Solar splitting

One of the great problems that face humanity at the moment is global warming and climate change. It is well known that humans are releasing more and more CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

Graph of CO2 emissions and where they are released from

Pie chart showing where we get our energy from

In response to this up and coming crises, new research and accompanying companies have begun to develop new energy technologies, which they hope will become the successor of fossil fuels. These new renewable energy sources consist mainly of Hydroelectric power. 8 of the 9% of energy used by Americans comes from hydroelectricity.  

The last 1% of energy sources include solar and wind. Both have received much press, but it is clear that they have yet to take hold. However, there have been several recent advancements in solar technology, that may  help the platform become a major contributor to our energy reservoir. 

Solar panels and other solar technologies have yet to take of. One reason for this reluctance is the cost for the infrastructure. However, the prices of solar panels have dropped dramatically in the last several decades. This is a good sign for the industry, as it will obviously solicit a positive response from consumers.

Unfortunately, there remains another problem which holds solar panels back. This is that solar panels cannot produce energy at night. It has to thus store excess energy  in expensive batteries. However, a team at Stanford has made a recent development that may make an alternate form of energy storage possible.

The development is based off of the principle that water requires energy to be broken apart into its bare components, hydrogen and oxygen, and that energy  is released when the two fuse to make water. Water is classically separated by putting two electrodes of different charges into the water, causing the water to break apart. This has long been established, but the separation of water has always required much energy.

A team at Stanford has managed to decrease this energy, in a way that might help accelerate solar panel integration into society. For several years, people have been trying to harness the principle mentioned above by using solar energy to separate the water, and then when there is no sunlight, to use the created hydrogen  and oxygen to recreate pure water and release energy. However, up until now, the separation has required too much energy.

The Experiment at Standford which uses a 1.5 volt AAA battery to
Separate water into H and O2

In the past, there has been a major problem: Silicon degrades when it comes into contact with water. Thus, the option to use light energy to charge electrodes and separate water with just sunlight was not an option (both because of the amount of energy required and because of the silicon degradation. The problem was originally solved by teams who coated silicon electrodes in iridium or other expensive materials. However, this solution was expensive. 

The team at Stanford used a simple nickel nanolayer to solve this problem. The nanolayer (which is inexpensive and which doesn't corrode over longer periods than the iridium covered electrodes ) allows the silicon to absorb light and to not degrade in the water.

Using lithium, the team was also able to prolong the lifespan of the electrodes  to up to 80 hours without any corrosion.

Diagram of the experiment done at stanford

Thus, this development may be able to cheapen the creation of hydrogen fuel by solar energy, and help solar panels come into the mass market. Click Here to Read More

Nanotechnology and Kickstarter

What happens when you look at the intersection of two mega trends: nanotechnologies and Crowfunding ? One might expect to find the future leading companies of the future, but the results are surprising.

The experiment is easy to perform: simply use the SEARCH on the tool Quickstarter website and use  NANOTECHNOLOGY as the key word.

Today, I obtained 11 hits:

• 6 projects reached their funding target: 5 are focusing in the area of hydrophobic coatings / stain protection
• 3 projects failed: odorless sport shirts did not make it ( "crowd" is smart !! )
• 2 projects where cancelled ( area of hydrophobic coatings / stain protection)

In short, there is nothing significant at the moment.

However, it is interesting to note the outcome, as in a year I will try again. It is possible that by then there will be some emerging applications that other VCs or companies have yet to discover !

Waterproofing with Nano-coatings

With Hurricane Sandy just rapping up in New Jersey and New York, a lot of people have lost power, water and may have even been flooded. The classic pitfall for all people in this situation with electronics; to drop your brand new IPhone five into a puddle. P2i attempts to solve this problem with nanotechnologies by making a water repellent nano-coating.

Note that they did not say that their product is water resistant or waterproof. They just say that it is water repellent, or rather, that it makes other's product water repellent. The difference between these three are subtle, but still present. Something that is waterproof probably does not exist, because that would suggest that it a technology would survive under even the highest of pressures. This is obviously not the case. A more correct term is water resistant, which is what has become common in watches.

Being water repellent is completely different. instead of working with water or keeping it out, being water repellent is making the water 'go away'.

Figure 1: Why water sticks to itself diagram

Water has a property of coherence, (the state of cohering or sticking together, figure 1) This property is what creates the curve in water when you look at it in a cup from the side (figure 2). To be clear, figure one is not the only type of meniscus. There are both concave and convex menisci. For example in figure 2, there is both a concave and convex example. The water is concave (because it turns inwards) and mercury is convex (it turns outwards). This is decided by how much the liquid in a container sticks to itself and how well the liquid sticks to the material of the container. If the substance sticks more to itself than the container (because the surface energy of the container is higher than that of the water), then it is convex like mercury, otherwise, it is concave.

Figure 2: curvature in water because of coherence as well
as a meniscus

Figure 3: comparing a concave and convex menisci

This is the fundamental property behind P2i and describes a water repellent material. To be water repellent, water needs to ball up and roll off of a material when it is splashes on the surface of something. This requires that the surface energy be lower than waters. P2i does just that, it lowers the surface energy of a material, making water roll off of it like skies sliding down a snow capped mountain.

(source)(source)(source)(source)(source) (These are all on P2i's website)

This is a video of how they lower the surface area of a technology:

P2i is not only interested in saving phones in technologies, but also for other, more common things. They are water repelling  footwear, hats, gloves, life sciences, flitration, energy. It is also used to help the military and institutions.
(source)