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‘Rechargeable’ anti-microbial surfaces boost food safety

A University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientist is developing a way to improve food safety by adding a thin anti-microbial layer to food-handling surfaces. Only tens of nanometers thick, it chemically “re-charges” its germ-killing powers every time it’s rinsed with common household bleach.

Overview of NIST’s Polymers Division

Established in 1962, the Polymers Division in the Material Measurement Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology will soon celebrate its 50th year as a world leader in polymers research.

Moth eye-inspired antireflective material boosts efficiency of solar cells

Researchers at Nagaoka University of Technology (Japan), Mitsubishi Rayon Co. Ltd. and Tokyo Metropolitan University pioneered a way to use anodic porous alumina molds to nanoimprint the microstructure similar to a moth’s eye into acrylic resin. The film could boost solar cell efficiency 5-6 percent.

Torque vectoring gears for smaller, more efficient wind turbines

Gigmag’s Darren Quick reports that investigators at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen “have now adapted this technology to wind turbines, to eliminate the need for converting the alternating current produced by the turbines into direct current and back again before it is fed into the grid.”

Second wave of ‘cleantech’ investing coming?

GigaOM’s Katie Fehrenbacher reports on what may be a renaissance in venture capital firms’ interest in clean and green technologies. What might be guiding their way this time? A) Being more realistic about how long commercialization takes; B) Look for opportunities outside the U.S., such as China, Brazil, India and even Europe.

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Wind energy expert Jose Zayas earlier this year gave a detailed presentation about the evolution, physics, siting considerations, commercial risks and current engineering challenges facing medium- and large-scale wind turbine efforts in the United States. This presentation occurred at the Materials Challenges for Alternative and Renewable Energy.

Zayas, project manager for Sandia National Lab’s Wind and Water Technologies, provides valuable information about the tradeoffs being made among size, speed and materials costs and discusses some of the innovations arising from collaborations between national labs and private industry that are bring about new carbon, fiberglass and carbon–fiberglass systems that are providing greater efficiencies and durability, but are also presenting major new manufacturing challenges. Zayas also discusses the enormous appetite wind turbine construction has for materials, such as fiberglass, and notes that competition for fiberglass with aerospace manufacturing has created a shortage among suppliers. (Note: for glass companies, such as PPG Industries, the demand for fiberglass for wind applications, is allowing the reopening of mothballed factories.)

45 minutes.

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PPG Shelby fiberglass facility. Credit: PPG Industries

Glass manufacturing, at least fiberglass production, may be seeing signs of improving. PPG Industries just announced that it has restarted a furnace at its facility in Shelby, N.C.

The restart supports market demand, specifically in the area of automotive, wind energy, and oil and gas pipe applications.

“The market is demanding energy efficiency and new solutions,” according to Greg Terchick, PPG global marketing manager, direct draw. “Customers are looking for ways to save on energy costs, whether through renewable and traditional energy or by making cars lighter and more fuel efficient.”

Restarting the furnace will increase current annual capacity by about 17,000 metric tons. An additional 34 employees will support the restart, some of which were recalled from layoffs.

The 51-year-old plant makes fiberglass reinforcements and fabrics and has employed as many as 1,700 workers (1989). A company fact sheet on the facility lists the employment at 451, but its unclear if that is before or after the additional 34 employees mentioned above.

Back in 2006, PPG announced that it was going to invest $20 million to modernize the Shelby facility:

When the transformation is complete, the rebuilt furnace at Shelby will be positioned to produce wet chop, direct chop, remote wet chop and direct draw products, which are used in blades for wind-energy turbines, pipes, tanks, roofing shingles, automotive parts and other applications.

The Shelby plant is also home for PPG’s global fiberglass research and development laboratories. The labs got a $3 million DOD grant in 2008 to develop new advanced composite military vehicle armor.

It’s still too soon to know what the long term trend will be for the glass industry. Obviously, there is an uptick in wind energy expenditures in the U.S., and two months of increases in employment in the construction industry is welcome news, although wage declines run counter to hopes for increases in home sales and home improvements.

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The New York Times reported that researchers have proposed connecting wind farms with underground transmission lines in order to keep wind power supply stable. Intermittency of wind generated power is a problem, since the turbines stop when the wind isn’t blowing.

By connecting wind farms that lie along the Eastern Seaboard, the overall output would stabilize despite vastly different weather conditions along the 1,500 miles of coastal ocean.

Several offshore wind farms are well into planning stages, though none have been built yet. Undersea transmission line could cost well over a billion dollars to build. “But the whole idea is that it would pay off over time,” says Willett Kempton of the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration at the University of Delaware.

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Back in June we reported on a futuristic design of wind power generators: vertical axis turbines.

Now researchers at the University of Virgina are developing a smaller, more efficient wind turbine uniquely designed to generate power in low-wind-speed areas. And they are building these turbines with a vertical axis, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The group is still seeking funding to create a full-size model that will have blades that extend 100 feet in diameter and spin along a vertical axis. Most wind turbines in operation today have much larger blades that extend up to 200 feet and spin along a horizontal axis.

“Most of the larger turbines are set for 14 to 15 miles per hour,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is get something that will work effectively in the 11 to 12 mph range.”

The design also will feature a turbine shaft levitated with magnets, which will reduce friction and consequently increase efficiency, says UVA mechanical engineering professor Jim Durand. Durand is also co-director of the Jefferson Wind Energy Institute

The overall design, Durand said, “is a combination of things that are aimed and optimized for low wind speeds.”

Paul Allaire, and UVA professor and the other co-director of the JWEI, will bring to the project his expertise on magnetic bearings. Allaire told the school’s newspaper, the Cavalier, in October that the goal is to first operate a 8-feet tall scale model in a wind tunnel that generates wind up to about 12 miles an hour. He said model was mainly a proof-of-concept step. “It’s very small and won’t generate much energy, so the plan is to build a 150-foot version, [which] would look like a cell tower.” The ultimate goal is to develop a system that can of produce 50 kilowatts of power.

Even with growing interest in wind power worldwide, the U.S. market for home wind turbines remains small, less than 0.002 percent of the national market. According to the American Wind Energy Association, however, this small wind turbine market is expected to grow dramatically over the next four years - from a total of 80 installed megawatts in 2008 to 1,700 MW in 2013. Already, installations in 2008 - 17.3 MW - marked a 78 percent increase over 2007.

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