Cheap Plastic Used in CDs Could Improve Aircraft, Computer Electronics

If one University of Houston professor has his way, the inexpensive plastic now used to manufacture CDs and DVDs will one day soon be put to use in improving the integrity of electronics in aircraft, computers and iPhones.

Thanks to a pair of grants from the U.S. Air Force, Shay Curran, associate professor of physics at Houston, and his research team have demonstrated ultra-high electrical conductive properties in plastics, called polycarbonates, by mixing them with just the right amount and type of carbon nanotubes.

The findings are chronicled in a paper titled "Electrical Transport Measurements of Highly Conductive Carbon Nanotube/Poly(bisphenol A carbonate) Composite," appearing in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Physics, the archival publication of the American Institute of Physics.

Curran, who initially began this form of research a decade ago at Trinity College Dublin, started to look at high-conductive plastics in a slightly different manner. Curran's team has come up with a strategy to achieve higher conductivities using carbon nanotubes in plastic hosts than what has been currently achieved. By combining nanotubes with polycarbonates, Curran's group was able to reach a milestone of creating nanocomposites with ultra-high conductive properties.

"While its mechanical and optical properties are very good, polycarbonate is a non-conductive plastic. That means its ability to carry an electrical charge is as good as a tree, which is pretty awful," Curran says. "Imagine that this remarkable plastic can now not only have good optical and mechanical properties, but also good electrical characteristics. By being able to tailor the amount of nanotubes we can add to the composite, we also can change it from the conductivity of silicon to a few orders below that achieved by metals."

Making this very inexpensive plastic highly conductive could benefit electronics in everything from military aircraft to personal computers. Computer failure, for instance, results from the build up of thermal and electrical charges, so developing these polymer nanotube composites into an antistatic coating or to provide a shield against electromagnetic interference would increase the lifespan of computing devices, ranging from PCs to PDAs.

The next step of this research is to develop ink formulations to paint these polycarbonate nanocomposites onto various electrical components. Normally, metal plates are used to dissipate electrical charge, so it's not surprising that the availability of a paintable ink would be particularly appealing to the Air Force for its lightweight properties, resulting in lighter aircraft that guzzle less gas.

Another key component of this latest research is that pristine nanotubes disbursed in this polycarbonate were found to possess an even higher conductivity than acid-treated carbon nanotubes. Traditionally, the tubes are sonicated, or treated with acid, to clean them and remove soot to get a higher conductivity. This, however, damages the tubes and exposes them to defects. Instead, Curran and his group were able to centrifuge, or swirl, them. This takes a little longer, but increases the potential to have higher conductivities. He attributes this to the incredibly clean samples of carbon nanotubes obtained from fellow collaborator David Carroll in the physics department at Wake Forest University.

In addition to Curran and Carroll, the team behind these remarkable findings includes Donald Birx, professor of electrical engineering and vice president for research at UH, two of Curran's former post-doctoral students, Jamal Talla and Donghui Zhang, and a current Curran student, Sampath Dias.

Coincidentally, Curran's former thesis supervisor Werner Blau and his group in the department of physics at Trinity College Dublin have come out with similar findings recently in the journal ACS Nano. Both groups really have been pushing hard in the area of polymer nanotube composites during the course of the last decade. Curran said his group at Houston achieved the highest conductivity levels so far, but also is encouraged by Blau's success and said repeating these types of outcomes will open doors for even higher values.

"While these are phenomenal results, finding these unusual highly conductive properties has not even begun to scratch the surface," Curran says. "There is hard science behind it, so developing it further will require significant investment. And we are very thankful to the Air Force for giving us this auspicious start."

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Shop The Whole Web With Shopwiki

When you're shopping online for electronics, like car DVD players, for instance, most times you'll be shopping at a single website.

Even if that website is a huge megasite or website for one of those big-box stores, you'll be limited to that one retailer's inventory and selection.

ShopWiki says it is different by aggregating selection from across the entire Internet. Therefore, in your search for a car DVD player, you'll find a selection of the cheapest car DVD players, all the way up to the high-end car DVD players -- and everything in between.

ShopWiki stacks up a variety of different brands and makers right next to each other -- features and pictures and descriptions, so you can make your own decision of what to buy. You'' find Panasonic, Toshiba, JVC and many more. These aren't "dollar-store" type brands you've never heard of.

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Advances Pave Way for Powerful Carbon-Based Electronics

Bypassing decades-old conventions in making computer chips, Princeton engineers developed a novel way to replace silicon with carbon on large surfaces, clearing the way for new generations of faster, more powerful cell phones, computers and other electronics.

The electronics industry has pushed the capabilities of silicon -- the material at the heart of all computer chips -- to its limit, and one intriguing replacement has been carbon, says Stephen Chou, professor of electrical engineering. A material called graphene -- a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice -- could allow electronics to process information and produce radio transmissions 10 times better than silicon-based devices.

Until now, however, switching from silicon to carbon has not been possible because technologists believed they needed graphene material in the same form as the silicon used to make chips: a single crystal of material eight or 12-inches wide. The largest single-crystal graphene sheets made to date have been no wider than a couple millimeters, not big enough for a single chip. Chou and researchers in his lab realized that a big graphene wafer is not necessary, as long they could place small crystals of graphene only in the active areas of the chip. They developed a novel method to achieve this goal and demonstrated it by making high-performance working graphene transistors.

“Our approach is to completely abandon the classical methods that industry has been using for silicon integrated circuits,” Chou says.

Chou, along with graduate student Xiaogan Liang and materials engineer Zengli Fu, published their findings in the December 2007 issue of Nano Letters, a leading journal in the field. The research was funded in part by the Office of Naval Research.

In their new method, the researchers make a special stamp consisting of an array of tiny flat-topped pillars, each one-tenth of a millimeter wide. They press the pillars against a block of graphite (pure carbon), cutting thin carbon sheets, which stick to the pillars. The stamp is then removed, peeling away a few atomic layers of graphene. Finally, the stamp is aligned with and pressed against a larger wafer, leaving the patches of graphene precisely where transistors will be built.

The technique is like printing, Chou says. By repeating the process and using variously shaped stamps (the researchers also made strips instead of round pillars), all the active areas for transistors are covered with single crystals of graphene.

“Previously, scientists have been able to peel graphene sheets from graphite blocks, but they had no control over the size and location of the pieces when placing them on a surface,” Chou says.

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Big Screen TVs, Flexible Electronics, Surfboards Made From Same New Material

There is nothing new about combining two materials to make a composite material with more desirable properties than the originals. Fibreglass has been a mainstay of the marine industry for decades and the construction industry is built on reinforced concrete. Now carbon nanotubes (CNT) are getting in on the act with nanotechnologists working out how to grow nanotube reinforcements for polymers in an ideal manner.

Researchers from Trinity College have developed a scalable inexpensive technique to grow grid patterns of nanotube arrays. To maximize the effect of CNT reinforcement on a polymer thin film, while minimizing nanotube content, a controllable way of varying the volume fraction of CNTs within the composite is needed. In order to do this, the inter-grid spacing can be tailored as required giving a simple method of controlling the volume fraction of nanotubes grown on substrates.

The research work by Werner Blau, Emer Lahiff, Andrew Minett and Kentaro Nakajima is expected to lead to incorporation of CNTs in polymer matrices within flat panel displays, sensors, flexible electronic devices and actuators.

The study has been published in a special edition of the open access journal, AZoJono.

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One Stop For Marine Electronics

GPS is only one reason why marine electronics are becoming more complex -- and vital to a trip on the water.

So it makes sense that you want to purchase marine electronics you can trust. Northeast Marine Electronics offers a number of known brands, including Raymarine.

Northeast Marine Electronics sells Raymarine product bundles, like the Raymarine C120 Multifunction Navigation System Pack. You can configure any C-Series display as single function stand-alone chartplotter, digital fishfinder or radar; create a combination chart-plotter, radar, or echo sounder; and build a powerful all-in-one chart/radar/sounder system.

Northeast Marine Electronics is more than just marine gear -- you will find electronics for camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, boating, and driving, as well.

NortheastMarineElectronics.com prides itself on an easy-to-use site and quality merchandise. They accept secure online crredit card transactions, as well as Pay Pal.

Whether you need radar, fishfinders, or gps systems, you’ll find the perfect products at their store.

Go online or you can also call toll free (866) 837-9812.

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Hydrogen-Powered Lawnmowers?

In a breakthrough that could make fuel cells practical for such small machines as lawnmowers and chainsaws, researchers have developed a new mechanism to efficiently control hydrogen fuel cell power.


Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency.


The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power output, just as one controls the feed of gasoline into an internal combustion engine. The system functions as a closed system that uses the waste water to regulate the size of the reaction chamber, the site where the gasses combine to form water, heat and electricity.


National Science Foundation (NSF) awardee Jay Benziger of Princeton University developed the new technique with his student Claire Woo, a recipient of an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates award and now a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Woo and Benziger published their findings in the February Chemical Engineering Science, now available online.


The researchers believe the first applications for their technology will be in smaller engines. Fuel cells are currently inefficient on such scales due to the need for fuel recycling and excess hydrogen in standard designs. The researchers' new design is closed, so 100 percent of the fuel is used and there is no need for a costly fuel recycling system.


"The system is ideal for small internal combustion engines that lack emissions controls and are highly polluting," says Benziger. "There is also no need for an extensive hydrogen distribution system for these small motors; the hydrogen could be supplied in returnable tanks such as the propane tanks used for gas grills."


Benziger's next goal is to connect several of the new fuel cells together to increase power, a system that could potentially compete with cells now being tested in the automotive industry.





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Alabama Woman Sentenced to More Than Six Years in Prison for Katrina Fraud

Lawanda T. Williams, also known as Lawanda Johnson, was sentenced to more than six years in prison for defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of more than $267,000 and for aggravated identity theft following Hurricane Katrina, U.S. Attorney Deborah Rhodes of the Southern District of Alabama announced.

Williams was sentenced to 75 months in prison, and was ordered to pay full restitution to FEMA in the amount of $267,377. In addition, Williams was ordered to forfeit all of the property she purchased with the proceeds of her Katrina fraud, including four automobiles, real estate, televisions and other electronics.

Williams pled guilty in September 2006 to making false claims to the government, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft in connection with 28 fraudulent claims for disaster assistance she made to FEMA after Hurricane Katrina. Williams admitted that her residence in Jackson, Ala. was not damaged by the hurricane and that she filed 28 fraudulent claims for Katrina assistance, falsely claiming to have lived at various addresses in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida. In those applications, Williams admitted using Social Security numbers of other people and providing FEMA with fraudulent and fictitious documents that purported to prove her ownership of property she did not own.

"Ms. Williams used Hurricane Katrina and the relief efforts as an opportunity to make hundreds of thousands of dollars by lying and by stealing other people's identities," says Rhodes. "The Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force is actively working to bring to justice those who took advantage of the recovery efforts to enrich themselves."

Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. It made landfall along the Gulf Coast in late August 2005, laying waste to New Orleans and the surrounding region. The government response, particularly from FEMA, was widely criticized.

In September 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales created the national Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force, designed to deter, investigate and prosecute disaster-related federal crimes such as charity fraud, identity theft, procurement fraud and insurance fraud. The Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force, chaired by Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Alice Fisher, includes members from the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, the Postal Inspector's Office and the Executive Office of United States Attorneys, among others.

The case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, the FBI, and the United States Postal Inspection Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Costello.


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