘The power station is unique in that it not only leverages the estuary’s second highest tidal range in the world but it will also make a material contribution towards both the local economy in South Wales and the long term stability of sustainable energy supply in the UK.’
Tidal lagoons use tidal range technology that relies on the gravity-driven flow of water from one level to another to power a generator, rather than the currents that driven tidal stream turbines.
The Swansea Bay plant would be the first powered by both incoming and outgoing tides. Water would flow out of the lagoon as the level of the water outside dropped and back in once the tidal level rose again.
Tidal lagoons use tidal range technology that relies on the gravity-driven flow of water from one level to another to power a generator, rather than the currents that driven tidal stream turbines.
The Swansea Bay plant would be the first powered by both incoming and outgoing tides. Water would flow out of the lagoon as the level of the water outside dropped and back in once the tidal level rose again.
‘You can make turbines run efficiently when it flows in a certain way and normally they optimise the turbines on the outgoing tide,’ Fijen told The Engineer. ‘But to make them also run efficiently the other way round has not really been done before.
‘We do that by changing the angle on the turbine propellers so that when the tide runs one way it has one angle and when it runs the other way you change the angle of the blades so that it also runs relatively efficiently – not as efficiently but good enough.’
The development will comprise a sand core seawall and hydro turbines mounted in a concrete turbine housing. This seawall will use sandy materials sourced from the seabed within the lagoon, hydraulically filled into long geotextile casings 5m in diameter, and covered with small rocks and then larger rock armour to protect it from environmental damage.
The investigation work, which will be conducted by contractor Environmental Scientifics Group, will provide information about the seabed surface that will enable TLP to optimise its designs for the 20m by 80m walls needed to create the lagoon.
The company has already selected the preferred shape of the lagoon from 14 proposed designs but estimates the plans will take until 2015 to finalise before construction can begin – providing it can raise the £10m needed through its current public investment round.
Plans to harness tidal energy in the Severn Estuary where Swansea Bay is located have been discussed for years, mainly focused on a barrage across the entire estuary. But Fijen said the much smaller lagoon project would bring the level of commitment and financial resource needed to make such plans a reality.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
L’ENEA brevetta materiale ceramico innovativo per protesi dentarie
L'ENEA ha brevettato un materiale ceramico dalle elevate proprietà meccaniche - durezza, tenacità, resistenza alla frattura e biocompatibilità - e particolari caratteristiche estetiche a base di zirconia, allumina e cromia. L’utilizzo dell'ossido di cromo aggiunge inoltre una colorazione rosa particolarmente richiesta per le parti delle protesi dentali inserite nell’osso, come viti e corone, normalmente realizzate in titanio.
I materiali ceramici brevettati dall’ENEA, rispetto ai materiali ceramici comunemente usati, presentano nel complesso delle caratteristiche meccaniche migliorate in un settore in cui il valore estetico è considerato un valore aggiunto: il nuovo composto ceramico può sia assumere la colorazione rosa, sia quella bianca/avorio per la realizzazione di corone e presenta elevata resistenza idrotermica (resistenza all'attacco dell'umidità alla temperatura del corpo umano) . Dai risultati di laboratorio in vivo e in vitro questo nuovo composto ceramico risulta non essere cancerogeno ed altamente biocompatibile.
La ricerca sui materiali per protesi risale a molti anni addietro quando Enea, per il settore della ricerca sui materiali altamente innovativi, è stato coinvolto, fin dal V programma quadro, in progetti relativi a protesi ortopediche, con particolare attenzione a quelle per le caviglie. Ma le richieste maggiori arrivano dal mercato dei componenti protesici dentali perché si richiedono sempre di più elementi strutturalmente performanti e tali da evitare gli inestetismi tipici delle attuali protesi, quali ad esempio quelli causati dall’ossidazione. Nell’industria delle protesi dentarie è, quindi, sentita l’esigenza di disporre di un materiale in grado di garantire queste proprietà.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
LED INTELLIGENTI
“L'ENEA è assolutamente favorevole all'introduzione dei led ed è impegnata con convinzione in questa direzione; infatti, nei nostri laboratori di Ispra stiamo testando a un led molto innovativo, basato su un sistema intelligente di controllo del flusso di luce. Tuttavia, ad oggi, vi sono problematiche tecniche, normative, di sicurezza e di benessere dei consumatori tali da non consentire la piena sostituzione in tutte le applicazioni domestiche entro il 2015. Da qui il nostro parere tecnico che il Ministero dello sviluppo ha fatto proprio”. Questa la risposta data da ENEA a un articolo di Repubblica.it che accusava il governo italiano, insieme a quello tedesco, di frenare l'introduzione dei led sulla base di un parere ENEA. Secondo ENEA, fra le criticità da segnalare rispetto alla completa messa al bando delle attuali lampadine è che, ad oggi, le lampade a LED in vendita arrivano solo a fino a 75 W e non oltre. La quantità di luce emessa, a parità di lampadina, è quindi molto inferiore in termini di adeguato comfort visivo. Inoltre vi sono problemi di sicurezza, legati al peso dei dispositivi anti-surriscaldamento e criticità a livello tecnologico (ad esempio la regolazione dell'intensità della luce) e di elevati costi.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Micro imprinting and electrospinning techniques have been employed to develop a vascular graft composed of three layers for the first time.
The breakthrough, made by researchers at Shanghai University’s Rapid Manufacturing Engineering Center, has allowed researchers to utilise separate materials that possess mechanical strength and promote new cell growth, a problem for existing vascular grafts that have consisted of a single or double layer.
Vascular grafts are surgically attached to an obstructed or otherwise unhealthy blood vessel to permanently redirect blood flow, such as in coronary bypass surgery. Traditional grafts work by repurposing existing vessels from the patient’s body or from a suitable donor.
Tissue engineering vascular graft can be used for treating stenotic vessels
However, these sources are often insufficient for a patient’s needs because of the limited supply in a patient’s body, and may be afflicted by the same underlying conditions that necessitate the graft in the first place.
Accordingly, there has been a great deal of research towards developing synthetic vessels that can mimic natural ones, allowing new cells to grow around them and then degrade away, thereby creating new vessels.
‘The composite vascular grafts could be better candidates for blood vessel repair,’ said Yuanyuan Liu, an associate professor at the Rapid Manufacturing Engineering Center. Liu and her team describe their current research in the AIP Advances.
According to the American Institute of Physics, surrogate scaffolds usually need to mimic the natural vasculature of their targeted tissue as much as possible. For blood vessel surrogates, this structural mimicry can be fabricated by electrospinning, a process which uses an electrical charge to draw liquid inputs, in this case a mixture of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol – into incredibly fine fibres.
Electrospinning also allows for a high surface-to-volume ratio of Nano fibres, providing ample space for host cells to grow and connect. These components all naturally degrade within six months to a year, leaving behind a new, intact blood vessel.
The resulting structure, however, isn’t very rigid so to compensate for this, the researchers are said to have designed a three-layer model, in which the mixture was electrospun onto both sides of a microimprinted middle layer of poly-p-dioxanone, a biodegradable polymer commonly used in biomedical applications. The ends of this sheet were then folded and attached to make a tube-like vessel.
Liu and her team then seeded the scaffold with rat fibroblast cells to test the scaffold’s efficacy in promoting cellular expansion and integration. The researchers found that the cells on these composite scaffolds proliferated quickly, likely due to the functional amino and hydroxyl groups introduced by the chitosan.
While work remains before the prospect of human trials, Liu and her group are optimistic about the future of their research. Their next project is to test the implants in an animal model, to observe the structure’s efficacy with live vascular cells.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Propulsion breakthrough could improve flight comfort
Shorter take-offs and landings for aircraft, and better manoeuvreabilty for UAVs are just two of the possible benefits of an EU-supported breakthrough in propulsion technology.
The vector thrust system developed by the ACHEON project is capable of directing the flow and pressure output of an aircraft engine to control its direction using a special nozzle that does not require additional mechanical moving parts, thus overcoming the main limitations of traditional vector thrust technologies, which are both complex and costly.
The project involved six universities and two research organisations from across the EU, including a team at Lincoln University’s school of engineering, which was responsible for evaluating the technology and its potential integration within aircraft. The research was funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, which supports projects starting from academia that have promising potential industrial applications.
The nozzle’s design is based on two technologies; the HOMER nozzle concept by University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, and PEACE - Plasma Enhanced Actuator for Coanda Effect - that enhances the effects of the nozzle, created by University of Beira Interior, Portugal.
The Lincoln team evaluated the technology for a number of potential applications, including an umanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) military type application and both a large and small passenger transport aircraft.
As well as looking at the aerospace sector, the team is now evaluating how the nozzle technology could be used in other industrial applications, such as in the agricultural sector, where this could help farmers develop closer control of the areas sprayed with weedkiller. It could also be used to develop more accurate printing processes.
The consortium is hoping to continue the project with the development of a fully functional flying prototype, with help from their partners the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, Nimbus SRL and Italy’s Reggio Emilia Innovazione.
‘We have proved the concept, but the technology now needs to be refined,’ said Tim Smith, senior research fellow at the University of Lincoln. ‘We are most likely to do some more work with UAVs when it comes to building a demonstrator, as the increased manoeuvrability the system provides is very attractive here.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
L’Enea ricava etanolo e idrogeno dagli scarti del biodiesel
L’Enea ha messo a punto un procedimento per ricavare etanolo e idrogeno, due prodotti ad alto valore aggiunto per l’industria, dagli scarti di produzione del biodiesel, un biocombustibile analogo al gasolio derivato dal petrolio. L’aumento della produzione mondiale di biodiesel, ottenuto da oli vegetali e grassi animali, ha comportato un notevole accumulo del sottoprodotto derivato dalla lavorazione, il glicerolo grezzo (oltre un quintale per ogni tonnellata di biodiesel), di cui non si può fare un utilizzo diretto per i vari contaminanti che contiene. Poiché la purificazione chimica del glicerolo grezzo può venire a costare più di quanto sia possibile guadagnare dalla sua vendita, l’industria italiana del biodiesel ha preferito finora bruciare il glicerolo grezzo prodotto, piuttosto che venderlo alle industrie che ne fanno uso (principalmente farmaceutiche, cosmetiche e di integratori alimentari). Grazie all’efficienza e al basso costo del nuovo procedimento di fermentazione messo a punto dall’Enea, è ora invece possibile convertire il glicerolo grezzo in bioetanolo ed idrogeno (500 kg e 200m3 rispettivamente, per ogni tonnellata di glicerolo grezzo), da vendere sul mercato come prodotto a sè stante o da miscelare al biodiesel per migliorarne le prestazioni. L’utilizzo del glicerolo grezzo per la produzione di biocarburanti ha il notevole vantaggio di godere di importanti incentivi europei per la produzione dei cosiddetti “biocarburanti di seconda generazione”, vale a dire i biocarburanti prodotti da rifiuti e sottoprodotti, invece che da colture alimentari (ad esempio mais e colza). L’idrogeno prodotto può essere impiegato per il riscaldamento del fermentatore e il mantenimento del processo di trasformazione del glicerolo grezzo.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Liquid logic: Peter Dearman, inventor of the liquid-air engine
Peter Dearman has spent almost his entire adult life considering the possibilities of an engine that runs on liquid nitrogen.
Racing cars, self-driving vehicles and even military trucks are all relatively common sights at the Mira proving ground. But since the end of last year, the test facility in Warwickshire has seen a vehicle that’s far more ordinary and yet virtually unique: a refrigeration truck in which diesel fuel is replaced by liquid nitrogen. If road trials due to start in March are successful, the model could pave the way for a new form of zero-emission automotive propulsion.
The man behind the concept is Peter Dearman. A self-taught engineer in the grand British tradition of the garden-shed inventor, he is overseeing a new kind of engine that he has spent almost his entire adult life thinking about: one that runs on liquid nitrogen and, he thinks, could be an alternative to batteries and hydrogen fuel cells in low-emission vehicles.
‘Even with modern electric vehicles you can’t actually fast-charge them because it shortens your battery life and the realities of pumping that much power in is not really practical, but putting a liquid fuel in is a much better idea,’ he explained, when The Engineer met him last year at the Dearman Engine Company’s test lab in a rented facility at Imperial College London.
‘Then you’ve got hydrogen-handling problems that I don’t believe are solved… It’s always going to be expensive because transporting hydrogen is not an easy thing because of the very high pressures. Whereas this is a much more simple technology; it’s very easy to transport.’ On top of this, the large amount of available liquid nitrogen produced as a by-product of liquid oxygen means the fuel itself could be very cheap.
“Even with modern electric vehicles you can’t actually fast-charge them because it shortens your battery life”
However, a mass-market cryogenic car is still a long way off and may not be a viable product at all. Instead, Dearman is initially concentrating on how his technology could replace diesel engines in commercial vehicles, starting with the secondary motor that drives refrigeration in food-delivery trucks.
The idea behind a cryogenic engine is that allowing liquid nitrogen to boil produces compressed gas that can be used to generate mechanical and/or electrical power. Its only emission is a blast of harmless but potentially useful cold nitrogen gas. Dearman’s innovation is to circulate heat-exchange fluid inside the engine in a way that doesn’t flood it but keeps the gas relatively warm as it expands in order to maintain the engine’s efficiency.
Using this technology to replace the diesel generators on board refrigeration trucks has the potential to eliminate a significant but often-overlooked source of carbon and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, at a time when governments are increasingly cracking down on vehicle pollution in cities. ‘It’s the easiest one to do because there’s a ready market for it,’ said Dearman. ‘If you try and develop something that’s not got a market it’s very much harder because you’ve got to create your own market. But [tighter] pollution laws are coming in just at the right time for us as we’re developing this.’
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Imaging technique aims to reveal composition of tissue
A team of Purdue University researchers has been awarded a $1m W.M. Keck Foundation grant to develop a new type of imaging technology for cell and tissue analysis.
Central to the concept is the invention of a new way to perform in-vivo spectroscopy, or using a pulsing laser light to determine the precise chemical content of tissues in living organisms.
‘The Keck Foundation grant provides vital funding to boost research into this innovative approach,’ said Purdue Provost Debasish ‘Deba’ Dutta. ‘This Keck platform has the potential to resolve the complex machinery of a live cell, representing an advanced medical tool to improve human health.’
The lead researcher is Ji-Xin Cheng, a professor in Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Chemistry and scientific director of Label-Free Imaging at Purdue’s Discovery Park.
‘This work is potentially very important because if we know the chemical content of tissue we can do early detection of disease with biomarker sensitivity, and this is not possible with current medical imaging technologies,’ Cheng said in a statement. It is currently not practical to use in-vivo spectroscopy – the analysis of how light interacts with molecules in living tissue – because photons scatter when light shines on tissues, making for inefficient detection of the photons.
‘Our technique is designed to overcome this problem,’ said Cheng, who is working with other team leaders Andrew Weiner, the Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Mingji Dai, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry.
The new in-vivo imaging technology hinges on a technique called modulation-multiplexed stimulated Raman scattering microscopy.
‘We will convert Raman spectroscopy, generally used to study molecules in solutions or fixed tissues, to an in-vivo imaging platform that is able to monitor how a living cell executes its functions in real time,’ Cheng said. ‘This allows us to get a spectrum of individual molecules, revealing the chemical composition of the tissues.’
The Purdue approach is to superimpose a code – or frequency modulation – onto each colour of the spectrum in light emitted by a fast-pulsing laser. Photons containing this code could be retrieved after the laser light interacted with tissue, revealing the tissue’s composition.
‘Even though the scattering of light interacting with tissue changes the direction of photons, the frequency modulation of each colour does not change,’ Cheng said. ‘This could allow us to code the laser light for detection of photons using a large detector placed near the specimen or organism being imaged.’
The frequency modulation will be performed with an instrument invented by the Purdue researchers.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Vibrating glove uses ultrasonic echolocation to help the blind
Two manufacturing engineering and management students from Nottingham University have developed a glove that uses vibration signals to alert blind people to the proximity of objects.
The SenSei Glove, developed by students Raivat Luthura and Serkan Oztas consists of a glove with a velcro attachment, onto which an ultrasonic sensor is fitted. The sensor system measures the distance of the visually impaired wearer from an object and gives feedback to them in the form of vibrations of differing intensities, depending on the wearer’s proximity to the object in question.
The device recently won first prize in the inaugural Entrepreneurship and Business Competition run by Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) at Nottingham University, and an Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF), winning team SenSei £1,000 and life-time mentoring from EIBF Fellows.
Luthura and Oztas are now in the running for the university’s yearly undergraduate Ingenuity Prize, where they hope to secure a share of the £26,000 prize fund.
‘At present, the attachment is quite large, but we are working on a new system containing a microprocessor that is smaller and not as heavy,’ said Luthura. ‘This will also make it more aesthetically pleasing. We’re going to use the money from the competition for further development of the device.’
Since winning their award, the students have been approached by Dave Williams of assistive technology manufacturers Dolphin Computer Access, who is himself visually impaired, and is interested in helping the team take the device to production, as well as taking part in trials of the device.
The team is now working towards developing and refining a prototype that can be presented to charities and the NHS, with an eventual view to mass production.
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Probe can distinguish cancer cells from healthy brain in surgery
Researchers in Canada have developed a method of cancer detection with over 92 per cent accuracy.
The advance, from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro), part of Montreal’s McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre, and Polytechnique Montréal, has led to the creation of a new probe that can be used during surgery for detecting cancer cells.
For the first time, the hand-held Raman spectroscopy probe enables surgeons to accurately detect virtually all invasive brain cancer cells in real time during surgery. The probe is claimed to be superior to existing technology and could set a new standard for successful brain cancer surgery.
‘Often it is impossible to visually distinguish cancer from normal brain, so invasive brain cancer cells frequently remain after surgery, leading to cancer recurrence and a worse prognosis,’ said Dr Kevin Petrecca, chief of neurosurgery and brain cancer researcher at The Neuro, and co-senior author of the study published in Science Translational Medicine. ‘Surgically minimising the number of cancer cells improves patient outcomes.’
Designed and developed in partnership with Dr Frédéric Leblond, Professor in Engineering Physics at Polytechnique Montréal, and co-senior author of the study, the probe technique uses laser technology to perform Raman spectroscopy, which measures light scattered from molecules and provifdes information about the chemical bonds which exist in the sample. ‘The emitted light provides a spectroscopic signal that can be interpreted to provide specific information about the molecular makeup of the interrogated tissue,’ Dr Leblond said in a statement. ‘The Raman spectroscopy probe has a greater than 92 per cent accuracy in identifying cancer cells that have invaded into normal brain.’
The Raman probe was tested on patients with grade 2, 3 and 4 gliomas, which are highly invasive brain cancers. ‘We showed that the probe is equally capable of detecting invasive cancer cells from all grades of invasive gliomas,’ said Dr Petrecca. ‘There is strong evidence that the extent of tumour removal affects prognosis for all grades of invasive gliomas.’
In order to show that the use of this system improves patient outcomes, a clinical trial at The Neuro will be launched for patients with newly diagnosed and recurrent glioblastoma. If these trials are positive, the probe will improve brain cancer surgeries and in turn extend survival times for brain cancer patients.
Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/probe-can-distinguish-cancer-cells-from-healthy-brain-in-surgery/1019877.article#ixzz3RdluNZhy
DA DR. COTELLESSA
In Finlandia creata la "carta da parati" solare
Sviluppato pannello fotovoltaico flessibile e riciclabile.
Case ancora più "rinnovabili" grazie alla speciale carta da parati solare. Un' equipe di ricerca finlandese ha sviluppato un pannello solare organico flessibile e completamente riciclabile in forma di foglio. Il progetto pilota, creato dal team del VTT Technical Research Centre finlandese, può essere utilizzato per la produzione di energia elettrica per l' illuminazione interna delle case; ma non solo. Secondo gli ideatori del progetto, gli speciali pannelli potranno infatti essere posti su finestre, pareti, macchine, dispositivi e cartelloni pubblicitari. La novità inoltre concerne anche il metodo di fabbricazione. Come riporta Scientist America, questa é la prima volta che pannelli fotovoltaici biologici (OPV - fotovoltaico organico) vengono realizzati in forma di strisce utilizzando un metodo di stampa che consente la produzione di massa rapida del prodotto. Il pannello solare prodotto con la tecnologie a rotocalco e serigrafia del VTT é spesso solo circa 0,2 mm, e comprende gli elettrodi e gli strati di polimeri in cui viene raccolta la luce del sole. Inoltre, per migliorare il suo aspetto visivo é possibile stampare una diversa grafica a seconda dei gusti personali. Con il design attuale, la superficie attiva di un una foglio solare é 0,0144 metri quadrati; un set di duecento fogli OPV può collettivamente fare un metro quadrato di superficie che é in grado di generare - in latitudini mediterranee - 3,2 ampere di elettricità (10,4 watt di potenza).
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Il vento è tornato a correre grazie alla Cina
Il 2014 è stato un anno positivo per l'eolico. Stando ai numeri diffusi dal Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) nel consueto annuario statistico, l'industria del vento su scala globale è tornata a correre, con una crescita del 44%. Dopo il calo nel 2013, il comparto l'anno scorso ha toccato quota 51.477 MW di nuova capacità installata. Per il GWEC, questa cifra rappresenta "un solido segnale di ripresa", con un totale di pale eoliche nel mondo pari ad una potenza di 369.553 MW alla fine del 2014. A guidare la crescita globale si conferma la Cina, che l'anno scorso ha segnato il nuovo record di 23.351 nuovi GW installati e da sola rappresenta il 45% del mercato globale, staccando decisamente la vicina India (2.315 MW). "La tecnologia del vento sta maturando rapidamente, con una provata affidabilità e competitività", afferma Steve Sawyer, segretario generale del GWEC. "Non solo i prezzi bassi, ma anche la stabilità dei costi dell'energia eolica la rende un'opzione interessante per le utilities, produttori indipendenti e aziende che cercano di tutelarsi contro la fluttuazione selvaggia dei prezzi dei carburanti fossili". Rispetto alle cifre dei cinesi, il mercato europeo è cresciuto a livello marginale nel 2014, con 12.820 MW installati. La Germania guida la classifica europea con 5.279 MW, seguita da Gran Bretagna (1.736 MW), Svezia (1.050 MW) e Francia (1.042 MW). Il mercato africano si ferma a quota 934 MW, mentre il Brasile è leader in America Latina, con 2.472 MW di nuove installazioni rispetto ai 3.749 MW complessivi. Il mercato Usa segna una ripresa nel 2014 rispetto al 2013, con 4.854 MW, mentre il Canada tocca un nuovo record (1.871 MW).
DA DR. COTELLESSA
Distortion-detecting microscopy to shed light on material properties
Researchers from North Carolina State University are using a technique they developed to observe minute distortions in the atomic structure of complex materials.
By doing so, they expect to find out the causes these distortions and facilitate studies on how such atomic-scale variations can influence a material’s properties.
Researchers have long known that the properties of complex materials, such as alloys, are influenced by how the material’s component atoms are organised.
‘We knew where the atoms were on average, but we also knew that there were variations in a material - there can be significant displacements, where atoms don’t fit into that average pattern,’ said Dr. Doug Irving, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the new work.
‘However, detecting these distortions required indirect methods that could be difficult to interpret, so we couldn’t fully explore how a material’s atomic structure affects its properties,’ said Dr. James LeBeau, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the new work.
‘Now we’ve come up with a way to see the distortions directly, at the atomic scale,’ LeBeau said in a statement. ‘We can create a precise map of atomic organization, including the distortions, within a material. Not only which atoms fit into the structure, but how far apart they are, and how distortions in the structure are related to the chemistry of the material.’
The work builds on a technique LeBeau developed called revolving scanning transmission electron microscopy (revolving STEM).
To test the technique and learn more about the links between structural distortions and chemical bonds, the researchers looked at lanthanum strontium aluminium tantalum oxide (LSAT) due to the significant variability in the nature of the chemical bonds within the material.
‘It’s a mess,’ LeBeau said. ‘We didn’t know how the complexity of those bonds influenced structural distortions, and we wanted to see if revolving STEM would give us any insights.’
On the left, the image shows the distortion of lanthanum and strontium directly resolved at the atomic scale. Blue and red colours indicate contraction and expansion of the local structure respectively. On the right, the aluminium and tantalum sites exhibit dramatically different distortion behaviour due to bonding. These images are made possible by a technique developed at North Carolina State University called revolving scanning transmission electron microscopy
The researchers found that the weaker chemical bonds that hold lanthanum and strontium in place in LSAT’s atomic structure made them more susceptible to being pushed or pulled by small variations in their chemical environment.
‘We never would have been able to directly see the extent of that variation before,’ LeBeau said.
‘Now that we can see these subtle distortions, and know what causes them, the next step is to begin work to understand how these structural differences affect specific properties. Ultimately, we hope to use this knowledge to tailor a material’s properties by manipulating these atomic distortions.’
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