In Treibstoffen enthaltene Schwefel- und Stickstoff-Verbindungen setzen bei der Verbrennung Schwefel- und Stickoxide frei, die die Umwelt belasten. Daher wird immer größerer Wert darauf gelegt, dass Benzin, Diesel und Kerosin möglichst frei von diesen Stoffen sind.
Forscher der University of Michigan haben eine neue Methode entwickelt, um unliebsame Stickstoffverbindungen aus Diesel zu entfernen. Ralph T. Yang und Arturo J. Hernández-Maldonado suchten nach einer adsorptiven Methode, um stör
Researchers at Purdue University have developed a miniature device sensitive enough to detect a single virus particle, an advancement that could have many applications, including environmental-health monitoring and homeland security.
The device is a tiny “cantilever,” a diving board-like beam of silicon that naturally vibrates at a specific frequency. When a virus particle weighing about one-trillionth as much as a grain of rice lands on the cantilever, it vibrates at a different frequency,
Cutting high-thickness metal sheets is a basic manufacturing process common to a wide range of industrial sectors, from heavy carpentry to ship-building. Laser-cutting technology ought, in theory, to have significant advantages over traditional cutting processes, among them high cutting speed, no tool wear and a reduction in the transfer of energy to the piece of metal being cut. Yet despite the fact that commercial laser-cutting systems have been on the market for a decade, their use has not become
An MIT device that makes the world’s most precise rulers—with “ticks” only a few hundred billionths of a meter apart—could impact fields from the manufacture of computer chips to space physics.
The Nanoruler is 10 to 1,000 times faster and more precise than other methods for patterning parallel lines and spaces (known collectively as gratings) across large surfaces more than 12 inches in diameter. Such large surfaces are key to a number of applications involving gratings, such as larger waf
In a major advance for cryogenics, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a compact, solid-state refrigerator capable of reaching temperatures as low as 100 milliKelvin. The refrigerator works by removing hot electrons in a manner similar to an evaporative air-conditioner or “swamp cooler.”
When combined with an X-ray sensor, also being developed at NIST, the instrument will be useful in semiconductor manufacturing for identifying trace conta
EUREKA project E! 2339 EUROENVIRON GRINDING project has developed an alternative, flexible and environmentally friendly manufacturing technology for the production of gears that can reduce production times from months to a matter of days.
It can be used for all kinds of gears and joints made from treated alloyed steel, heat-resistant nickel or titanium alloys, such as those used in turbine and jet engine blades.
The current production process for industrial gears is expensive in terms of
Scottish company IceRobotics has taken a further step towards bringing its innovative robotic milking technology to market thanks to a second round investment package of £430,000. This includes £75,000 from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts), the organisation that invests in UK creativity and innovation.
IceRobotics has developed a sophisticated vision-based sensor that can precisely target and track a cow’s teats, capturing the 3D coordinate data required to
Purdue University researchers have developed a new method to quickly and inexpensively create microfluidic chips, analytic devices with potential applications in food safety, biosecurity, clinical diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and other industries.
“This development democratizes the preparation of microfluidic biochips,” said Michael Ladisch, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. “This brings the design and manufacture of these devices
Space exploration and underground mining both take place in extreme environments – so perhaps it is not too surprising that technology developed for one field is now being applied to the other.
ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme is accelerating space technology spin-offs to the mining and the minerals industry sector. In a recent workshop with representatives from the sector, several potential areas were identified as being suitable for cooperation.
“Today 7% of our completed tech
Facelifts can sag. Botox is temporary. But modern science has a new way to return youth to weathered faces: the rock abrasion tool (RAT). If your dermatologist hasn’t heard of it, ask your local Mars scientist.
Billions of years of exposure to the sun, atmosphere and extremely fine Martian dust has given Mars rocks a weathered “rind,” or exterior layer. The RAT, part of the science-instrument package carried by the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, uses a diamond-tipped robotic
Hundreds of billions of plastic food and beverage containers are manufactured each year in the U.S. All of these packages must undergo sterilization, which at present is done using high temperatures or chemicals. Both of these methods have drawbacks. Chemicals often leave a residue that can affect the safety and taste of the product, and produce undesirable waste. Heat is effective and sufficiently rapid, but necessitates the use of costly heat-resistant plastics that can withstand sterilization temp
New technologies developed by University of Southern California engineers to measure the toxic properties of ultrafine particles in air pollution are helping scientists understand the connection between smog and cardio-respiratory disease.
“We are just beginning to realize that these microscopic specks of dust and soot are far more toxic in the human body than larger, coarser particles,” said Constantinos Sioutas, deputy director and co-principal investigator of USC’s Southern Californi
Australian scientists have developed a ’brain’, which enables the production of a world-first low-cost, intelligent small helicopter, set to end many difficult and dangerous tasks undertaken by humans.
The CSIRO Mantis can simply be told where to go and what to do, and it will go off, do the job and find its own way home, unassisted.
The low-cost CSIRO Mantis, described as a vertical take-off, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), provides a host of new ways of doing things.
Robot researchers have long looked at the science of Kinematics and particularly how it applies to parallel robotics as providing novel solutions to robotic problems. But now researchers at the University of Warwick and China’s Tianjin University have used kinematic theory to produce a hybrid “rapid pick and place” robot that draws useful traits from both parallel and series robots and costs a third less than similar robots on the market.
The Diamond 600 robot uses parallel motors to drive i
For the first time since 1960, US scientists will be able to explore the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, up to seven miles below the surface, with a novel underwater vehicle capable of performing multiple tasks in extreme conditions. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are developing a battery-powered underwater robot to enable scientists to explore the ocean’s most remote regions up to 11,000 meters (36,000-feet) deep.
The hybrid remotely operated vehicle
A species of beetle, that squirts its predators with a high-pressure spray of boiling liquid, could provide the key to significant improvements in aircraft engine design.
The bombardier beetle’s unique natural combustion technique is being studied to see if it can be copied for use in the aircraft industry.
Scientists studying the bombardier beetle’s jet-based defence mechanism hope it will help to solve a problem that can occasionally occur at high altitude – re-igniting a gas t
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