Simulations Suggest Graphene Can Stretch to Be a Tunable Ion Filter

28-Nov-2018 - Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have conducted simulations suggesting that graphene, in addition to its many other useful features, can be modified with special pores to act as a tunable filter or strainer for ions (charged atoms) in a liquid. The concept, ...

A new way to measure nearly nothing

Prototype design uses ultracold trapped atoms to measure pressure

23-Oct-2018 - Many semiconductor fabricators and research labs are under increasing pressure from, of all things, vacuum. These facilities need to remove greater amounts of gas molecules and particles from their setups as new technologies and processes demand lower and lower pressures. For example, the vacuum ...

'Building up' stretchable electronics to be as multipurpose as your smartphone

16-Aug-2018 - By stacking and connecting layers of stretchable circuits on top of one another, engineers have developed an approach to build soft, pliable "3D stretchable electronics" that can pack a lot of functions while staying thin and small in size. As a proof of concept, a team led by the University of ...

Toilet paper sensors

Tissue paper sensors show promise for health care, entertainment, robotics

16-Feb-2018 - University of Washington engineers have turned tissue paper – similar to toilet tissue – into a new kind of wearable sensor that can detect a pulse, a blink of an eye and other human movement. The sensor is light, flexible and inexpensive, with potential applications in health care, entertainment ...

New sensors could enable more affordable detection of pollution and diseases

23-Jun-2017 - When it comes to testing for cancer, environmental pollution and food contaminants, traditional sensors can help. The challenges are that they often are bulky, expensive, non-intuitive and complicated. Now, one team reports in ACS Sensors that portable pressure-based detectors coupled with ...

Surprising twist in confined liquid crystals

A simple route to developing new sensors

28-Mar-2017 - Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have found a material used for decades to color food items ranging from corn chips to ice creams could potentially have uses far beyond food dyes. In a study the researchers described how a class of water soluble liquid crystals, called lyotropic ...

Nanobionic spinach plants can detect explosives

After sensing dangerous chemicals, the carbon-nanotube-enhanced plants send an alert.

01-Nov-2016 - Spinach is no longer just a superfood: By embedding leaves with carbon nanotubes, MIT engineers have transformed spinach plants into sensors that can detect explosives and wirelessly relay that information to a handheld device similar to a smartphone. This is one of the first demonstrations of ...

Hydrocarbon storage, fracking and lightning risk

16-Mar-2016 - Fires caused by lightning strikes on hydrocarbon storage plants are a century-old, yet to be addressed, problem. In the era of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, this is becoming an even more poignant issue for the fossil fuel industry. Sterling Rooke of X8 Inc in Crofton, Maryland, and Miroslaw ...

Researcher finds gold - and other metals

Gold sensor is latest in a series of metal-detecting biosensors

22-Feb-2016 - Instead of a pan and a pick ax, prospectors of the future might seek gold with a hand-held biosensor that uses a component of DNA to detect traces of the element in water. The gold sensor is the latest in a series of metal-detecting biosensors under development by Rebecca Lai, an associate ...

Super sensitive gas detector goes down the nanotubes

15-Jan-2009 - When cells are under stress, they blow off steam by releasing minute amounts of nitrogen oxides and other toxic gases. In a recent paper, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) described a new method for creating gas detectors so sensitive that some day they may ...