Tag Archives: futurewatch
Graphene: The Next Big Green Technology?
Recently the science and technology fields have been abuzz with news and studies about the rockstar material graphene. It’s hard to read the front page of a science news website without finding graphene somewhere. It’s been touted as the future of touchscreen devices and memory storage units. It’s been used to create the world’s smallest [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Tube Shaped Solar Cells in Clothing
Imagine your clothes having the ability to recharge your phone battery or providing energy for your iPod to listen to music. Imagine whatever you can because all this is going to be true in the near future. Scientists have been working on developing energy producing clothes. All this is possible by using titania semiconducting nanorods, [...]
Power Felt: Power from Body Heat
Power Felt is a highly promising thermoelectric device that can generate a charge from heat. The fabric can be employed to harvest power from anything that emits heat, for example, human body, roof tiles or a electronic devices. The technology has been conceived by a group of scientists at the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Plastic from Plants
Bioplastics, as the name suggest, are a new breed of plastics that come tagged with the green status. These are extracted from renewable sources, unlike one’s that are derived from petroleum. Natural materials like corn starch and vegetable oils have been long used to produce plastic. For example cellulose in wood pulp is still used [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Artificial Clouds
Two years from now and the city of Sochi in Russia will be hosting the Winter Olympics, 2014. During the event you might witness the marvel of artificial clouds, designed by Asadov Architecture Studio. It was originally conceptualized for the Aerostatic Architecture Competition in 2010, and now may see the light as modular clouds floating [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Solar Paint
A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame, led by Prashant V. Kamat, has developed a semi-conductive paint that turns surfaces on which it is applied into solar cells. The solar paint is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0114273 (’273 Application), entitled “Nanomaterial Scaffolds for Electron Transport”. Single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Solar Purifiers
Do you think conventional water purifiers are eco friendly? In fact, they are not. Though not consuming energy, we cannot describe all water purification systems eco friendly products. Of course, using carbon filter, a coconut derivative, is an environmentally friendly option for water purification process. But the thing is that you will have to dump [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Paint-On Solar Cells
A team of researchers from University of Notre Dame was engaged in developing alternatives to silicon based solar technology. In a recent breakthrough, they have developed semiconducting nanoparticle from titanium dioxide. These nanoparticles generate electricity when exposed to sunlight. According to the research report from Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), these nanoparticles, coated [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Driverless Vehicles
Our dependence on automobiles has seen a massive increase in production. Cars are being churned out in huge numbers to meeting growing consumer demands. SUVs, sedans, hatchbacks and coupes now come in different styles, all stunning and having the potential to make heads turn. But this has led to a slump in supply of conventional [...]