It’s not often that the life and work of someone who labors in the fields of in materials science and chemistry is profiled in a magazine like The New Yorker—better know for its commentary, criticism and cartoons than for a thoughtful discussion of catalysts and silicon coatings—so it was a little startling to see a six-page story about Daniel Nocera and his “artificial leaf.”

Nocera is a someone I have been following since we began this blog four years ago because he seemed to be making some rapid advancements in understanding how to develop low-cost replacements for platinum as a catalyst in energy reactions. In particular, Nocera seemed extraordinarily confident that that he and his team at MIT would be able to use insights into photosynthesis to map a route to “artificial photosynthesis.” His goal has been simple, if not formidable: to mimic the ability of leaves to make chemical fuels from sunlight and water.

Actually, it seems like Nocera’s roadmap evolved into two parallel tracks. The first was to develop catalysts from earth-abundant materials that will facilitate the electrolysis of water into oxygen and hydrogen in a system wired to a fairly traditional photovoltaic energy technology; the second was to develop a method of applying the catalysts directly to silicon via a system of coatings that both perform the electrolysis and protect the silicon (via a metal oxide layer) in a water environment. In other words, the first part involves proving the ability of his electrolysis system wired to solar panels, and the second part involves eliminating the wires and sandwiching everything into thin units that just needs water and sunlight to work.

Nocera launched a company, Sun Catalytix, to execute the development. Along the way, a number of influential investors and institutions have stepped forward to back him and his company (including ARPA-E and Indian billionaire Ratan Tata) the work is starting to pay off in the form of working prototypes that can literally be dropped into water, including polluted water, and, when exposed to sunlight, immediately start producing bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen.

An extended description of high through-put construction of these artificial leaves is contained in a recent issue of Accounts of Chemical Research. In brief, the paper describes a leaf made “by interfacing a triple junction, amorphous silicon photovoltaic with hydrogen- and oxygen-evolving catalysts made from a ternary alloy (NiMoZn) and a cobalt–phosphate cluster (Co-oxygen evolving complex), respectively. … To stabilize silicon in water, its surface is coated with a conducting metal oxide onto which the Co-OEC may be deposited. The net result is that immersing a triple-junction Si wafer coated with NiMoZn and Co-OEC in water and holding it up to sunlight can effect direct solar energy conversion via water splitting.”

I always love to hear how people discover their love of science and engineering, and The New Yorker adds a lot of interesting color to Nocera’s life. The piece describes his early years as the son of a frequently transferred clothing buyer who learned the hard way that it was easier to invest in his interest in science (especially the legendary Heathkits) instead of temporary friendships. It goes on to describe him as evolving into a Deadhead, who both embraced the Grateful Dead’s music and the group’s philosophical leanings in favor of sharing and decentralization of their recordings (the band was notorious for freely permitting the recording and sharing of its concerts). “What I want to do with energy,” says Nocera, “is not different from what the Dead did with their music. I want to distribute it do everybody.”

More accurately, Nocera is mostly interested in getting energy to the impoverished world. In a recent interview, taped early this month at the Re3 conference, he talks about the artificial leaf technology as a “supercheap” low-tech, low-maintenance innovation that can bring “personalized energy”—gridless and decentralized—to the poorest regions of the world. He admits that by developed-nations’ standards, his systems would be considered minimal. But, he asserts, that the same systems could be transformational for people who have access to virtually no regular (let alone renewable) source of dependable power for illumination, cooking and communication.

Nocera emphasizes that the advantage of the artificial leaf isn’t comparative efficiency with traditional solar, but that particularly the hydrogen can be stored as a fuel, making it more versatile than battery storage.

Near the end of The New Yorker story, Nocera admits that his artificial leaves are, at best, decades away from being a practical solution, but he says the bottom line is stark. He says, “In the next forty years, three hundred and fifty million Indians are going to become energy users. We’ve got to get them energy, and it’s got to be CO₂-neutral, because if they use coal we’re screwed.”

For more on Nocera, see our earlier posts:

With leap in catalytic oxygen production, Nocera predicts new era of ‘personalized energy systems’

ARPA-E promotes Nocera’s simple solar-storage concepts

Daniel Nocera makes more news with electrolysis gains

More about Nocera’s electrolysis catalyst

Catalyst discovery unlocks low-cost solar storage

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This illustration depicts the shape of diamond tips used to apply pressure that uncovered important new properties in the memory medium GST. The inset represents the atomic structure of amorphous GST. Credit: Ming Xu, Johns Hopkins Univ.

Check ‘em out:

Thanks for the memory: Researchers find room for more data storage in phase-change material

A team led by Johns Hopkins engineers has discovered some previously unknown properties of a common memory material, paving the way for development of new forms of memory drives, movie discs and computer systems that retain data more quickly, last longer and allow far more capacity than current data storage media. The work was reported in the online edition of PNAS. The research focused on an inexpensive phase-change memory alloy composed of germanium, antimony and tellurium, called GST, for short. Although this phase-change material has been used for at least two decades, the precise mechanics of this switch from one state to another have remained something of a mystery because it happens so quickly-in nanoseconds-when the material is heated. To solve this mystery, Ming Xu and his team used another method to trigger the change more gradually. The researchers used two diamond tips to compress the material. They employed a process called X-ray diffraction and a computer simulation to document what was happening to the material at the atomic level. The researchers found that they could “tune” the electrical resistivity of the material during the time between its change from amorphous to crystalline form.

Heat trickery paves way for thermal computers

If you stacked alternating sheets of a material that conducts heat and another that insulates it, the heat would be conducted more freely sideways than in the top-to-bottom direction. Electrical engineers are familiar with this principle: It’s the same one that makes resistors, one of the most common electrical components, conduct more when wired in parallel than when wired in series. The breakthrough of the new research is to tailor composite materials so that their thermal conduction is not just side to side or top to bottom, but in a direction that changes throughout. “Heat current, like electric current, should be viewed as a medium that can be manipulated, controlled, and processed,” says study author Yuki Sato, a physicist at Harvard University. In principle, a thermal computer could be used for the same tasks as a normal computer, such as word processing or surfing the Internet, says Jiping Huang, a physicist at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. But a thermal computer would benefit from being energy saving, because it could run off waste heat in the environment—even heat produced by a human body.

SunShot Summit plenary speakers announced

The SunShot Grand Challenge: Summit and Technology Forum will feature key solar industry influencers at the event, which will take place June 13-14, 2012, in Denver, Colorado. Plenary speakers will include Energy Secretary Steven Chu; plasmonics pioneer Harry Atwater; SunPower founder Richard Swanson; BrightSource Energy CEO John Woolard. Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.The forum is the first event in a series of DOE’s Grand Challenges. This event focuses on SunShot Initiative goals of achieving grid-parity solar energy within the decade. Through the Grand Challenge series, the Energy Department is launching a broad-based effort to address the scientific, technological, and market barriers to achieving breakthroughs in national energy challenges.

In metallic glasses, researchers find a few new atomic structures

Drawing on powerful computational tools and a state-of-the-art scanning transmission electron microscope, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Iowa State University materials science and engineering researchers has discovered a new nanometer-scale atomic structure in solid metallic materials known as metallic glasses. This understanding ultimately could help manufacturers fine-tune such properties of metallic glasses as ductility, the ability to change shape under force without breaking, and formability, the ability to form a glass without crystalizing. In studies of a zirconium-copper-aluminum metallic glass, lead researcher Paul Voyles’ team found there are clusters of squares and hexagons-in addition to clusters of pentagons, some of which form chains-all located within the space of just a few nanometers. “One or two nanometers is a group of about 50 atoms-and it’s how those 50 atoms are arranged with respect to one another that’s the new and interesting part,” he says.

Beyond the high-speed hard drive: Topological insulators open a path to room-temperature spintronics

Strange new materials experimentally identified just a few years ago are now driving research in condensed-matter physics around the world. First theorized and then discovered by researchers at the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their colleagues in other institutions, these “strong 3D topological insulators”—TIs for short-are seemingly mundane semiconductors with startling properties. For starters, picture a good insulator on the inside that’s a good conductor on its surface—something like a copper-coated bowling ball. A topological insulator’s surface is not an ordinary metal, however. The direction and spin of the surface electrons are locked together and change in concert. And perhaps the most surprising prediction is that the surface electrons cannot be scattered by defects or other perturbations and thus meet little or no resistance as they travel. In the jargon, the surface states remain “topologically protected”-they can’t scatter without breaking the rules of quantum mechanics. The TI in question is bismuth selenide, Bi₂Se₃, on whose surface electrons can flow at room temperature, making it an attractive candidate for practical applications like spintronics devices, plus farther-out ones like quantum computers. Much of the research on electron-phonon coupling in Bi₂Se₃ was conducted at beamline 12.0.1

China building super highway for clean power

(GigaOm) China likes to do things on a grand scale, which allows it to serve its vast population and brag about its technical advancements. The country is now building a 800-kilovolt transmission line that will ferry wind and solar power over 2,210 kilometers (1,373 miles) and when completed in 2014 could claim a world record for its capacity of 8 GW, according to the Chinese government-run China Daily. This isn’t the first project to use ultrahigh voltage direct current lines at 800 kV, which are state of the art. Both Siemens and ABB, two powerline equipment makers, previously announced projects selling their 800 kV equipment to China Southern Power Grid and State Grid Corporation of China, respectively. State Grid will also build the project touted by People’s Daily on Monday. The project will run power lines from the Hami prefecture in the Xinjiang province in the west to Zhengzhou city in Henan province in central China. The equipment will rise up along regions of big solar power development, such as the Gansu and Ningxia provinces. The project will cost 23.39 billion yuan ($3.7 billion), People’s Daily reports

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Credit: Notebooks: YouTube.

You don’t have to be a hard head to appreciate this: Kyocera demonstrated this week a new audio technology for cellphones (and likely a wide range of other applications) using a system that is designed to clearly transmit sound waves through tissue and bone. The company has replaced the traditional cell phone speaker with a system based on proprietary ceramic transducer technology. The phone can still be heard a few inches from the user’s head, but the transducer system really comes into play when the phone is touched to the ear or on the skull near the ear.

The utility of this? I can think of lots of times when I have been in a noisy conference reception or a sporting event and get a call on my cellphone: I typically can’t hear what the caller is saying and have to dash off to an exit or quiet corner to complete the call. As described in the above video, Kyocera claims its technology can provide crystal-clear sound even in noisy environments—sort of like noise-cancelling earphones, but no noise has to be cancelled because the transducer’s actions produce an alternate pathway for vibrations to the ear canal and inner ear than the ambient noise.

As Kyocera notes, there also are times when employees (they mention aircraft ground crews) wear bulky ear protection devices that must be worn, and there is no possibility of going to a quieter place. The company says a phone with its technology can be held up to the ear cans and be well heard.

The company says the phones with the technology will be brought quickly to market, first in Japan and later on in the United States and other markets.

Kyocera’s system was introduced at the International CTIA Wireless 2012 Conference that just wrapped up in New Orleans.

ADDING: After doing some more digging around, I found that the Kyocera technology was apparently also demo’ed early this year, although in KDDI phones. (Background: There is a connection between KDDI and Kyocera: Both were founded by the legendary ceramics leader, Kazuo Inamori.) The narrator of the video obviously didn’t really understand the transducer end of things, but he does demonstrate how the sound works either by means of direct ear contact or vibrations through a set of protective earphones or even metal microphone!

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Here is what we are hearing:

Unifrax celebrates 70 years of success with Fiberfrax product line

Unifrax, a leading global producer of high temperature fiber products is celebrating a milestone year in 2012 as it observes the 70th anniversary of its well-known Fiberfrax product line. In 1942, J. Charles McMullen was a research scientist for The Carborundum Co. Fibers Division, later known as Unifrax, when he invented a revolutionary ceramic fiber that was trademarked under the Fiberfrax name. Today, the spirit of innovation continues at Unifrax where over 50 Fiberfrax product forms, as well as Insulfrax and Isofrax soluble fiber products are backed by experienced Unifrax application engineers, customer service team and extensive distributor. “The success of the Fiberfrax product line during the past 70 years is due to the shared expertise, dedication and support of our customers, distributors and employees,” says Unifrax president, David E. Brooks. “We are committed to continuingthe tradition of high quality, innovative products and service that are an integral part of the Fiberfrax brand.”

CoorsTek acquires ANCeram GmbH & Co. KG Technical Ceramics

CoorsTek (Golden, Colo.) has purchased ANCeram GmbH & Co. KG of Bindlach, Germany. Known primarily for its extended range of specialty aluminum nitrides, ANCeram manufactures ceramic substrates, insulators, and structural components for the aerospace, laser, railway, marine, and automotive industries. Established in 1988, the early focus for ANCeram was on creating a superior alternative for environmentally challenging beryllium oxide. Working with several European universities and independent research centers, ANCeram developed their own environmentally friendly aluminum nitride ceramic. In addition to their broad AlN experience, the company offers silicon nitrides, aluminas, copper-to-ceramic brazing capabilities, ceramic-to-metal bonding, and ceramic metallization. Products include components for insulators, coolers, diodes, heat exchangers, power electronics, high-temperature crucibles and boats, and other multimaterial components.

Carbo Ceramics to construct manufacturing plant and create 70 new jobs

Carbo Ceramics Inc. will begin construction on a state-of-the-art ceramic manufacturing plant in Millen, Ga., announced Gary Kolstad, president and CEO. Having received its air quality permit from the State of Georgia, Carbo should commence construction on the first production line by the end of 2012 and operations could begin near the end of 2013. Initial staffing for the plant should create 70 new jobs in Jenkins County. The project will bring up to 300 construction jobs to the area during assembly of the plant. The manufacturing plant will be situated on 450 acres and conveniently located for product distribution by truck or rail. In addition to the distribution flexibility, the site has the ability to expand to four production lines. Ceramic proppant is used in hydraulic fracturing to make oil and gas wells produce better and recover more oil and gas.

Morgan Thermal Ceramics offers refractory monolithic material for high temperature applications

Morgan Thermal Ceramics announces the availability of its high-strength, low-cement range of refractory monolithic lining materials ideal for demanding, high temperature applications in the metals, incineration, power generation and minerals processing markets. The full range of products includes Tri-Mor Morflo low cement castable and Tri-Mor Higun low cement gunning materials. They offer excellent resistance to chemical attack and abrasion, combining the traditional high performance qualities of high fired brick with the ease of installation of a refractory castable. These advanced materials are ideal for use in forge furnaces, rotary kilns, rotary hearths, pusher furnaces, skid kid pipe protections and troughs for molten copper. The availability of the full range of products offers significant benefits, as walls and floors can be lined with the Morflo castable material, while roofs can be gunned with the complementary Higun material.

Sasol expands ultrahigh purity aluminas capacity

Sasol Ltd.’s Olefins & Surfactants Division (headquarters in Hamburg, Germany) announced it will expand in a first step its capacity to produce ultrahigh purity aluminas by at least 3,000 metric tons per year. Construction will begin immediately at Brunsbuettel, the company’s Germany manufacturing site on a process to supply Sasol North America’s Ceralox alumina production facility in Tucson, Arizona with ultrahigh purity alumina precursor. Sasol Olefins & Surfactants, a provider of ultrahigh purity alumina materials for sapphire and other applications for more than 20 years, will then convert the Brunsbuettel alumina precursor into tailored products for customer specific applications. Of particular focus to Sasol are the increasing raw material requirements of single crystal sapphire producers due to rapidly growing LED applications.

Heraeus continues on record course in 2011

The Hanau-based Heraeus precious metals and technology Group in 2011 once again surpassed the previous year’s record results, tallying the most successful year in the company’s history. This was announced by the Heraeus Holding GmbH Board of Management at a press conference on annual results held in Frankfurt on May 10. With product revenues of EUR4.8 billion, Heraeus surpassed the previous year’s level by 19 percent. Operating results (EBIT) also increased by 23 percent to reach a total of €489 million. Precious metals trading revenue reached €21.3 billion, topping the €20 billion threshold for the first time. This represents an increase of 19 percent over the previous year’s level. The outlook for 2012 is good, too.

Babcock and Wilcox executives see bright prospects in coal power plants despite natural gas competition

Via the Akron Beacon Journal —Prolonged low natural gas prices in the United States likely will hurt some of Babcock & Wilcox’s coal power plant-related business, the company’s top executives said Thursday. But any impact that reduces coal power plant usage in the U.S. can be minimized in part because B&W expects to gain business through its technology and services that make coal-fired plants environmentally cleaner, they said in an earnings conference call with industry analysts. In addition, B&W sees strong demand for coal-fired plants elsewhere in the world, particularly Asia, where natural gas prices are not as low as in the United States, they said.

New Harper webinar series: Designing for energy efficiency in thermal processing

Harper International is proud to present new webinars from our seasoned experts focused on maximizing the production economics of your thermal processing system. In our multi-part series, you will get access to the know-how of Harper’s industry-leading experts, with decades of experience in thermal processing for a variety of advanced materials and expertise in helping customers grow their thermal processing lines successfully. The first webinar will be June 5, 2012, at 11 a.m. (Eastern Time). The webinar will be led by Robert Blackmon, vice president of integrated systems, and Doug Armstrong, process technology engineer. This webinar will explore how to optimize high temperature processes; considering efficiency early during development of advanced material processes; reuse of furnace outputs to drive down utilities costs; batch vs. continuous processing; pragmatic retrofits to apply to existing systems; and carbon fiber as a case study example.

Harrop increases toll firing capacity at Columbus facility

Harrop Industries has recently commissioned two new electrically-heated elevator kilns in its toll firing facility in Columbus, Oh, to fulfill the ongoing demand from our clients. Harrop now operates 17 electric and gas-fired periodic kilns and ovens with temperature capabilities up to 1,700°C and atmosphere control. With the wide variety of equipment available, Harrop can tailor a solution to meet our clients’ needs in both product development and supplemental production. Founded in 1919, Harrop has been and continues to be a leader in custom designed industrial kilns for the ceramics industry. Our breadth of knowledge in thermal processing equipment has also allowed us to supply custom heat treating systems in other industries as well. Our focus is to build relationships with our clients and provide a system that is custom designed for their process.

Union Process introduces DMQX bead mill

Union Process, Inc., known globally as a leading manufacturer of size reduction and dispersing equipment for a broad range of industrial applications, has launched the DMQX horizontal bead milling system. The DMQX mill features an enhanced disc/rod design that significantly improves grinding efficiency. The new design dramatically increases milling effectiveness resulting in shorter milling time and lower shaft speeds. The result is less wear on seal faces and other wear parts, which in turn results in significant cost savings. The unique design of the mill allows for a fast and efficient solution for producing materials in the single micron and even nanometer range, all with the cost-effective advantages of circulation grinding. Union Process is the inventor and developer of attritor technology, and manufactures wet and dry grinding mills as well as horizontal bead mills.

Remtec expands DBC substrate capabilities, provides fast prototyping and delivery of low/medium volume DBC substrates

Remtec, a leading manufacturer of substrates and packages with Plated Copper On Thick Film, has significantly expanded its activity in the design and fabrication of DBC ceramic products for military and commercial applications in small to medium production volumes with fast prototyping and economic pricing. This capability is supported by close cooperation with Rogers Corp. to provide Remtec with its standard Curamik brand mastercards. Remtec facilitates fast turnaround by keeping an extensive stock of the most commonly used 5.5″ x 7.5″ alumina and aluminum nitride DBC configurations ready for production. Remtec utilizes the well-known quality of Curamik DBC substrates coupled with high quality Remtec plating typical of its PCTF products. Remtec offers its customers versatile surface finish options such as selective gold, gold tin plating, and ENEPIG. These processes along with various solder mask options allow for high reliability, low cost solutions suitable for any assembly technique.

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Via MaterialsViews.com, Jeffrey Moore and Scott White, professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, talk us through their newest publication, “Three-Dimensional Microvascular Fiber-Reinforced Composites“.

Moore and White discuss their method for fabricating microvascular networks in fiber-reinforced composites Their method relies on sacrificial fibers woven into fiber preforms that, when removed, create 3D microvascular networks inside the composite material. By circulation of liquids in the resulting channels, a huge variety of new functionalities can be engineered (imagine, for example, coolants, medical fluids, ferroelectric materials, self-healing compounds). They say that the simplicity, robustness, scalability and reliance on readily available components make this method compatible with composite manufacturing methods. White uses the analogy of a stem cell in biology, noting the composite is “pluripotent” and says, “It takes on the functionality of whatever fluids we introduce to it.”

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