Cleaning stained upholstery is not only cumbersome but expensive as well since it is a recurring process. Imagine large seating areas such as football stadia, hospitals, conference halls, airports, casinos, theatres…Now imagine stains on it: coffee, juice, soda, beer and wine, add food stains like tomato sauce, mustard, chocolate, cheese,chilly and samosa,  and other stains such as sweat, paint, pee, and blood, and we have a mega cleaning challenge. But thanks to nanotechnology in the making of extreme performance upholstery, now the toughest stains are simply washed off with water.

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Rs 1000 crore in the next five years planned for the nano-mission created by the department of science and technology India, but where are the collaborative partners?

Why is the Indian trinity consisting of the research community, academia and industry not partnering together but working in silos, asks Dr. T Ramasami, Chairman, TNTDPC Governing Body & Secretary to Government, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Since 2001, the total investments made in Nanotechnology by DST have been $144 million. The eleventh five year plan has dedicated investments worth US$ 200 million for the technology. The department has setup 11 centres of excellence and proposed three institutes on Nanotechnology in Mohali, Bangalore and Kolkata.

India is positioned on the strategic map for nano products as Indian investments in the technology match that of Ireland, Canada and Switzerland. Nanotechnology is applied in industrial applications, production technology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and electronics among others. It is yet to come of age, and presents huge scope for
business.

The market for nanotechnology is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 33% between 2008 and 2015.>>More

What’s the Dance of Shiva got to do with nanotechnologies? Intrigued? Tim Harper of Cientifica speculates about creative destruction and credit crunch in his white paper Nanotechnologies 2009.

Check it out for the bit about academic funding, its lack of mechanism to spend a potential of $22.5Bn revenue, and for other insights into investments in nanosolar, cleantech and nanomaterials.

Silicon dreams are now made of solar as everybody is venturing into solar these days.  And renewable energy is where all the action is as Thomas Friedman discovered recently in Delhi, even as India announced Nagpur as its first solar city.  Jai ho!

Solar fuels, cars, hats, lights, windows, phones, pendrives ..the list of products emerging from this sunrise industry is most promising, exciting and definetely eco friendly too.

Until recently, Solar fuel seemed too expensive and out of bounds but technology and research has since then comeup with viable options.

Recently, Supriya Pillai of New South Wales in Sydney(UNSW) came up with the idea of removing the use of expensive and thick silicon wafers used in making solar cells.

Phd student Supriya Pillai and her team of UNSW researchers use a thin film (about 10 nanometres thick) of silver onto a solar cell and heat it to 200C. The film breaks into tiny 100-nanometre “islands” of silver and raises its light-trapping efficiency.  The team’s move of using “thin film” cells with less silicon to thick silicon wafers is not only cheaper but also more energy efficient. More>>
 

Wouldn’t it be great to change the colour of your car depending on your mood? Passion red on a hot date, indigo blue for a corporate meet, killer black for a business deal….well, new material technology can make this happen for you. 

Here’s how the quick-change paint works:

While you drive, pushing a button sends electric current through a special polymer paint containing paramagnetic nanoparticles. The current creates a magnetic field that affects the spacing of crystals within the particles, which changes their ability to reflect light…and voila! A white car becomes Steelers black…or Cardinals red.

Nearly two-dozen podcasts on “Materials Around Us” and “The Science of Materials” are available on Materials Radio to bring the excitement of materials to middle school students, parents and teachers. Visit www.materialsradio.com for free downloads.

If you want to know whether the Obama government will be nano friendly or not, here is a post about nano lessons for Obama. The blog suggests that since science is a long term project and as politics and science have never really mixed, the nanoscene it seems, is not very optimistic. After all, there are other more urgent political issues, terrorism and economy for starters. But there are lessons to be learnt from the Blair government suggests Cientifica.

Mmm I read somewhere about Moscow investing billions of dollars to be used in the military warfare on the rapid development of nanotechnology to achieve leadership in the world market. Now, why do I have this uncanny feeling that Obama will want to jump into playing the leadership game.

Here is some green news for your stimulation. Green tea gets greener by getting ready to adopt renewable energy. The effective use of solar, bio fuel and micro-hydel energy would not only reduce manufacturing cost but also  help reduce pollution and protect the ecosystem. The Tea Board of India and West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC) have jointly decided to prepare an energy efficient package, to be submitted to the Centre. WBGEDC managing director S. P. Gonchoudhuri said they held a meeting with tea board officials and several tea associations to discuss adoption of green energy in tea gardens.

 ”We and the tea board will prepare a plan, which will be submitted to the Centre. The package will seek to reduce existing levels of energy consumption to maintain the eco-system of the Hills,” he said.

The Indian Tea Association secretary-general Monojit Dasgupta said they were very interested in using renewable energy sources in the tea industry. “The use of solar energy in the industry was planned earlier, too, but the usage cost was high. Now, there are subsidy schemes available for these energy sources,” he said. >>More Energy News