a blog by the NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology
Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) are now components of thousands of consumer products, including personal care products, sporting goods, solar panels, and next-generation batteries. In fact, demand for electric car batteries (built using lithium-nickel-cobalt nanosheets) might cause lithium prices to skyrocket in the coming decade, and completely change the way in which the element lithium is recovered …
Continue reading "Engineered Nanoparticles Change Shape in Soil and Groundwater"
This post is part of our ongoing series of public-friendly summaries describing research articles that have been published by members of the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology. Sam Lohse, the first author on this paper, was a post-doctoral student at the University of Illinois and is now an assistant professor at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, CO. He …
Continue reading "Designing a Simple, Easy-to-Build Reactor for Making Nanoparticles"
Nanoparticles and the Environment Series, Part I (click here for part II) More than a year ago on this site, I talked to you about how nanoparticles were already all around us, and have been for most of human history. That day, I was hoping to show you that while nanotechnology may sound cool and …
Continue reading "Nano Contaminants: How Nanoparticles Get Into the Environment"
Part 1 in the "How is That Sustainable?" Series “Paper or plastic?” This was the question you always used to get once you’d made it through the checkout line to the grocery store register (at least when I was growing up). Ever since about 2005, however, it seemed like it was becoming increasingly rare to …
Continue reading "Paper or Plastic? Sustainability is a Multi-Dimensional Problem"
You’re looking at an electron micrograph of gold nanoparticles; a snap shot of tiny gold crystals that are 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair. Nanoparticles just these like may soon transform every aspect of our day to day lives, from the size of our personal electronic devices to the way diagnose and treat cancer; …
Continue reading "Nanoparticles Are All Around Us"
Sustainable Nano 