|
(詳細はscience and engineering have been seeking to develop new and improved types of energy technologies that have the capability of improving life all over the world. In order to make the next leap forward from the current generation of technology, scientists and engineers have been developing energy applications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology, a new field in science, is any technology that contains components smaller than 100 nanometers. For scale, a single virus particle is about 100 nanometers in width. An important subfield of nanotechnology related to energy is nanofabrication. Nanofabrication is the process of designing and creating devices on the nanoscale. Creating devices smaller than 100 nanometers opens many doors for the development of new ways to capture, store, and transfer energy. The inherent level of control that nanofabrication could give scientists and engineers would be critical in providing the capability of solving many of the problems that the world is facing today related to the current generation of energy technologies.〔http://www.crnano.org/whatis〕 People in the fields of science and engineering have already begun developing ways of utilizing nanotechnology for the development of consumer products. Benefits already observed from the design of these products are an increased efficiency of lighting and heating, increased electrical storage capacity, and a decrease in the amount of pollution from the use of energy. Benefits such as these make the investment of capital in the research and development of nanotechnology a top priority. == Consumer products == Recently, previously established and entirely new companies such as BetaBatt, Inc. and Oxane Materials are focusing on nanomaterials as a way to develop and improve upon older methods for the capture, transfer, and storage of energy for the development of consumer products. ConsERV, a product developed by the Dais Analytic Corporation, uses nanoscale polymer membranes to increase the efficiency of heating and cooling systems and has already proven to be a lucrative design. The polymer membrane was specifically configured for this application by selectively engineering the size of the pores in the membrane to prevent air from passing, while allowing moisture to pass through the membrane. ConsERV's value is demonstrated in the form of an energy recovery a device which pretreats the incoming fresh air to a building using the energy found in the exhaust air steam using no moving parts to lower the energy and carbon footprint of existing forms of heating and cooling equipment Polymer membranes can be designed to selectively allow particles of one size and shape to pass through while preventing other. This makes for a powerful tool that can be used in all markets - consumer, commercial, industrial, and government products from biological weapons protection to industrial chemical separations. Dais's near term uses of this 'family' of selectively engineered nanotechnology materials, aside from ConsERV, include (a.) a completely new cooling cycle capable of replacing the refrigerant based cooling cycle the world has known for the past 100 plus years. This product, under development, is named NanoAir. NanoAir uses only water and this selectively engineered membrane material to cool (or heat) and dehumidify (or humidify) air. There are no fluorocarbon producing gasses used, and the energy required to cool a space drops as thermodynamics does the actual cooling. The company was awarded an Advanced Research Program Administration - Energy award in 2010, and a United States Department of Defense (DoD) grant in 2011 both designed to accelerate this newer, energy efficient technology closer to commercialization, and (b.) a novel way to clean most all contaminated forms of water called NanoClear. By using the selectivity of this hermetic, engineered composite material it can transfer only a water molecule from one face of the membrane to the other leaving behind the contaminants. It should also be noted Dais received a US Patent (Patent Number 7,990,679) in October 2011 titled "Nanoparticle Ultracapacitor". This patented item again uses the selectively engineered material to create an energy storage mechanism projected to have performance and cost advantages over existing storage technologies. The company has used this patent's concepts to create a functional energy storage prototype device named NanoCap. NanoCap is a form of ultra-capacitor potentially useful to power a broad range of applications including most forms of transportation, energy storage (especially useful as a storage media for renewable energy technologies), telecommunication infrastructure, transistor gate dielectrics, and consumer battery applications (cell phones, computers, etc.). A New York based company called Applied NanoWorks, Inc. has been developing a consumer product that utilizes LED technology to generate light. Light-emitting diodes or LEDs, use only about 10% of the energy that a typical incandescent or fluorescent light bulb uses and typically last much longer, which makes them a viable alternative to traditional light bulbs. While LEDs have been around for decades, this company and others like it have been developing a special variant of LED called the white LED. White LEDs consist of semi-conducting organic layers that are only about 100 nanometers in distance from each other and are placed between two electrodes, which create an anode, and a cathode. When voltage is applied to the system, light is generated when electricity passes through the two organic layers. This is called electroluminescence. The semiconductor properties of the organic layers are what allow for the minimal amount of energy necessary to generate light. In traditional light bulbs, a metal filament is used to generate light when electricity is run through the filament. Using metal generates a great deal of heat and therefore lowers efficiency. Research for longer lasting batteries has been an ongoing process for years. Researchers have now begun to utilize nanotechnology for battery technology. mPhase Technologies in conglomeration with Rutgers University and Bell Laboratories have utilized nanomaterials to alter the wetting behavior of the surface where the liquid in the battery lies to spread the liquid droplets over a greater area on the surface and therefore have greater control over the movement of the droplets. This gives more control to the designer of the battery. This control prevents reactions in the battery by separating the electrolytic liquid from the anode and the cathode when the battery is not in use and joining them when the battery is in need of use. Thermal applications also are a future applications of nanothechonlogy creating low cost system of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, changing molecular structure for better management of temperature 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Energy applications of nanotechnology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|