| NANOCATALYSTS |
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| UPDATED DECEMBER 10, 2005 |
| Nanocatalysts For Oil, Drugs At the nanoscale, substances can demonstrate catalytic activity where they once did not. "Gold is famously inactive," Zhou said, "but when we make gold less than 6 nanometers, it becomes an active catalyst, helping oxygen combine with carbon monoxide to make carbon dioxide." The ability of nanotechnology to enhance catalytic activity opens the potential to replace expensive catalysts with cheaper nanocatalysts. Link |
| Rutgers/Ted Madey, Wenhua Chen, Ivan Ermanoski Nanotechnology Could Promote Hydrogen Economy A finely textured surface of the metal iridium that can be used to extract hydrogen from ammonia, then captured and fed to a fuel cell. Link 1 Link 2 Journal of the American Chemical Society Abstract |
| Oxonica, a spin-off company from Oxford University Cerium oxide, Envirox Envirox works by modifying the combustion profile - the carbon in the fuel burns at a lower temperature, resulting in a much cleaner reaction. By adding it to the fuels itself, scientists at Oxonica realised they could get the catalyst where it would do most good - in the cylinders of the engine during combustion. Link to article |
| Sandia/Georgia Tech/Shelnutt/Wang/Splitting Water/Porphyrin Nanotubes The key to making water-splitting nanodevices is the discovery by Zhongchun Wang of nanotubes composed entirely of porphyrins. Wang is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Georgia working in Shelnutt�s Sandia research group. Shelnutt says the nanodevice could efficiently use the entire visible and ultraviolet parts of the solar spectrum absorbed by the tubes to produce hydrogen, one of the Holy Grails of chemistry. These nanotube devices could be suspended in a solution and used for photocatalytic solar hydrogen production. The nanotube with the gold inside and platinum outside is the heart of a nanodevice that may split water into oxygen and hydrogen. Link to Sandia article Link to RB message |