innovationguy.com

Original Article from EDN Magazine Online (Link)
By Matthew Miller — EDN, 2/28/2008

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a textile-based generator that could enable garments to convert the wearer’s movement into electricity to power personal electronic devices.

The researchers coax billions of zinc-oxide nanowires to grow radially from a Kevlar fiber, yielding a structure they liken to a bottle brush. A generator features two such fibers arranged in parallel. One of the fibers gets an additional coating of gold that allows it to serve as the electrode. Employing the same basic principles as an earlier harvester, the generator creates electrical energy via the piezoelectric effect when movement causes the two fibers to rub together (see “Energy harvester generates continuous nanoampere current,” EDN, May 24, 2007).

The researchers have measured 4 nA of current and 4 mV of output voltage from a generator employing 1-cm fibers. They estimate that, with design improvements, a square meter of fabric should be able to generate 80 mW. One major barrier to commercialization remains, the team admits: Zinc-oxide is vulnerable to water, so the technology still needs a mechanism for washing-machine survival.

Originally this was posted over at Roland Piquequaille’s Emerging Trends Blog. (Link) 

U.S. researchers have used a new technique named cryo-EM (short for ‘Electron cryomicroscopy) to capture images of a virus at a resolution of 4.5 angstroms — less than half of a nanometer. As said the lead researcher, ‘This is the highest resolution ever achieved for a living organism of this size.’ The team thinks this should help to develop new disease treatments. Of course, this kind of research has a cost. It requires high-end electron microscopes and powerful computing resources. The next microscope used for this project will be installed in 2009 for a cool $2 million. And in order to generate the 3-D images at this very high resolution with their current microscope, the research team used the power of 7,000 computers at Purdue University. But read more…

You can see above an image of the bacteriophage Epsilon15 studied by Wen Jiang. On the left, the bacteriophage which has approximative diameter of 700 angstroms is shown at a resolution of 4.5 angstroms — the highest resolution achieved for a living organism of this size. On the right are shown “seven subunits in an asymmetric unit, annotated in different colours. Each subunit contains one copy of [baseplate proteins gp7 and gp10? (Credit: Wen Jiang lab, via Nature). Here is a link to a larger and better version of the image on the top left.

This research project has been led by Wen Jiang, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, and members of
his research group. “In addition to Jiang, Matthew L. Baker, Joanita Jakana and Wah Chiu from Baylor College of Medicine, and Peter R. Weigele and Jonathan King from Massachusetts Institute of Technology worked on the project.”

Now, let’s look at the advantages brought by the cryo-EM imaging technique. “The imaging technique, called cryo-EM, has the added benefit of maintaining the sample being studied in a state very similar to its natural environment. Other imaging techniques used regularly, such as X-ray crystallography, require the sample be manipulated. ‘This method offers a new approach for modeling the structure of proteins in other macromolecular assemblies, such as DNA, at near-native states,’ Jiang said. ‘The sample is purified in a solution that is very similar to the environment that would be found in a host cell. It is as if the virus is frozen in glass and it is alive and infectious while we examine it.’”

And why is this imaging technique different from other ones currently used? “In electron microscopy, a beam of electrons takes the place of the light beam used in a conventional microscope. The use of electrons instead of light allows the microscope to “see” in much greater detail. Cryo-EM cools specimens to temperatures well below the freezing point of water. This decreases damage from the electron beam and allows the specimens to be examined for a longer period of time. Longer exposure time allows for sharper, more detailed images.”

For more information, this research work has been published in a recent issue of Nature under the title “Backbone structure of the infectious 15 virus capsid revealed by electron cryomicroscopy” (Volume 451, Number 7182, Pages 1130-1134, February 28, 2008). Here is a link to
the abstract. The images above have been extracted from this page.

Sources: Purdue University News, March 5, 2008; and various websites

I was looking through some older emails today and I came to the conclusion that I have a bad habit of emailing myself links to interesting articles or newsitems I find, but not getting them out on here. So here’s and effor to catch up.

• This was one of the earlier links I sent to myself pertaining to enzyme based fuel cells.
• An article on Superpaper made from clay platelets. The article claims that is it will revolutionize the composites industry as it can replace high strength carbon fiber or even sheets of nanotubes. Here is the original press release for you to decide what you make of it. Considering the final material is succeptible to water it will take this plus another advancement to make it revolutionary. Here is another link from NetComposites.
• Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Akron have developed a process for making polymer surfaces covered with carbon nanotube hairs, imitating the thousands of microscopic hairs on a gecko’s footpad.
• Other researchershave new data from studying the compressive fatigue properties of carbon nanotubes and report that they are surprisingly resiliant.

For those of you that are working in nanotech or are interested in how nano will effect your lives should take some time and visit The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies Site. This site and the information there is a collaboration between the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Their Mission Statement is interesting in their goals. They also have some great content on there:

1. Frontpage with Nano News
2. Green Nano discussion series
3. Inventories of nano products in (Medicine, Agriculture/Food, & Consumer)
4. A list of government sponsors research on EH&S of Nano.
5. Some of the research projects they are sponsoring.
6. Some Publications they have been involved in.

One interesting item on the site I didn’t list above is the Nano Google Maps Mashup. One static image is shown below that shows the relative activity in Nano across the United States. At the link you can zoom in on your area and see the companies locally are working in Nano. Looking at my area, I know the data collection is not complete, but the concepts is a nice way to visualize the geographical relationships to data.

So is your company on the map? If it is you should at least check out the rest of the data at the site.

I have a couple of interesting links that people may be interested in.

• My friend forwarded this transcript of a pre-commencement lecture given by Narayana Murthy (chief mentor and chairman of the board, Infosys Technologies) at the New York University (Stern School of Business) on May 9. The theme of the lecture was the great impact that chance events played in shaping his life. Quite a good lecture. It really got me thinking as to the random events that lead to long friendships, family, professional success, and perception altering moments.

• I got a note in my email today with links to 3 new TED Talks.
  • John Doerr: Seeking salvation and profit in greentech
  • Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Photosynth demo on SeaDragon and PhotoSynth (AMAZING)
  • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: How to help Africa? Do business there

• Also some interesting articles in SmallTimes this month. NanoDynamics is planning an IPO.

• The rankings for the top Schools with Nano programs according to SmallTimes is out. ( or the quick view for the impatient).
• The SmallTimes mergers and acquisitions summary this month seem to have quite a few interesting tid-bits.

  • Xradia with it’s minaturized microscope offerings with some new funding.
    
  • NaturalNano Funding deal is in there (Notice the much improved website with their new money).
  • SolarDiesel with a huge buyout deal on the plans to builds the worlds largest biodiesel plant.
  • Arrowhead Research Corporation continues its end-run to gobble up all the SWNT patents it can find with the purchase of C Sixty Inc. and CNI

• This story from Seth Godin about alignment is concise and to the point.

“When there’s a gap between someone doing her job and doing the right thing, then management has failed.”

Here a a couple of interesting links.

1. Scientists at NIST show DNA wrapped SWCNT of 200nm or less enter ex-vitro lung cells where longer ones don’t.  Not sure if this is like saying 200nm DNA stands enter lung cells, while longer DNA stands don’t?  Another confusion in the the debate on the safety of “nanomaterials”.  How does your company deal with  EHS and nanotubes?
2. I had a long drive this past weekend and was listening up on Phil McKinney’s Killer Innovations Podcasts from 2006.  This one on “Listening Skills and Rules of Future Forecasting”  was one that I enjoyed.
3. Ditto on the Podcast  “Observation Skills and Contradictions”  deals with a quick exercise for improving observation and the most concise and true-ringing explanation of TRIZ I have seen anywhere.
4. So how do you really test how building behave in an earthquake?  You build one on top of a giant shaker table and deck it out with sensors.  Pretty Amazing.
5. Inkblot Earth has a post about The first person killed by a robot.   Not the science fiction of Asimov, but  interesting.
6. Endless Innovation has a post from Design Sojourn about 7 ways to unleash your creativity  originally from IDEO.   (three level link action).  Those IDEO guys are great,  I got to meet a few through work.
7. Again with IDEO,  The 10 Faces of Innovation changed my outlook on how people work and what drives them.

I was reading my copy of NASA Techbriefs this morning and came across this article describing some work by Harish Manohara and Michael Bronkowski of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. What really caught my attention was the image below (click to enlarge).

The image shows as array of Bundles of Carbon Nanotubes grown by CVD onto a substrate. Each of the pillars is a mass of carbon nanotubes. The inset image shows a close-up of one of the tips of the pillars. The original Article is here. An excerpt from which describes how the pillars were manufactured.

In preparation for the experiments, planar arrays of bundles of carbon nanotubes having various bundle diameters, bundle heights, and bundle spacings were fabricated. The fabrication process can be summarized as follows: Electron-beam lithography was used to form planar arrays of iron dots having various thicknesses and having diameters and inter-dot spacings corresponding to the desired diameters and spacings of the carbon-nanotube bundles. The dots served as catalysts for the growth of carbon nanotubes: Bundles of multi-walled 20-nm-diameter carbon nanotubes were grown on the iron dots by chemical vapor deposition. The average height of the bundles was 70 ± 2?m. The heights of the bundles were found to depend on the thicknesses of the iron dots. The tallest bundles (112 ?m high) were found on iron dots 8 ?m thick.

This work is targeted at constructing better field emission sources. The reasearches were looking to (1) understand the relationship between nanotube bundle size and spacing while also probing (2) whether bundles of nanotubes are more rubost to operation than single nanotubes.

Here is a quick post to introduce myself and what you might expect to find here.

I am a 30 something year old scientist who works for a fortune 500 company in a technical role.  I am a Chemical Engineering by training (BS,MS,PhD).   I work primarily in the materials area.  My primary role is as a scientist and developer of new products.

I am facsinated by how new materials and prodcuts are developed and enter into the marketplace.  Which ones sell? which ones don’t?  and which ones change the way things are done.

So you will find a couple of key themes at this spot:

• Innovation Topics
• Advances in science and how they might be used
• New materials and their commercialization

Tune in and we’ll see how this develops.

I also plan on using this venue to sharing some experimentation with my own personal growth through a couple of on-going series:

• Read something new - My personal attempt on a weekly basis to expose myself to something new.  This might include picking up a magazine, trade journal, or book on something I never would usually read or be interested in.
• New science article - A weekly basis of pointing out something interesting I see in a scientific paper and how it might be used.

I look forward to comments and suggestions.  The site design may change and improve/regress as I get settled on something that works.