US-based BCC Research is forecasting the global market for carbon nanotubes to reach $79.1m in 2007. This is up by 55% from the $50.9m that BCC estimates the global market was worth in 2006 and the group predicts even stronger growth ahead. At a compound annual growth rate of 73.8%, the booming market for carbon …
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has demonstrated a simplified hypersonic engine that could enable near-term development of a high-speed strike weapon. Tests included ground runs of a flight-weight, actively fuel-cooled engine at Mach 5. It is an engine design using existing materials, established manufacturing processes and conventional JP10 hydrocarbon fuel. It is tuned to run at a …
The European Union and other countries are discussing the funding of a 1 billion laser fusion project as a backup to the ITER fusion project. The bid to the European Union is to build an international laboratory, called “HiPER”, to run in parallel with the ITER machine. Bureaucrats in Brussels are interested. Canada and Russia …
Zyvex is the first company that has had the creation of a molecular assembly capability as a goal. Here is a review of recent progress and developments. This is a depiction of the non-covalent Nanosolve “bridge”, which contains two major components. One component adheres to the nanomaterials; the other easily customizes to any application. This …
The end product of a hard material is interesting but it is the understanding of how to tune materials to make them superhard that is more impressive and even more interesting. Researchers have designed and created superhard materials that can be made without using high pressure. There are two ways to make super-hard materials that …
Researchers have developed an organic lighting device with “100 percent internal quantum efficiency” by employing newly designed host materials coupled with optimized device architecture. What’s particularly significant about the researchers’ work is that their optimized device adopts an even simpler structure than any yet reported by other research groups. “There is no waste of electricity,” …
There is a lot of reprocessing of nuclear waste (unburned uranium fuel). More in the UK according to wikipedia. Japan will be reprocessing at about half of the French rate this year. The Russians have an operating 560MW fast breeder and will complete an 800MW fast breeder in 2012. The Russians want to capture a …
Semiconductor for splitting CO2 powered by sunlightKubiak and Sathrum initially used a silicon semiconductor to test the merits of their device because silicon is well-studied. However, silicon absorbs in the infrared range and the researchers say it is “too wimpy” to supply enough energy. The conversion of sunlight by silicon supplied about half of the …
Centauri Dreams discusses how applying Devon Crowe space bubble ideas with nanotechnology could fully enable the ideas of Robert Forward for interstellar solar sails. The prior article about Devon Crowe’s space bubble concepts. Prior article on the state of solar sails Prior article on putting the brakes on laser mirror solar sails Article on laser …
As of April 2007, Dr. Robert Bussard, stated that due to the publicity from his 11/9/2006 talk at Google and the 2006 Outstanding Technology of the Year Award, the U.S. Navy sent him a contract extension to continue his fusion research. UPDATE FROM TOM LIGON: Evidently somebody got carried away with some fairly routine bookkeeping. …
From New Scientist, A standard office printer loaded with silver nitrate and vitamin C can print electronic circuits Printing conductive polymer ink or pastes containing graphite or metal particles are two existing options. A standard office printer loaded with silver nitrate and vitamin C can produce (clockwise from top-left) mobile phone antennas, circuits, RFID chips …