a blog by the NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology
Let’s face it, staying in a hotel can be pretty wasteful. All those take-out containers for food, those little soaps in cardboard boxes (or plastic wrap!) that get used three times before they’re replaced with a new one, and hard-to-control thermostats that lead to ice-box air conditioning even when no people are around to enjoy …
Continue reading "What Can One Hotel Do to Be Sustainable?"
It’s Sunday night and I am watching one of my favorite shows, which of course revolves around food. In this particular episode, competitors were challenged to incorporate blue into their baked delights without using artificial coloring. That may not seem to be much of a challenge, but there are actually very few naturally occurring blue …
Continue reading "How the Fruits Got Their Colors"
Who reads Sustainable Nano? You do! And we'd love to know a little more about you! Instead of reading a new blog post this week, please take a few minutes to fill out our first ever Sustainable Nano Reader Survey! When you're done, you may enjoy celebrating the U.S. Fourth of July holiday by re-reading our …
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When we talk about sustainability in chemistry, one thing we have to think about is how the chemicals we use in our experiments may affect the environment. The traditional production of nanoparticles frequently involves the use of toxic materials such as harsh solvents and surfactants to synthesize a diverse array of nanoparticles that range from …
Continue reading "The Green Nanotechnology Revolution"
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. Dr. Rigoberto Hernandez (one of the co-authors of the article) wrote this description for his blog, Everywhere Chemistry, and kindly agreed to let us cross-post here at Sustainable Nano. The article …
Continue reading "Sustainable Nano on Open Access Sustainably"
For the first post that I wrote for the blog 2 years ago, I discussed some of the cool things that focused, high intensity light from a laser can do. For example, under the right circumstances laser light can change color (wavelength) when passing through certain materials. We use this cool phenomenon, called frequency doubling, …
Continue reading "Light Can Do Way More Than Bend: Part 2"
Last month, I was featured on The Academic Minute, a segment produced by radio station WAMC in the northeastern US. The Academic Minute presents 300-word essays by professors and academics around the world explaining research topics for a non-specialist audience. In my case, that topic was gold nanotechnology. This opportunity arose when I received an …
Continue reading "Gold Nanotechnology Featured on Academic Minute"
This post is part of our occasional "How is that sustainable?" series. You can see our previous post on paper vs. plastic here. This spring, New York City banned the use of expanded polystyrene (EPS) food and beverage containers, effective July 1. (EPS is often colloquially called styrofoam, after DOW's trademarked brand.) Although EPS is technically a recyclable …
Continue reading "Why Don’t We Recycle Styrofoam? – Speaking of Chemistry video"
For decades, Americans have spent billions of dollars on vitamin and mineral supplements,1 and despite concerns about effectiveness and safety,2 a 2013 Gallup poll found that half of Americans take a supplement regularly.3 As nanoparticles have made their way into medicine and pharmaceuticals, they have also moved into the health supplement industry. In this post, I will …
Continue reading "Nanoparticles & Food Part 1: Vitamins"
A couple weeks ago, over 300 scientists and engineers with an interest in nanotechnology met together in Minneapolis at the American Society for Mechanical Engineering Nanoengineering in Medicine and Biology meeting. If the title seems like a mouthful, that’s because it is. We just called the conference NEMB (prounounced "N-E-M-B"). Although it seems like I …
Continue reading "Scientists Gather in Minneapolis to Talk Nanoengineering in Biology"
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