NCL scientists have developed a low-cost fuel cell component

Since making fuel cells that use pure hydrogen is prohibitively expensive, scientists make do with so-called diluted hydrogen, which has traces of impurities such as carbon monoxide

New Delhi: The National Chemical Laboratory, or NCL, has developed an efficient, low-cost component crucial to build fuel cells which combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, scientists said.

Though hydrogen as fuel is still not commercially viable when compared with fossil fuels such as petrol and coal, it hasn’t prevented countries including India from making big bets on it, since it is an eco-friendly alternative and does not contribute to climate change.

The Central government last year unveiled a hydrogen economy plan that envisages a million hydrogen-fuelled vehicles on India’s roads by 2020.

Researchers at Pune-based NCL have innovated a variant of polybenzimidazole that can be used as an electrolyte, a part of the electricity-producing mechanism in fuel cells. Polybenzimidazole is a class of polymer used in making spacesuits.

Since making fuel cells that use pure hydrogen is prohibitively expensive, scientists make do with so-called diluted hydrogen, which has traces of impurities such as carbon monoxide.
Though much cheaper, diluted hydrogen has its set of problems such as a higher working temperature and corrosive reactions that reduce performance of the cells.

Researchers, therefore, spend a lot of time in developing electrolytes that can get around these problems, and the polybenzimidazole variant promises to be a suitable one, said K. Vijayamohan, a senior scientist at the NCL, who is closely involved with the fuel cell programme of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, or CSIR, the country’s largest publicly funded research and development agency.

Most hydrogen fuel cells currently use nafion, a polymer trademarked by chemical giant E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., as electrolyte.

“Nafion is an industry standard. In fact, every major fuel cell application — from cars to stationary power backup — is done with nafion, though most manufacturers wouldn’t advertise it,” said Manoj Neergat, a fuel cell expert at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

“Nobody has yet developed a better substitute to nafion, and being a crucial component, anybody who comes up with a cheaper, more efficient alternative has certainly taken a big step,” he said.

According to Vijayamohan, the polybenzimidazole variant that NCL has developed “will be at least 100 times cheaper to manufacture than nafion”.

He claimed the electrolyte is superior to nafion because it is resistant to carbon monoxide and has efficiently worked at 150 degree Celsius.

Nafion doesn’t tolerate temperatures above 80 degrees Celsius.

However, Vijayamohan said, crucial tests on its viability still remain, such as how many hours it could run without a replacement.

Also, a viable electrolyte is only a part of a series of steps required to develop a successful working fuel cell, said Yogeswara Rao, who heads the technology and business development programmes of CSIR.

“After the membrane (electrolyte), we have to develop fuel cell stacks, (and) that cannot be too heavy. We need to develop reformers (devices that extract hydrogen from fossil fuels such as natural gas and methanol), all of which are being done at various CSIR labs across the country,” Rao said.

With oil prices at nearly $69 (Rs3,367.2) a barrel and the threat of climate change from greenhouse gas emissions on the rise, governments are increasingly looking at alternative sources of fuel, from vegetable oil to bacteria.

CSIR’s Rs23.5 crore fuel cell programme began in 2001, and though it has yielded 11 patents and at least 27 research publications in peer-reviewed journals, even a 1kW indigenous fuel cell is still some time away.

According to Neergat, viable Indian fuel cells are at least a decade away. “Not only in India, but the world over, fundamentally new breakthroughs are yet to be made. Everybody is still working on approaches (membranes, catalysts) that were discovered in the 1990s,” he said.

“So...an indigenous fuel cell is still much more than five years away.”
Jacob P. Koshy

Source: Livemint

The periodic table of videos

Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version has a short video about each one.

Since launching this site, the videos have been watched more than 2.5 million times.

The chemical elements videos developed by The University of Nottingham and it can be viewed from http://www.periodicvideos.com

India sets up Rs.10 Bn nano-technology missionDate

India sets up Rs.10 Bn nano-technology mission
Date: Monday, September 08, 2008

New Delhi: India has set up a Rs.10 billion mission to help scientists do research in nano-technology and innovate new products in fields like healthcare, textiles and drug development, an official said Friday."We have set up a mission to boost nano-technology in the country. The fund will be utilised over a period of five years," Science Secretary T. Ramasami said Friday on the sidelines of an event on nano-technology at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).Under the mission, the government would provide Rs.5 million as grant for the start-up of nano research projects."This would encourage research efforts and commercialisation of technologies. A suitable candidate can avail monetary support up to Rs.15 million," Ramasami told IANS.Ramasami said the mission is a brainchild of C.N.R. Rao, chairman, science advisory council to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.He said so far no one has availed the fund. "But we have short listed three to four scientists for financial support initially."According to FICCI, India has over 30 nano-technology start-ups and approximately 50 research institutes engaged in nano-technology research and development.Product development efforts in India are predominantly directed towards chip design and development, nano-medicine and nano-materials.

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/46234

e-books

Free e-books can be viewed from the blelow link. User can register to obtain username and password to get full text.

http://www.scribd.com/

PDF eBook search engine

July 31, 2008
PDF eBook search engine

The PDF Search Engine looks in multiple online eBook collections to find you your PDF options. Some PDFs are great, while others stink to holy heck. This is useful for people looking for eBooks to read on devices, in particular eBook readers like the Sony eBook Reader. Reading in PDF is a lot better than in straight HTML, which is how many free online eBooks are available unfortunately.
http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/

Electrostatic electrochemistry at insulators.

Electrostatic electrochemistry at insulators.

Abstract Text:
The identity of charges generated by contact electrification on dielectrics has remained unknown for centuries and the precise determination of the charge density is also a long-standing challenge. Here, electrostatic charges on Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene) produced by rubbing with Lucite (polymethylmethacrylate) were directly identified as electrons rather than ions by electrochemical (redox) experiments with charged Teflon used as a single electrode in solution causing various chemical reactions: pH increases; hydrogen formation; metal deposition; Fe(CN)(6)(3-) reduction; and chemiluminescence in the system of Teflon(-)/Ru(bpy)(3)(2+)/S(2)O(8)(2-) (analogous to electrogenerated chemiluminescence). Moreover, copper deposition could be amplified by depositing Pd first in a predetermined pattern, followed by electroless deposition to produce Cu lines. This process could be potentially important for microelectronic and other applications because Teflon has desirable properties including a low dielectric constant and good thermal stability. Charge density was determined using Faraday's law and the significance of electron transfer processes on charged polymers and potentially other insulators have been demonstrated.

AUTHOR:allen j bard
For similar abstracts research abstracts see: abstracts research
PUBLICATION TYPE: Journal Article
Journal: Nature materials
VOLUME: 7
Page Numbers: 505-9

Developing control of the heart

Developing control of the heart

28 August 2008
Molecular biologists working at an American and several Japanese research institutions have unmasked an important regulator of embryonic development of the heart. The compound, an insulin-like growth-factor-binding protein (IGFBP), inhibits the standard Wnt signaling pathway that plays a key role in the initiation, growth and development of the heart. Abnormalities of formation of the heart — the first embryonic organ to form — are the most common congenital birth defects in humans.

The researchers recently reported in Nature1 that the compound IGFBP-4 could stimulate generation of cardiomyocytes, the cells from which heart muscle tissue is produced. Although IGFBPs are typically characterized by their ability to bind and modulate the action of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), the researchers were able to show experimentally that in this case, the activity of IGFBP-4 involved no binding of IGFs. In fact, IGFBP-4 appears to inhibit Wnt signaling by interacting with a Wnt receptor and co-receptor to prevent them from binding Wnt. At different times of the process Wnt signaling can stimulate or repress development of the heart.

The researchers suggest that IGFBP-4 can regulate development via inhibiting Wnt signaling, and that IGFs can also play a modulation role through binding and sequestering IGFBP-4.
Reference

1. Zhu, W.,1,8 Shiojima, I.,1,8 Ito, Y.,2,8 Li, Z.,1 Ikeda, H.,1 Yoshida, M.,1 Naito, A.T.,1 Nishi, J.,1 Ueno, H.,3 Umezawa, A.,4 Minamino, T.,1 Nagai, T.,1 Kikuchi, A.,5 Asashima, M.2,6,7,9 & Komuro, I.1 IGFBP-4 is an inhibitor of canonical Wnt signaling required for cardiogenesis. Nature 454, 345–350 (2008). article

Authors and Affiliations
1Department of Cardiovascular Science and Medicine, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba 260-8670, Japan
2ICORP Organ Regeneration Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Tokyo 153-8902, Japan
3Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
4Department of Reproductive Biology, National Institute for Child Health and Development, Tokyo 157-8535, Japan
5Department of Biochemistry, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima 734-8551, Japan
6Department of Life Sciences (Biology), Graduate School of Arts and Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan
7National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technology (AIST), Ibaraki 305-8562, Japan
8These authors contributed equally to this work.
9 Makoto Asashima is a member of A-IMBN.

Source: http://www.natureasia.com/A-IMBN/article.php?id=135