It seems that every day brings a new electronic gadget to the market, whether it’s a smart phone, an electronic reader, a laptop the size and weight of a magazine, or a television the size of a wall. But each advance adds to the world’s electronic waste, which is the fastest-growing component of solid waste. Much of the electronic refuse ends up in developing countries, where workers strip down the gadgets to get at the copper and other valuable metals inside, often exposing themselves to toxins in the process. Now, scientists are calling for federal regulations in the United States to stem the tide.
Although the U.S. is one the world’s largest producers of electronic waste (e-waste), it is hardly a leader in addressing this problem, given that the country has “no legally enforceable federal policies requiring comprehensive recycling of e-waste or elimination of hazardous substances from electronic products,” the researchers say [Scientific American]. Instead, e-waste policies are left to the states, not all of which have laws on the books. In the article, published in Science, the authors note that the United States has not ratified the Basel Convention, which regulates the movement of hazardous wastes across international borders and has the support of 169 of the 192 United Nations member countries [Scientific American].
Electronics can contain a host of dangerous materials, from heavy metals to toxic chemicals. Toxic e-waste shows up in forms as varied as high lead levels in the blood of children in Guiya, China, where millions of tonnes of e-waste are illegally dumped, and as fire-retardant chemicals in the eggs of California’s peregrine falcons [CBC News].
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Image: Basel Action Network. E-waste in a Nigerian dump.
What if you could take a video billboard like those that light up Times Square and wrap it around a bus–without impeding the passengers’ view through the windows? While some folks who worry about ads saturating our environment would probably be horrified, others might admit that it would be a pretty neat technological trick. Now, a new method of producing the inorganic light emitting diodes (ILEDs) that light up billboards offers a possible way to bring that trick about.
The findings, published in Science, come as something of a surprise. It’s been organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) that have been a hot field of research lately, as scientists experimented with ways to spread films of organic compounds–which emit light when an electric current passes through them–over thin, flexible surfaces. But OLEDs aren’t very powerful, which caused lead researcher John Rogers to look for new ways to make inorganic diodes. Says Rogers: “If you look at the billboard displays that exist already, they’re inorganic LED based…. You can see them on a bright sunny day; it would be impossible to generate that kind of brightness out of an organic LED” [BBC News].
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Researchers have created a fabric that acts like a camera, made of tiny light-sensitive fibers that turn light waves into images. Says lead researcher Yoel Fink: “While the current version of these fabrics can only image nearby objects, it can still see much farther than most shirts can” [LiveScience].
Fink notes that the technology does away with one of the most basic camera components: the lens. Just like in an eye, cameras use a curved lens to focus the light waves reflected off an object, but the system contains an Achilles’ heel: Damage the lens, and you lose or diminish the ability to see [ScienceNOW Daily News]. By getting rid of the lens, researchers say they can develop a technology that is less vulnerable to damage–if one part of the fabric gets damaged, the rest can still function. “We are saying, ‘instead of a tiny, sensitive object [for capturing images], let’s construct a large, distributed system,’” Fink said [LiveScience].
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A new optical storage technique that records in five dimensions could hold up to 10,000 times what a standard DVD can store. The new technology could see a whopping 1.6 terabytes of information fit on a DVD-sized disc [BBC], whereas a DVD now can hold only 8.5 gigabytes and a Blu-ray disc up to 50.
Discs started out storing information in two dimensions and more recently have been stepped up to three. By using gold nanorods [the researchers] were able to add two additional dimensions, one based on the colour spectrum, and the other on polarisation [PhysOrg]. The key for his team was to find a material for the disk that could store this extra information…. That ideal material contains gold, rod-shaped nanoparticles of different sizes and orientations [Nature].
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Would you like to wear your Facebook profile on the sleeve of your T-shirt? Or maybe the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude would like to wrap a building in computer screens? Such marvels may one day be possible due to a stretchy display researchers created by connecting organic light-emitting diodes to a new rubbery conductor. Researchers say the display is remarkably durable–they bent it, folded it in half, and even crumpled it up without affecting its performance. What’s more, the display, which is thinner and less power-hungry than equivalent plasma and LCD screens, is produced through a cheap industrial printing process [Fast Company].
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are not yet familiar technology, but many researchers think they’ll play an important part in the next generation of electronics. The organic compounds in an OLED system emit light when an electric current is passed through them and need no backlight, which means they draw less power and can be thinner than a typical liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. But the real breakthrough in the current research is in the stretchy conductor underlying the OLEDs.
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Two groups of researchers have found ways to “unzip” carbon nanotubes to make nanoribbons of graphene, and experts say the development could point the way towards a new generation of electronics, including computer chips that are faster and tinier than the silicon-based chips used today.
Graphene, an atom-thick sheet of honeycombed carbon, is one of the hottest materials around. It conducts electrons well, but is thin, transparent and strong, making it potentially useful in displays and solar panels. Ribbons of graphene could be more useful still. At widths of around 10 nanometres or less, electrons are forced to move lengthwise, and make the graphene behave as a semiconductor [Nature News].
However, the ribbons have proved extremely difficult to produce. Previously, nanoribbons of graphene [were] cut from larger sheets using chemical methods that, like a blunt pair of scissors, offer little control over the width of the ribbons [New Scientist].
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The mechanical energy produced when your body moves could be harnessed to power electronic gadgets thanks to what researchers are calling a “nanogenerator.” The nanotech device is made of tiny zinc oxide nanowires, which have piezoelectric properties–meaning that they generate a tiny electrical pulse when they’re bent, stretched, or otherwise subjected to mechanical stress. According to Zhong Lin Wang, lead researcher, the device could be used to charge gadgets such as iPods and BlackBerrys as well as having a impact on defence technology, environmental monitoring and biomedical sciences. “This technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement,” he said [Financial Times].
In a video demonstration, Wang attached a single nanowire to the back of a hamster and then hooked it up to an oscilloscope. As the rodent … scurried around, it generated 70 millivolts [the equivalent of .o7 volts]. When the critter stopped to lick itself, the power levels decreased [Wired].
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Sapphire crystals may be the next material to transform the electronics industry, thanks to nanotechnology researchers who have announced a new way of storing data that would fit the contents of 250 DVDs on a coin-sized surface. The study, published in Science, illustrates how nanoscale elements can organize themselves over a large sheet of semiconductor film. The researchers expect that when applied to electronic media, their discovery will improve the efficiency of data storage, savings which can then be transferred to improve other pieces of electronics besides just storage, like high-definition screens and solar cells.
Similar attempts have previously been made to improve data storage on semiconductor films, but have consistently failed because the polymers—which are known to link together, on their own, in precise patterns—lose their organized structure when the film being used increases in area, rendering them useless for storing memory. Lead researchers Ting Xu from the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Russell from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst overcame this by layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle—a common procedure known as a miscut—and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade (2,372 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers [Science Daily].
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Thin, translucent sheets of graphene may one day allow electronic displays that can be folded and rolled up like a newspaper. Previously, the only way to make graphene—thin layers of carbon atoms that can conduct electricity at stunning speeds—was to use sticky tape to pull off thin films of graphite. Now researchers are developing a technique that can create flexible sheets of graphene on a commercially useful scale. “Until now, everyone has been using our so-called ‘pencil technique’ (the sticky-tape method) but the disadvantage is that the graphite crystals are quite small—it’s really painstaking research,” [BBC News] said Andre Geim, who was the first to create graphene in 2004.
It was Geim who first proposed that graphene could be made more efficiently using a method called chemical vapor deposition. On that advice, South Korean researchers found a way to deposit graphene using CVD, which involves evaporating a mixture of large carbon-containing molecules and firing it over a heated metal surface. The molecules break down, releasing carbon that re-organises on the surface in neat graphene sheets. The precise conditions of the experiment determine how many sheets are produced [BBC News]. The researchers used extremely thin pieces of nickel as the metal surface on which to grow the graphene, the molecules of which forms a regular hexagonal pattern similar to chicken wire. Afterward, the nickel can be chemically dissolved away, leaving behind pure graphene.
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A new intelligent pill designed by Philips, the Dutch electronics company, promises to deliver medicine in the right place, at the right time, inside your body. The company, best known for consumer products like webcams and wireless headphones, is packing some of the same technology into the new pill, known as the iPill. Containing a microprocessor, battery, wireless radio, pump and a reservoir for medication, the inch-long capsule is designed to treat digestive tract disorders such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis [Times Online].
Once swallowed, the iPill allows researchers to keep track of its precise location through a wireless transmitter. It sends dispatches about the temperature and acidity of its surroundings to an outside receiver as it travels through the GI tract over the course of a day or two. The acidity, measured by pH, of the gut decreases as the pill gets further from the stomach, and that allows researchers to pinpoint the place where the drug is needed [San Francisco Chronicle]. Researchers can pre-program drug release when certain conditions are met or cue the drug release using a remote controller.
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A new government report issues a harsh critique of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate the tons of toxic electronic waste that are discarded each year. U.S. authorities have yet to develop a national approach for handling the waste, which often contains toxic metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. Amounts are rapidly growing as consumers replace their laptops, cellphones and televisions [Washington Post].
These discarded devices often end up in slipshod recycling facilities in China, India, and Africa, the report says, where they both pollute the environment and threaten workers’ health. Jim Puckett, an activist with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which promotes responsible recycling, said he recently saw workers in Guiyu, China, burning wiring and using acid baths to extract usable ingredients. “It was a cyber-age horror show,” he said [San Jose Mercury News].
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Developments in “electronic ink” technology are letting publishers experiment with new ways of bringing printed material to the public, and several futuristic products are close to hitting the marketplace. A new device being previewed by the company Plastic Logic is pointing the way to the sci-fi dream of carrying one flexible screen that could display written material from any source at the touch of a button, from newspapers to complete novels. Meanwhile, the men’s magazine Esquire will sport an electronic image on the cover of its October issue: A 10-square-inch display on the cover … flashes the theme “The 21st Century Begins Now” with a collage of illuminated images [AP].
Both Plastic Logic and Esquire are using technology created by the company E Ink, which has also provided screens for Sony’s eReader and Amazon.com’s Kindle, two devices primarily intended for book-reading. The screens use electronic ink, which is made up of microcapsules embedded with white and black pigment. The capsules respond to electric charges, creating images that are easily viewed during the day, from any angle and require very little power [San Francisco Chronicle].
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Researchers have used nets of carbon nanotubes to print electronic circuits on to thin, flexible sheets of plastic, in yet another example of nanotechnology’s expanding possibilities. The work is a major step towards the development of ‘plastic electronics’, where circuits on light, flexible surfaces could provide a range of products from paper-thin displays to intelligent food packaging and smart clothing [Chemistry World].
Everyone from entrepreneurs to the military is dreaming up applications for flexible electronics: They could be used to make a single-page electronic newspaper, for example, or could be formed into an electronic “skin” that covers an entire airplane, and checks the plane’s surface for cracks. Since the typical silicon-based circuits are too rigid to use in such devices, researchers have been trying out new materials. The other major contender is semiconductors that use organic molecules, but those have been shown to have poor performance and reliability.
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