"Extra-short nanowires best for brain"

If in the future electrodes are inserted into the human brain - either for research purposes or to treat diseases - it may be appropriate to give them a 'coat' of nanowires that could make them less irritating for the brain tissue. However, the nanowires must not exceed a certain length, according to new research from Neuronano Research Center at Lund University in Sweden.

Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: "Extra-short nanowires best for brain"

Nanoparticles can act like liquid on the outside, crystal on the inside

A surprising phenomenon has been found in metal nanoparticles: They appear, from the outside, to be liquid droplets, wobbling and readily changing shape, while their interiors retain a perfectly stable crystal configuration.

The research team behind the finding, led by MIT professor Ju Li, says the work could have important implications for the design of components in nanotechnology, such as metal contacts for molecular electronic circuits.

The results, published in the journal Nature Materials, come from a combination of laboratory analysis and computer modeling, by an international team that included researchers in China, Japan, and Pittsburgh, as well as at MIT.

The experiments were conducted at room temperature, with particles of pure silver less than 10 nanometers across -- less than one-thousandth of the width of a human hair. But the results should apply to many different metals, says Li, senior author of the paper and the BEA Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Silver has a relatively high melting point -- 962 degrees Celsius, or 1763 degrees Fahrenheit -- so observation of any liquidlike behavior in its nanoparticles was "quite unexpected," Li says. Hints of the new phenomenon had been seen in earlier work with tin, which has a much lower melting point, he says.......

Ref : http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat4105

Nanoparticles can act like liquid on the outside, crystal on the inside 

Researchers split water into hydrogen, oxygen using light, nanoparticles

Researchers from the University of Houston have found a catalyst that can quickly generate hydrogen from water using sunlight, potentially creating a clean and renewable source of energy.

Researchers prepared the nanoparticles in two ways, using femtosecond laser ablation and through mechanical ball milling. Despite some differences, Bao said both worked equally well.

Different sources of light were used, ranging from a laser to white light simulating the solar spectrum. He said he would expect the reaction to work equally well using natural sunlight.

Once the nanoparticles are added and light applied, the water separates into hydrogen and oxygen almost immediately, producing twice as much hydrogen as oxygen, as expected from the 2:1 hydrogen to oxygen ratio in H2O water molecules, Bao said.

The experiment has potential as a source of renewable fuel, but at a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency rate of around 5 percent, the conversion rate is still too low to be commercially viable. Bao suggested a more feasible efficiency rate would be about 10 percent, meaning that 10 percent of the incident solar energy will be converted to hydrogen chemical energy by the process.

Other issues remain to be resolved, as well, including reducing costs and extending the lifespan of cobalt oxide nanoparticles, which the researchers found became deactivated after about an hour of reaction.

"It degrades too quickly," said Bao, who also has appointments in materials engineering and the Department of Chemistry.

Researchers split water into hydrogen, oxygen using light, nanoparticles

Bioinspired self-repairing slippery surfaces with pressure-stable omniphobicity : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

To address the challenges like limited oleophobicity, researchers have reported a strategy to create self-healing, slippery liquid-infused porous surface(s) (SLIPS) with exceptional liquid- and ice-repellency, pressure stability and enhanced optical transparency.  Researchers claim  that the properties are insensitive to the precise geometry of the underlying substrate, making their approach applicable to various inexpensive, low-surface-energy structured materials (such as porous Teflon membrane). Researchers envision that the  slippery surfaces will be useful in fluid handling and transportation, optical sensing, medicine, and as self-cleaning and anti-fouling materials operating in extreme environments.

Bioinspired self-repairing slippery surfaces with pressure-stable omniphobicity : Nature : Nature Publishing Group