Nanotechnology Today - Fuel Cells, Buckyballs and Carbon Nanotubes - Bytesize Science

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of National Chemistry Week, we visited the Maryland Nanocenter at the University of Maryland (UMD) to check out the latest research in nanotechnology -- this year's theme for NCW. Three UMD researchers explain how their work in the nano-scale could lead to better fuel cells, solar cells, cancer treatments and super strong materials made from carbon nanotubes. Check out the video for a first hand look at the exciting applications of nanotechnology available today, and those that are just around the corner.

Video by Kirk Zamieroski
Produced by the American Chemical Society

• Category

  Science & Technology

[eesiflo]

Nano is the way of the future

[Matthew Bendyna]

Well, aluminum was the most precious material on Earth once. While the planet is about 4% aluminum, most of it is bound up in silicates and other material, and the process of extracting pure aluminum was extremely difficult until the process known as electrolysis was discovered.

[Lerkero]

Carbon is everywhere too, but like silicon it must be processed to be purified.

[Lerkero]

Most elements cannot be purely acquired in their natural state. It takes energy intensive processes to acquire pure silicon from earth samples.

[BytesizeScience]

That's right -- the processing involved in getting pure silicon (aka single-crystalline silicon) is expensive.

[ciucinciu]

why the hell Silicon is expensive? you can find it everywhere, sand etc.