ORNL’s James Klett holds an LED streetlamp. The lamp will use heat sinks of graphite foam
(samples in his left hand) to extend the life of the LEDs and cut operating costs.

Around 1997, Oak Ridge National Lab’s James Klett and Timothy Burchell discovered how to make graphite foam, a material that had at least one amazing property: It transfers heat like crazy.

If this property of the foam seems a little counterintuitive, that’s because foam materials are often associated with with heat insulation properties. But in this case, the foam acts as a super heat radiator. A story in an ORNL newsletter said the stuff worked so well that if you put an ice cube on a hockey puck-sized chunk of the graphite foam, and put the foam on you hand, “the cube melts from your body heat as if it were on a hot griddle.”

At the time, Klett, a researcher in the lab’s Metals and Ceramics Division, noted that, “Graphite foam is as thermally conductive as aluminum at one-fifth the weight. It has a very high surface-area-to-weight ratio and a high heat transfer coefficient. This interests engineers and designers because products that use energy wage an ongoing battle with heat,” he says.

He said the key to the foam’s conductivity is its unusual graphite crystal structure that is full of air pockets, making it only 25% dense and lightweight. A network of graphite “ligaments” in the foam wicks heat away from its source.

Klett shows that ice held against the graphite foam will melt quickly because the heat from the hand holding the foam is transferred rapidly through the foam. As a result, this hand feels the cold fast.

When they made their discovery, Klett and Burchell were building on a legacy of carbon innovations that go back to at least the 1960s when Johhn Googin developed the first method to produce carbon foams was used as high-temperature furnace insulation. Klett and Burchell also developed a commercial carbon-carbon disk brakes system.

Over the past decade, Klett, Burchell and ORNL have licensed the special foam for numerous applications – especially with mechanical and electronic heat-transfer applications – and the material garnered an R&D 100 award.

Now, the foam’s ability to act as an efficient heat sink is being put to new uses in the world of energy-efficient lighting. On Friday, ORNL announced that it has licensed the foam to LED North America for use in commercial LED lighting systems such as in the large arrays now being manufactured for street lamps and parking garages.

The lab says passive cooling materials, such as the foam, are needed to increase LED efficiency and lifetime. ORNL reports that each 10° decrease in temperature can double the life of the lighting components. “While this technology will reduce temperatures and increase the life of the LED lighting systems, what it will really do is save municipalities millions of dollars every year in replacement fixture costs as well as maintenance,” Klett said.

Besides being lightweight, Klett says the foam is easy to machine and use in manufacturing. These advantages give it a growing edge compared to traditional heat transfer materials, such as copper or aluminum.

LED North America president Andrew Wilhelm predicts that the foam will double the life of the LED units. He also says the first lamps using the foam will be installed later this year in an ORNL parking lot.

I just received the sad news that one of the legends of materials science and of science, in general, Rustum Roy, passed away last week. Although he was a stellar researcher, he considered himself to be a citizen-scientist and urged his colleagues to deeply consider how science, society, art and education can interact in productive and nonproductive ways.

It is difficult to summarize Roy’s influence on the world of science, let alone just the fields of ceramics and glass. He held five professorships: three at Pennsylvania State University, one at Arizona State University and one at the University of Arizona. He was a 32-year member of the National Academy of Engineering, with the rare distinction also of having been elected to the National Academies of Science/Engineering of Russia, Japan, Sweden and India.

In 2003, the Institute for Scientific Information ranked Penn State’s Materials Research Laboratory, which he founded in 1962 and directed for a quarter century, first in the world on the basis of the number of highly cited scientists in the lab.

Roy left a permanent mark on the materials field, starting with its most fundamental base: phase diagrams and crystal chemistry. His discovery and championing of a major discovery in new materials processing — the sol–gel process — has been utilized (not only cited) in over 50,000 papers. His work in hydrothermal reaction, microwave processing, nucleation in glass, radioactive wastes, nanocomposites and superconductors have also left a permanent legacy.

Roy became a Fellow of The American Ceramic Society in 1961 and elevated to Distinguished Life Member in 1993. He had also sponsored one of the most anticipated annual lectures of ACerS: The Frontiers of Science Rustum Roy Lecture series that has been a fixture of the Society’s Annual Meetings.

Roy authored or coauthored hundreds of papers, founded and edited numerous newsletters and journals in materials science and engineering education. One of his recent papers appeared in the first issue of ACerS’ new International Journal of Applied Glass Science, “Glass Science and Glassmaking: A Personal Perspective” [ed. note - this paper is available at no cost] and represents something of a tour de force of his career:

“This paper demonstrates how glass has provided one of the earliest, and still rare, examples of controlled use of science at the nanolevel in a well-established gigatechnology. The glass community-from the Venetian glass makers (and the science of luminaries such as Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton) down through major industrial successes such as glass-ceramics-are examples of excellent nanoengineers practicing clever applications of manipulation of matter at the nano and subnano scale. This paper describes the evolution of the understanding of nanoheterogeneity of the structure (and composition of virtually all useful glasses) that has been the key evolutionary “invention” in this process. It then makes the case that glass (and polymer) technology has an enormous advantage over all of the nanomaterial technologies that are confronted with the enormous barrier of assembling large numbers of very small particles into useful products on a large scale, as recognized by the recently anointed patron saint of the present nanofever, Richard Feynman, in his only paper in the field. Finally, this paper introduces glass scientists to a radically new opportunity via a totally new way to convert crystalline matter into glasses (noncrystalline solids)-for all scientists interested in the glassy state.”

Roy also chaired the Science Advisory Committee of the Friends of Health, a nonprofit group that examines a range of disruptive innovations in human healing based on materials science and physics.

In an obituary on Penn State’s website, one of Roy’s colleagues, Carlo Pantano, had this to say:

“Rustum Roy made a difference for the field of materials science and for Penn State. He had a tremendous publication record extending back 60 years that people still refer to in their research. At every step of the way he seemed to be ahead of the curve, in research as well as in the way he managed the scientific enterprise. He was well-known to be an enthusiastic and provocative lecturer by students and colleagues alike. His crystal chemistry course was on every graduate student’s course list, in addition to numerous special topics courses he created in concert with the latest and hottest research topics in materials science.”

Roy was interested in science policy as much as science, itself, and he served as a science policy fellow at the Brookings Institution from 1982 to 1983 and was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., from 1980 to 1985.

He was also a lay preacher and served on the board of the National Council of Churches and helped found the Sycamore Community church.

Finally, it is important to note Roy’s long-time marriage to fellow materials scientist Della Martin Roy, another legendary figure in the world of material science and policy.

Here is Roy’s formal obituary from the Centre Daily Times:

Rustum Roy, 86, of State College, died Thursday, August 26, 2010 at Foxdale Village.

Born on July 3, 1924, in Ranchi, India, he was the seventh child of the late Narendra Kumar and Rajkumari Roy. On June 8, 1948, he married Della Martin, who survives.

Also surviving are three children, Neill R. Roy and his wife, Evelina Francis, of State College, Jeremy R. Roy and his wife, Lydia, of Arlington, Tex., and Ronnen A. Roy and his wife, Sinaly, of Bethesda, Md.; two grandchildren, Simone and Naren; a brother, Prodipto Roy of India, and a sister Ioni Dipti Sisodia of Georgia; and by numerous nieces and nephews.

He received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Patna University and received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University.

He was associated with Penn State for sixty-five years as a graduate student and faculty member. At Penn State he held positions as Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State, as Professor of S.T.S., and as Professor of Geochemistry. He also was a Distinguished Professor of Materials at Arizona State University, and a Visiting Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona. He was appointed and served for 23 years as the first director of an independent interdisciplinary Materials Research Laboratory in the U.S. He was elected to numerous national and international scientific academies including the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He co-founded the pioneering nterdisciplinary scientific society - the Materials Research Society- and continued to advance the boundaries of science and technology up to the present, including seminal research in the emerging field of water science, as well as resonance effects in condensed matter.

An outstanding aspect of his life was his capacity and dedication to breaking artificial boundaries in order to integrate science, religion, education, health, art and social action for human benefit. As an eight year old, in his parent’s house he met Gandhi, who discussed with his father how personal change was more effective for human advancement than technological change. Professor Roy’s solution in life was to pursue both.

He was very active in ecumenical religious life for over 60 years and co-founded the interdenominational Sycamore Community. His insight into the world’s main religions led him to work to break down the boundaries between Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and other religions. He served on the Executive Committee of the National Council of Churches, was a leader in the Kirkridge retreat center, and was the friend and colleague of many religious leaders including Bishop John Robinson, John Shelby Spong, Prof. Harvey Cox, Sister Joan Chittister and Reverend Gordon Cosby. He was also invited by the Pope to the Vatican committee regarding the rehabilitation of Galileo.

He was a champion of interdisciplinary K-12 schooling and was the driving force behind creation of the interdisciplinary field of Science, Technology and Society. He served as Science Advisor to a number of successive Pennsylvania Governors and chaired for many years the Science and Society Sector of President Mikhail Gorbachev’s State of the World forum.

Professor Roy became a champion of integrative medicine, resulting in alliances with pioneering figures including Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey, B.M. Hegde, Marc Newkirk, Patrick Flanagan, Hans Peter Duerr, Vladimir Voeikov, and Yan Xin, with the purpose of bringing advances in the art and science of whole person healing to the wider public. He was founder and sponsor of Friends of Health, served as co-chair of the Chopra Foundation, and hosted a live Internet talk radio show onVoiceAmerica.com.

He was also a long time promoter of art and the field of art and science, and was responsible for bringing the works of artists, such as Barbara Hepworth, Max Bill, and Fredrick Franck, to the University.

Researchers at Polytechnic University (Hong Kong) demonstrated that sandwiching a simple layer of silver nanoparticles can significantly improve the performance of transistors found in consumer electronics. The findings were published in Applied Physics Letters.

Paddy Chan Kwok-leung, assistant professor of the department of mechanical engineering, and his co-researchers found that the thickness of the nanoparticle layer changes the memory device performance in a more predictable way, thereby optimizing transistor performance to meet application requirements.

According to a PolyU press release, transistors made with a 1-nanometer particle layer have stable memory which lasts for three hours, making it suitable for memory buffers. Transistors with a 5-nanometer-thick layer can retain their charge for a much longer time.

With the appropriate use of nanotechnology, the performance of transistors can be improved and their size can be made thinner. The technology is compatible with the low-cost, continuous roll-to-roll fabrication techniques used to make electronics.

Because of its flexibility and low cost of manufacturing, the researchers anticipate the technology adopted for use in memory devices.

 

Microneedles fabricated with two-photon polymerization:
Credit: Royal Society of Chemistry

I first covered ACerS member Roger Narayan’s work in the field of two-photon polymerization a little more than a year ago in a story for ACerS’ membership magazine, the Bulletin. For several years, Narayan, a professor in the Joint Biomedical Engineering Department that is connected with NC State’s College of Engineering and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been examining the use of this rapid prototyping approach using ceramic–polymer hybrid materials to create patient-specific microscale medical prostheses, scaffolds for tissue engineering and microscale medical devices.

One of set of applications he has been working on, in particular, is using two-photon polymerization to create arrays of fine microneedles. (Conceptually, Narayan’s polymerization process is like a 3D inkjet process that builds up structures on the nanoscale.)

Recently, Narayan coauthored a paper on the novel use of microneedles to deliver quantum dots into the skin. “Our findings are significant, in part, because this technology will potentially enable researchers to deliver quantum dots, suspended in solution, to deeper layers of skin. That could be useful for the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancers, among other conditions,” Narayan says in a news release from NCSU.

QDs, sometimes called “artificial atoms,” are semiconductor materials that fall into the category of nanocrystals, and they contain a variable number of electrons that occupy well-defined, discrete quantum states.

This groups is attracted to the use of QDs because of their ability to serve as fluorophores and also work as drug delivery vehicles. QD-based fluorescent probes can be engineered to be superior to organic dye fluorophore by being brighter and having better photostability (can fluoresce after one hour of continuous excitation), signal-to-noise ratio, emission ranges and flourescent lifetimes. Researchers report they can use their intense fluorescence to track individual molecules.

 

Sample quantum dot with bio coating. Credit: Histesh R. Patel

At this point, Narayan and the other researchers just are using the microneedles on pig skin and can capture images of the quantum dots entering the skin using multiphoton microscopy. Although this work is still preliminary, these images allow the researchers to verify the basic effectiveness of the microneedles as a delivery mechanism for quantum dots.

The hope is that multiphoton microscopy will have clinical applications using real-time imaging materials such as the quantum dots for faster diagnosis of cancers or other medical problems.

While I am on the subject about DOE’s misguided concern about decreasing the risk of fraud with its Recovery Act Funding, I see that Matthew Iglesias has also weighed-in on the same topic:

“[I]t’s worth noting that the Obama administration’s obsession with avoiding waste and fraud in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spending has arguably been counterproductive policy.

After all, what you’re ideally trying to do with stimulus funds is mobilize genuinely idle resources to go do something useful. But that can be a bit tricky. And as a second-best alternative, as long as the resources you’re mobilizing are genuinely idle then you’re helping to fight the recession even if your initiative isn’t all that useful in a conventional sense. Almost nothing is totally useless, and the mobilizing of resources will raise incomes and therefore demand for whatever it is that the market determines the income-earners want. But this can easily look like “waste.”

The other thing is that it’s obvious to everyone in a private sector context that the costs of fraud-prevention sometimes exceed the costs of fraud. At CAP, for example, there’s no system in place to prevent people from using the office printer for personal activities. Similarly, you can just walz into the copy room and poach some envelops. And, indeed, fraud and abuse of this sort do take place. But while it wouldn’t be beyond the intellectual capacity of CAP’s senior leadership to design a system to prevent this, preventing the fraud and abuse wouldn’t actually be worthwhile. If you try to do 100 projects well and quickly, you might find out that only 90 of them actually get done well. That might be ten instances of waste. But if the alternative is to avoid all the waste but only get 70 projects done at medium speed, that might be worse.

I am going to lunch with Secretary Chu this coming week and I am anxious to know if he is even aware of these stats from his department, and, if so, does he plan on recalibrating his spending commitment. (And, yes, I do understand that wanting to “do things different” and actually figuring out how to do things different, especially when you are picking up the rubble from an anti-funding administration, is really really hard. But, at some point it becomes important for the DOE leaders to shift from talking about their commitment to funding science and focus, you know, on writing those checks.)

Actually, I am more interested if Chu is thinking about recalibrating his commitment to Matt Rodgers, who Chu specifically assigned to be responsible for establishing a new “process for issuing direct loans, loan guarantees and other funding to make it faster, simpler and more accountable.” Either Rodgers speaks up to reveal what the heck is going on behind the scenes and where the holdups are, or he needs to walk.

In an effort that strikes me as trying to put lipstick on a donkey, here is what Rodgers recently told Congress’s (from his July 14, 2010 testimony, emphasis added);

“The Department has outlayed more than 16 percent ($5.2 billion) of our Recovery Act funds, and our primary focus now is accelerating our outlay rates to our 5,000 recipients. . . .  We will soon be operating out our target rate of $800 million a month. You might think of this process as analogous to accelerating onto the highway: go too quickly and you risk a mistake; go too slowly and you won’t get to your destination on time. At our optimal pace, we will be at able [sic] to minimize risk to taxpayers, while maximizing their return in jobs created or saved and projects accomplished. By the end of the fiscal year, we expect to have outlayed about $8 billion.“

Keep in mind that Chu promised Feb. 19, 2009, to “disperse 70 percent of the investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan by the end of next year,” i.e.,  ~ $25 billion by Dec. 31, 2010. More importantly, everyone needs to be honest and acknowledge that there is minimal risk to taxpayers, and this one task is not equal to the other task of “maximizing the return in jobs created or saved and projects accomplished.” That confusion is part of the way double-dip recessions are ushered in. The Bush administration used “tax payer risk” as an excuse to never write checks to many in the science community. The old theme of “change” was supposed to invert a lot of this nonsense, not level the playing field of risk and return.

So here is where we are at, as of 8/27/2010:

DOE — now at 21% of the Recovery Act money actually distributed:

NSF — now also at 21% of the Recover Act money actually distributed:

Cementing success: Startup that eyes radical shift in cement industry wins MIT $100K business-plan competition

Closing in on a carbon-based solar cell

Better boron nitride nanotubes may be on the way

Lasers at the cutting edge of science

Japanese company develops world’s first ultra-thin piezoelectric waterproof speaker

Murata Supplying World’s Smallest 0402*-Size 10μF 6.3V-Rated Monolithic Ceramic Capacitor

Nanospheres stretch limits of hard disk storage

and, a video from Onyx Solar: Paving the way for building integrated photovoltaics:

Credit: Tetsuya Blues

A research group from the University of Campinas (Brazil) led by Fernando Galembeck thinks this air-based power source can be harnessed into a significant supply of electricity for a variety of consumers and lessen the dangers of lightening. “Our research could pave the way for turning electricity from the atmosphere into an alternative energy source for the future,” says Galembeck. “If we know how electricity builds up and spreads in the atmosphere, we can also prevent death and damage caused by lightning strikes.” He delivered the report at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Electricity in the air is formed when water vapor collects on microscopic particles of dust and other airborne materials. Galembeck has been studing electricity in the air for some time.

Recently, his group used particles of silica and aluminum phosphate, both common in the atmosphere, and according to Galembeck, found that that silica becomes negatively charged in high humidity and aluminum phosphate becomes more positively charged. They also found “clear evidence that water in the atmosphere can accumulate electrical charges and transfer them to other materials it comes into contact with,” says Galembeck. “We are calling this ‘hygroelectricity,’ meaning ‘humidity electricity’.”

Some of the groups work is discussed in a letter in a recent edition of Langmuir.

Galembeck describes the concept of special photovoltaic-like collectors that could capture hygroelectricity and route it to homes and businesses. He adds that hygroelectrical panels would best in geographic regions with high humidity.

His group also envisions using the panels to prevent the formation of lightning. They believe that hygroelectrical panels on top of buildings could drain electricity out of the air, and prevent the building of electrical charge that is released in lightning.

He says the next step is to find materials with the greatest potential for use.

“These are fascinating ideas that new studies by ourselves and by other scientific teams suggest are now possible,” Galembeck said. “We certainly have a long way to go. But the benefits in the long range of harnessing hygroelectricity could be substantial.”

“Dry water.” Credit: ACS.

The American Chemical Society today distributed a story that came out of one of its meetings regarding the use of “dry water” powder as a medium for absorbing CO₂, enhancing certain chemical reactions and storing emulsions. Although the story is interesting, it’s not exactly clear to me if the CO₂ angle, which is the one being played up, is really news. But, here is the scoop anyway.

The background to this is that Andrew Cooper and his group at the University of Liverpool have been playing around with uses for dry water for several years. DW is really just tiny water droplets that have been given a coating of hydrophobic fumed silica, except that it sort of looks like fine sand or sugar. What goes on with the creation of DW is akin to the phenomenon one sees if a water droplet fall onto powdered mud: The water droplet balls up and has a visible coating of the dust.

Making DW is apparently simple enough. It basically requires putting a mixture of water and hydrophobic fumed silica (19:1, by mass) in an ordinary blender.

Back in 2008, Cooper and his researchers gained some notoriety because they successfully demonstrated that DW could be used to store methane (in the form of methane gas hydrate) in a powder form if kept at low temperatures (-70°C) or under pressure.

The thinking of Cooper and others in his group at the time was that since the DW/methane gas hydrate combo can be easily made, it could be used to store and transport large amounts of methane for use, for example, in cars. They said that in 30 minutes a liter of methane gas could be stored in just 6 grams of DW.

But, even then, they also described the use of DW as an absorbent for CO₂.

Cooper et al. also published an update on DW in late 2009, describing a method of making the DW perform as a gas separator and be recyclable by including a gelling agent.

So, the thrust of today’s story is that Cooper argues that DW is being overlooked as a piece of solving the CO₂ accumulation problem. According to the ACS release, “Cooper and coworkers found that dry water absorbed over three times as much carbon dioxide as ordinary, uncombined water and silica in the same space of time. This ability to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide gas as a hydrate could make it useful in helping to reduce global warming, the scientists suggested.”

But, like I said, I am not sure what the news is here.

Perhaps its more newsworthy that Cooper also described two new applications for DW:

• To speed up catalyzed reactions between hydrogen gas and maleic acid to produce succinic acid, eliminating the need to stir the mixture; and
  
• To transform simple emulsions into a dry powder, making it safer and easier for manufacturers to store and transport potentially hazardous materials.

Hollow rods of titanium oxide with the solid manganese oxide core removed. (Credit: UConn.)

According to a University of Connecticut press release, researchers believe they have developed a new material that could be used as a catalyst in alternative fuel development.

Featured in the September issue of the nanotechnology journal, Small, University of Connecticut chemistry professor Steven Suib describes a method developed for the production of a nanosized crystalline material that can potentially be used for energy conservation.

Small fibers or rods of titanium oxide emanating from the manganese oxide-based template. (Credit: UConn.)

The material, sized at 100 nanometers, consists of two materials, one a template and the other a material that can grow around it in a well-ordered array. The growth can be controlled and its photocatalytic properties may be useful to drive reactions such as the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen.

According to Suib, the material can be a component of paint or can be applied to a surface, and will be useful in solar applications.

“It’s very hard to make materials this size,” Suib says, “as small antennas come in and out of a surface that small.”

Suib’s work with catalysts also expands to new oxygen reduction catalysts composed of octahedral molecular sieves of the the gamma form of manganese oxide (gamma-MnO2) and a small amount of titanium. We published a story on this work with active oxidation catalyst for Li-air batteries, which can be seen here.