SEPARATING THE HYPE AND THE BUZZ - Wednesday, April 15, 2009

BREAKTHROUGH

Nanoscale rings
Researchers at Cal Tech and Berkeley report a direct catalytic route for making nanoscale rings with potential applications in drug delivery and organic photovoltaic devices.
See C&EN, April 20, 2009 and J Am Chem Soc.

Nanoparticle thin films
Researchers at MIT have used capillary condensation to functionalize inorganic nanoparticle coatings that could be used to make transparent thin films for applications like imaging devices and memory storage. The technique also bypasses the need for toxic, co-solvents during processing.
See NanotechWeb, April 24, 2009.


NEWSWORTHY

Australian trade union demand nano-registry
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is calling for a mandatory national register of who is importing, manufacturing, supplying and selling nanomaterials.
See Sydney Morning News, April 13, 2009.

Printable electronics
Researchers from ETH Zurich report a new technique that uses flame spray synthesis in combination with a simple in-situ functionalization step to synthesize graphene coated copper nanoparticles which are air-stable and can be easily handled at ambient conditions.
See Nanowerk, April 24, 2009.

Flexible batteries using viruses
Researchers at MIT use viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a battery, the cathode and anode. The virus was coaxed into binding with iron phosphate and then carbon nanotubes to create a highly conductive material. While the prototype battery is currently the size of a coin, the scientists believe it can be scaled and be used to create flexible batteries that can take the shape of their container, which is perfect for mobile or small devices.
See BBC News, April 2, 2009.

Solar cells using diatoms
Researchers at OSU and Portland State U have created a new way to make "dye-sensitized" solar cells using diatoms, in which photons bounce around like they were in a pinball machine, striking these dyes and producing electricity. This technology may be slightly more expensive than some existing approaches to make dye-sensitized solar cells, but can potentially triple the electrical output.
See Science Daily, April 9, 2009.

Solar advances using reisdue
Researcher from Northeastern U and NIST discovered, serendipitously, that a residue of a process used to build arrays of titania nanotubes-a residue that wasn't even noticed before this-plays an important role in improving the performance of the nanotubes in solar cells that produce hydrogen gas from water. By controlling the deposition of potassium on the surface of the nanotubes, engineers can achieve significant energy savings in a promising new alternate energy system.
See AtoZ Nano, April 24, 2009.

Gas storage
Researchers at the Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences report using molecular dynamics to model the behavior of a lock and fill nanocapsule. The closed-cage design could offer a safe and effective way of storing gases such as methane under normal conditions.
See NanotechWeb, March 17, 2009.

Oil from algae
Researchers from Ames and Iowa State U. reportedly developed "nanofarming" technology that safely harvests oil from the algae so the pond-based "crop" can keep on producing.
See AtoZ Nano, April 24, 2009.

Nano-aviation
Researchers from Canada’s FP Innovations have unveiled plans for a factory that will use nanotechnology to extract cellulose from wood and use it to form composite materials for airplanes.
See Blog Wired, April 24, 2009

LISTERIA sensor
Researchers from Purdue and IIT are reporting development of a new biosensor for use in a faster, more sensitive test for detecting the deadliest strain of Listeria food poisoning bacteria.
See Nanowerk, April 22, 2009
and
Analytical Chemsitry, March 24, 2009.

Silver working group
The Silver Institute and the Silver Research Consortium announced the formation of the Silver Nanotechnology Working Group (SNWG). The SNWG is an industry effort intended to foster the collection of data on silver nanotechnology in order to advance the science and public understanding of the beneficial uses of silver nanoparticles in a wide-range of consumer and industrial products
See AtoZ Nano, April 24, 2009.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

EU “No data, no market"
The European Parliament's environment committee this week adopted a report by Swedish Green MEP Carl Schlyter which calls for tighter controls on nanotechnology, including the application of the 'no data, no market' principle contained in the REACH Directive. The own-initiative, non-binding report calls for products containing nanotechnology which are already on the market to be withdrawn until safety assessments can be made.
See EuroActiv, April 2, 2009.

EU finds PPPs for green revolution 2
€1.2 billion will be earmarked for R&D as part of the Factories for the Future programme; €1 billion will be dedicated to researching energy efficient buildings; and the much-vaunted Green Car Initiative is worth a total of €5 billion. The first calls for research projects linked to these PPPs are expected in July 2009, with the Commission keen to see the first projects underway in spring 2010.
See EuChemMS Brussels News Update, May 2009.

Russia investing in Canadian nano
According to Canwest News Service, a state-owned Russian venture capital fund is poised to pump millions of dollars into Canada's fledgling nanotechnology industry. The fund is RUSNANO and is one of the largest technology capital funds on the planet.
See Nanowerk, April 13, 2009.

Clinical study announced
NanoBio Corp. announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the Phase 1 clinical study of NB-1008, a seasonal influenza vaccine administered via a nasal dropper.
See Nanowerk, April 24, 2009.

Cancer and gold nanorods
Researcher at U Missouri announced a systematic investigation on the design and development of targeted gold nanorods. A recent result of this work has been the design of a novel peptide-based nanovector for carrying drug payloads to cancer sites.
See Nanowerk, April 15, 2009 and Nano Letters, April 7, 2009

Melanoma research using gold nanospheres
UC Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and the Houston MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston reported using hollow gold nanospheres to enhance the cell-killing effects of photothermal ablation. The researchers equipped the nanospheres with a protein fragment that targets melanoma cells while avoiding healthy skin cells. When exposed to near-infrared light, which penetrates deeply through the skin, the nanospheres heat up and destroy the cancer cells.
See NanotechWeb. April 24, 2009.

Breast cancer biomarkers
Researchers at Duke U have demonstrated multiplexed detection of breast cancer biomarkers using structures dubbed "molecular sentinel" (MS) nanoprobes.
See NanotechWeb, May 19, 2009.and Nanotechnology. February 11, 2009.


Orthopedics and dentistry drug delivery
Titanium dioxide nanotubes might be incorporated into orthopaedic or dental implants to deliver drugs in a local area over a period of several weeks. So say researchers at the universities of California, San Francisco, and Pennsylvania State who have shown that the nanotubes can release albumin, a large protein molecule, as well as sirolimus and paclitaxel, common small molecule drugs.
See NanotechWeb, April 3, 2009.

Nanogenerators
Researchers at Georgia Tech and U Wisconsin-Madison announced an advance in nanogenerators. Nanoscale generators can turn ambient mechanical energy--vibrations, fluid flow, and even biological movement—into a power source. Now researchers have combined a nanogenerator with a solar cell to create an integrated mechanical- and solar-energy-harvesting device.
See Technology Review, April 9, 2009.


NCSU battery research
Researchers from North Carolina State University are using an industrially viable electrospinning technique and subsequent carbonization processes to fabricate porous carbon nanofibres (PCNFs). These prepared PCNFs can provide fast lithium charge/discharge kinetics.
See NanotechWeb, April 24, 2009 and Nanotechnology.

Chemical sensors
Imperial College researchers announced developments in metallic nanostructure sensing involving a device that could be tailored to detect different chemicals by decorating the nanostructure surface with specific 'molecular traps' that bind the chosen target molecules. Once bound, the target molecules would change the colors that the device absorbs and scatters, alerting the sensor to their presence.
See Science Daily, April 13, 2009.

No more painful injections
The end of deep, painful vaccine injections is in sight. One of the first widespread applications of nanotechnology in medicine could be a painless, needle-free vaccine "nanopatch" being developed by Australian scientists.
See Sydney Morning News, April 23, 2009

Indian nano degree
Maitreyi College, Delhi University, will be offering a full-time postgraduate diploma in nanotechnology from this academic year.
See The Times of India, April 6, 2009.