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    Category Technology/Electronics

    Engineers design a robotic gripper for cleaning up space debris

    June 29, 2017, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Astronomy/Space

    Close up of the robotic gripper made by the Cutkosky lab at Stanford University. The gripper is designed to grab objects in zero gravity using their gecko-inspired adhesive. Credit: Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service

    Close up of the robotic gripper made by the Cutkosky lab at Stanford University. The gripper is designed to grab objects in zero gravity using their gecko-inspired adhesive. Credit: Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service

     
    Right now, about 500,000 pieces of human-made debris are whizzing around space, orbiting our planet at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. This debris poses a threat to satellites, space vehicles and astronauts aboard those vehicles. What makes tidying up especially challenging is that the debris exists in space. Suction cups don’t work in a vacuum. Traditional sticky substances, like tape, are largely useless because the chemicals they rely on can’t withstand the extreme temperature swings. Magnets only work on objects that are magnetic...
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    Ruthenium Rules for New Fuel Cells

    June 28, 2017, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Single-Atomic Ruthenium Catalytic Sites on Nitrogen-Doped Graphene for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Acidic Medium. ACS Nano, 2017; DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b02148

    Single-Atomic Ruthenium Catalytic Sites on Nitrogen-Doped Graphene for Oxygen Reduction Reaction in Acidic Medium. ACS Nano, 2017; DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b02148

    Project disperses single atoms on graphene to match platinum standard. Rice University scientists have fabricated a durable catalyst for high-performance fuel cells by attaching single ruthenium atoms to graphene. Catalysts that drive the oxygen reduction reaction that lets fuel cells turn chemical energy into electricity are usually made of platinum, which stands up to the acidic nature of the cell’s charge-carrying electrolyte. But platinum is expensive.

    The ruthenium-graphene combination may fit the bill...

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    One Billion Suns: World’s Brightest Laser Sparks new behavior in Light

    June 26, 2017, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    A rendering of how changes in an electron's motion (bottom view) alter the scattering of light (top view), as measured in a new experiment that scattered more than 500 photons of light from a single electron. Previous experiments had managed to scatter no more than a few photons at a time. Credit: Extreme Light Laboratory|University of Nebraska-Lincoln

    A rendering of how changes in an electron’s motion (bottom view) alter the scattering of light (top view), as measured in a new experiment that scattered more than 500 photons of light from a single electron. Previous experiments had managed to scatter no more than a few photons at a time. Credit: Extreme Light Laboratory|University of Nebraska-Lincoln

    Physicists from University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeing an everyday phenomenon in a new light. By focusing laser light to a brightness one billion times greater than the surface of the sun – the brightest light ever produced on Earth – the physicists have observed changes in a vision-enabling interaction between light and matter...

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    Skin-based Biofuel Cell developed for Scavenging Energy from Human Sweat

    June 25, 2017, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Biology/Biotechnology

    Amay J. Bandodkar et al. Soft, stretchable, high power density electronic skin-based biofuel cells for scavenging energy from human sweat, Energy Environ. Sci. (2017). DOI: 10.1039/C7EE00865A

    Amay J. Bandodkar et al. Soft, stretchable, high power density electronic skin-based biofuel cells for scavenging energy from human sweat, Energy Environ. Sci. (2017). DOI: 10.1039/C7EE00865A

    A team at the University of California has developed a skin patch that uses human sweat as a fuel source to power an external device. Scientists and engineers are convinced that consumers want easy-to-wear consumer products—health monitors that are built into clothes, for example, or that adhere to the skin. In this new effort, they have found a way to harness human sweat as an energy source and report that the device they built was able to power a Bluetooth transmitter.

    Sweat can be used as an energy source because it contains lactate, which produces energy when it oxidizes with lactate oxidase...

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