At the beginning of a new century, three powerful technologies have met on a common scale — the nanoscale — with the promise of revolutionizing both the worlds of electronics and of biology. This new field, which we refer to as biomolecular nanotechnology, holds many possibilities from fundamental research in molecular biology and biophysics to applications in biosensing, biocontrol, bioinformatics, genomics, medicine, computing, information storage and energy conversion.
Over the past few decades, the fields of 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.
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.
Economic BenefitsThe relatively recent shift toward using nanotechnology with respect to the capture, transfer, and storage of energy has and will continue to have many positive economic impacts on society. The control of materials that nanotechnology offers to scientists and engineers of consumer products is one of the most important aspects of nanotechnology. This allows for an improved efficiency of products across the board.
A major issue with current energy generation is the loss of efficiency from the generation of heat as a by-product of the process. A common example of this is the heat generated by the internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine loses about 64% of the energy from gasoline as heat and an improvement of this alone could have a significant economic impact. However, improving the internal combustion engine in this respect has proven to be extremely difficult without sacrificing performance. Improving the efficiency of fuel cells through the use of nanotechnology appears to be more plausible by using molecularly tailored catalysts, polymer membranes, and improved fuel storage.
In order for a fuel cell to operate, particularly of the hydrogen variant, a noble-metal catalyst (usually platinum, which is very expensive) is needed to separate the electrons from the protons of the hydrogen atoms. However, catalysts of this type are extremely sensitive to carbon monoxide reactions. In order to combat this, alcohols or hydrocarbons compounds are used to lower the carbon monoxide concentration in the system. This adds an additional cost to the device. Using nanotechnology, catalysts can be designed through nanofabrication that are much more resistant to carbon monoxide reactions, which improves the efficiency of the process and may be designed with cheaper materials to additionally lower costs.
Fuel cells that are currently designed for transportation need rapid start-up periods for the practicality of consumer use. This process puts a lot of strain on the traditional polymer electrolyte membranes, which decreases the life of the membrane requiring frequent replacement. Using nanotechnology, engineers have the ability to create a much more durable polymer membrane, which addresses this problem. Nanoscale polymer membranes are also much more efficient in ionic conductivity. This improves the efficiency of the system and decreases the time between replacements, which lowers costs.
Another problem with contemporary fuel cells is the storage of the fuel. In the case of hydrogen fuel cells, storing the hydrogen in gaseous rather than liquid form improves the efficiency by 5%. However, the materials that we currently have available to us significantly limit fuel storage due to low stress tolerance and costs. Scientists have come up with an answer to this by using a nanoporous styrene material (which is a relatively inexpensive material) that when super-cooled to around -196oC, naturally holds on to hydrogen atoms and when heated again releases the hydrogen for use.
Ultracapacitor
Using nanotechnology, researchers developed what they call “ultracapacitors.” An ultracapacitor is a general term that describes a capacitor that contains nanocomponents. Ultracapacitors are being researched heavily because of their high density interior, compact size, reliability, and high capacitance. This decrease in size makes it increasingly possible to develop much smaller circuits and computers. Ultracapacitors also have the capability to supplement batteries in hybrid vehicles by providing a large amount of energy during peak acceleration and allowing the battery to supply energy over longer periods of time, such as during a constant driving speed. This could decrease the size and weight of the large batteries needed in hybrid vehicles as well as take additional stress off the battery. However, as of now, the combination of ultracapacitors and a battery is not cost effective due to the need of additional DC/DC electronics to coordinate the two.
