You are browsing the archives of 2011 December.

Here’s what we’re hearing from press releases, news stories, blogs, etc..

Morgan Technical Ceramics’ ceramic end effectors set to become component of choice for handling 450mm semiconductor wafers

Increased consumer demand for more memory storage has led to recent advances in the semiconductor industry and semiconductor manufacturers are now investing heavily in the next generation 450mm wafers. Pilot lines are being built worldwide and key to their success is the ability to produce chips in an efficient and economical way. Ceramic semiconductor wafer handlers from Morgan Technical Ceramics will be a critical component, enabling manufacturers to improve productivity and yield. …  [The ] ceramic features excellent mechanical and chemical properties capable of withstanding the harsh and corrosive environments found in the etching process. It has exceptional structural strength and stiffness compared to alternative materials such as aluminum. As a result, larger, thinner wafer handlers can be made, which allows wafers to be stacked closer together for greater productivity. For example, the company’s 99.5% alumina is a strong material that will support the heavier, larger diameter wafers and is only one millimetre at its thinnest part.

Kyocera files suit against Eastman Kodak Company for patent infringement in inkjet printers

Kyocera Corporation filed a complaint against Eastman Kodak Company in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California for infringement of one of Kyocera’s patents for inkjet recording head structure. The complaint alleges that the head component of Kodak inkjet printers infringes U.S. Patent No. 7,097,286, which is Kyocera’s intellectual property. This patent resulted from the Kyocera Group’s research and development efforts and more than 50 years of innovation in the field of advanced ceramics. The suit seeks as-yet undetermined monetary damages, as well as an injunction against Kodak to cease manufacturing and sales of products that infringe said patent.

Chinese shale gas developments herald major US industrial export opportunities

Because of the US’s leading position as a shale gas producer, American companies possess most of the specialized expertise used in the process of fracking, which entails pumping millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and other materials at extreme pressures thousands of feet underground through horizontally drilled wells in order to fracture shale rock formations and release the natural gas held within them.  … Houston, Texas-based CARBO Ceramics and French multinational Saint-Gobain are two large suppliers of ceramic proppants with major manufacturing operations in the US. Both companies are trying to increase capacity in anticipation of more fracking projects, but at the same time are facing pricing pressures from several China-based manufacturers of ceramic proppants, said one US-based distributor who declined to be named.

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The Squeeze Theorem explained by Sal Kahn, the creator of the online learning resource, Kahn Academy. Credit: Kahn Academy.

Here’s a gem of a website that I wish I had known about a long time ago.

It’s the Khan Academy, which is a library of 2700 videos on a wide range of topics spanning mathematics, physics, economics, art history, government, banking, test prep and more.

Its mission is simple, and it’s free! From the website,

The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We’re a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.

All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

The brainchild of Sal Kahn, Khan Acacemy videos are about 10 minutes long and are optimized for computer viewing. Most of the videos are done by Kahn himself, but he pulls in experts to handle lessons beyond his reach, like art history. The website is fresh, personal, easy to navigate and useful. For example, it leaves a dot next to each video to mark the ones that have been viewed, either partially or completely.

Khan’s background is in math, computer science and investment management and that comes through with the mix of videos skewed heavily to mathematics: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus and statistics. Based on a quick glance through the offerings, it looks like about two-thirds are math-oriented. There are also quite a few videos that explain banking and finance, topics that usually are given only a cursory treatment in high school.

Also, there are a lot of videos on test prep for AP math exams, California Standards Test, SAT, GMAT and more.

Khan does not follow a set curriculum. Instead, as he says on the website, “I teach the way I wish I was taught. The lectures are coming from me, an actual human being who is fascinated by the world around him.”

I watched the video “Squeeze Theorem” in the calculus section, mostly because I don’t remember learning about anything with such a memorable name. Khan introduces the theorem with a non-mathematical example, then follows up with the math, so the understanding of the concept preceeds the formalization of the principle. The “aha moment” comes when he loops around and connects the math to the non-math example.

Because the videos are so granular, they are also a terrific resource for professionals needing to brush the rust off of things learned in school.

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Typical SEM images of (a) N-TiO₂-cotton and (b) AgI-N-TiO₂-cotton. Reprinted with permission from ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, DOI: 10.1021/am201251d. Copyright 2011 American Chemical Society.

A recent press release from the American Chemical Society about a coating that imparts self-cleaning properties to cotton caught my eye, probably because I am my family’s laundress, or perhaps because I’ve spent a good amount of December collecting new garments for Christmas gifts and making sure they are washable.

In any case, the story caught the attention of Gizmag’s Ben Coxworth, too, and he wrote a succinct summary of the research work. Here it is—

Treated cotton cleans itself when exposed to sunlight

For some time now, we’ve been hearing about the benefits of drying our laundry outside on the clothesline. We save money and energy by not running the dryer, the sunlight kills germs, and we don’t run the risk of generating harmful dryer emissions. In the future, however, we might also end up washing our clothes by hanging them outside - scientists in China have successfully used sunlight to remove orange dye stains from cotton fabric, that was treated with a special coating.

Mingce Long and Deyong Wu created the coating, which combines titanium dioxide and nitrogen. When exposed to sunlight, dirt on fabric treated with the coating breaks down, and microbes die. While the coating in its basic form is effective, it was found that it does an even better job at dispersing dye coloration when silver and iodine nanoparticles are added. Additionally, it is able to remain intact and active after washing and drying.

Although light-activated self-cleaning fabrics have been created previously, all of those required concentrated ultraviolet light, as opposed to natural sunlight.

Should the coating eventually be commercialized, however, there are doubtless many people who would want nothing to do with it. Although titanium dioxide is now an active ingredient in products such as sunscreen, cosmetics and paint, studies have shown that it can cause genetic damage in mice and brain damage in fish. This has led to concerns over the effect that it could have on humans, and the environment.

A paper on the coating was recently published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

On the last point about the safety of titania nanoparticles, our recent post about ZnO nanoparticles for suncreen seems to indicate that human skin is an effective barrier to nanoparticles. Full toxicological testing is warranted, of course.

The paper’s authors do not speculate about potential applications, but my guess is that interest would be strong in the medical community, for example, in parts of the world where medical supplies are scarce or unreliable, the ability to make and sanitize dressings onsite could be important.

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Check ‘em out:

Red, green and blue OLEDs with an active surface area of 2×2 millimeters, being tested for performance. Credit: Deutscher Zukunftpreis/Ansgar Pudenz.

Electronics made of plastic

Researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute have developed an alternative to silicon semiconductors using an organic material, a type of dye commonly used in the production of road signs. Such materials have the advantage that they can be applied as a coating on flexible films and other substrates. This gives rise to new possibilities, such as displays that can be rolled up and carried in a vest pocket or switchable window panes that light up at night to illuminate rooms while hardly consuming any electricity. However, organic dyes are poor electrical conductors. But, their less-than-satisfactory conductivity can be increased by doping, and after years of experiments, researchers have succeeded in creating materials with an electrical conductivity a million and more times greater than the original dyes, with a doping ratio of no more than one percent.

Minerals and metals scarcity in manufacturing: the ticking timebomb (pdf)

Executives of leading global manufacturing companies believe that the impact of minerals and metals scarcity will increase strongly in the next five years. However, there are large variations in the likely impact on different sectors and regions and their state of preparedness. Economic and political dimensions are generally more important than the physical dimension of scarcity. Collaboration within the supply chain and new business models will be fundamental to the ability to respond appropriately to the risks and opportunities posed by the scarcity of minerals and metals. The December 2011 report is published by PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants (PwC).

Towards artificial photosynthesis for solar hydrogen generation

Traditionally, photo-electrochemical cell electrodes are made of semiconducting materials such as metal oxides, some of which are also known for their photocatalytic properties. For quite some time, researchers at Empa’s Laboratory for High Performance Ceramics have been investigating nanoparticles of these materials, for instance titanium dioxide, for the neutralization of organic pollutants in air and water. Collaborating with colleagues at the University of Basel and at Argonne National Laboratory, they have now succeeded in making a nano-bio PEC electrode, consisting of iron oxide conjugated with a protein from blue-green algae (also known as cyanobacteria), which is twice as efficient in water splitting as iron oxide alone (see paper in Advanced Functional Materials, “Functionalization of Nanostructured Hematite Thin-Film Electrodes with the Light-Harvesting Membrane Protein C-Phycocyanin Yields an Enhanced Photocurrent”).

Class project turns recycled car parts into sandals and possibly jobs

Junkyard car seatbelts and abandoned tires come together in a sustainable sandal that could one day put Detroit homeless people to work manufacturing them. University of Michigan students created Treads Motor City Sandals in a unique class that requires aspiring designers, engineers and business professionals to work together to make a marketable product. Treads is one of six eco-friendly mini business ideas that students developed for consideration for addition to a portfolio of micro enterprises.

Diamonds and dust for better cement

Over 17 billion tons of Portland cement are consumed each year.  Portland cement provides the essential binder for strong, versatile concrete; its basic materials are found in many places around the globe; and, at about $100 a ton, it’s relatively cheap. Making it, however, releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide, accounting for more than five percent of the total CO2 emissions from human activity. Recently, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab gradually squeezed specks of fine dust of the mineral tobermorite in a diamond anvil cell until they achieved pressures like those 100 miles below the surface of Earth. This was the first experiment to determine tobermorite’s bulk modulus from diffraction patterns obtained by sending a bright beam of x-rays through the sample, revealing how its structure changed as the pressure increased. The results will appear in Cement and Concrete Research and are now available online to subscribers.

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New papers that have been accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society are posted to “Early View” on the Wiley website and can be read even before the issue is printed. Below are summaries of selected papers currently available via Early View.

All members of The American Ceramic Society receive free online access to the Journal, which is searchable back to 1918. To access any of the ACerS journals, or to become a member, visit www.ceramics.org.

	Determination of the Solubility of Tin in Indium Oxide Using In Situ and Ex Situ X-ray Diffraction G.B. González, T.O. Mason, J.S. Okasinski, T. Buslaps and V. Honkimäki This team of researchers from the United States and France presents a novel approach to determine the thermodynamic solubility of tin in indium oxide via exsolution from tin-overdoped nano-ITO powders using high-energy synchrotron X-ray diffractiometry. The team reports structural results, including compositional phase analysis, atomic positions and lattice parameters. It also reports experimental complications that can lead to incorrect tin solubility values. Image: Rietveld refinement of X-ray synchrotron diffraction data on sample 28 after heating to 1000°C for 1163 h. Credit: JACerS; Wiley.
	Synthesis and Characterization of Rutile Nanocrystals Prepared in Aqueous Media at Low Temperature Linggen Kong, Inna Karatchevtseva, Mark Blackford, Ilkay Chironi and Gerry Triani These Australian researchers synthesized rutile powder using a sol-gel process and Tyzor TE precursor in an aqueous solution at 40°C-50°C and characterized the microstructural evolution using several techniques. They report that the resulting powder was phase-pure rutile with a surface area of 144.7 square meters per gram, an average pore size of 24.9 nanometers and a pore volume of 0.66 cubic centimeters per gram. They also propose a reaction mechanism for the preferential evolution of rutile over amorphous or anatase polymorphs. Image: TEM images of the rutile powder: (a) low magnification image showing uniform morphology; (b) higher magnification image. Credit: JACerS; Wiley.
	Damage Development in Confined Borosilicate and Soda-Lime Glasses Kathryn A. Dannemann, Charles E. Anderson Jr., Sidney Chocron and James F. Spencer This team of researchers from the Southwest Research Institute in Texas used borosilicate (Borofloat® 33) and soda-lime (Starphire®) glass to investigate the flow and failure behavior caused by compressive loading with confinement in order to study the damage process that occurs during projectile impact/penetration into transparent armor. The team proposes a damage mechanism. Image: Removal of the confining sleeve/holder was necessary to view in-situ damage following compression testing of: (a) Confined sleeve specimen-end view, (b) Triaxial compression specimen-lengthwise view. Credit: JACerS; Wiley.
	Enhancement of Photoluminescence and Color Purity of CaTiO3:Eu Phosphor by Li Doping Yun-Fang Wu, Yung-Tang Nien, Yi-Jhang Wang and In-Gann Chen This Taiwan National Cheng Kung University research team synthesized red phosphors of Ca1-3/2xEuxLixTiO3 and Ca1-2xEuxLixTiO3 (0 < x ≤ 0.3) with high color purity using a solid-state method. The team reports that color coordinates approach the ideal red chromaticity values with increasing Eu3+ and Li+ contents. Image: SEM images of (a) Ca1-3/2xEuxTiO3 and (b) Ca1-2xEuxLixTiO3 (x = 0.15). Credit: JACerS; Wiley.
	CuInS2/N3 Co-Sensitized ZnO Nanorods with Improved Photovoltaic Properties for Solar Cells Yabin Li, Zhifeng Liu, Chengcheng Liu, Jing Ya, Lei E, Wei Zhao, Qian Chen and Junyu Bai These researchers from China’s Tianjin Institute of Urban Construction used a solution reaction and ZnO nanorod arrays to synthesize ZnO/CuInS2 arrays. N3 dye was sequentially assembled on the arrays to construct a cascading cosensitized nanomaterial for use as a photoanode of a solar cell. The researchers report a 24.8 percent enhanced efficiency compared with material single sensitized by N3 because of abundant light harvesting, higher chemical instability in acid dye, fast injection and transmission velocity, and the slowdown recombination of photo-excited electrons. Image: SEM image (a) and XRD pattern (b) of ZnO/CuInS2 core/shell nanorods. Credit: JACerS; Wiley.
	Processing and Properties of Textured Potassium Strontium Niobate (KSr2Nb5O15) Ceramic Fibers-Texture Development Sedat Alkoy and Sinan Dursun These researchers from Turkey fabricated highly textured KSr2Nb2O15 fibers using an alginate gelation method and templated grain growth using acicular template particles prepared by molten salt synthesis. They report that they obtained a maximum degree of orientation of 0.95 (measured by Lotgering factor) and a grain orientation distribution 0.28 (measured by rocking curve analysis). Image: Schematic depiction of the fiber drawing, template alignment, and gelation processes in the alginate gelation method. Credit: JACerS; Wiley.

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