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NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has introduced another method for detecting airborne elemental mercury. When films made of certain polymer/carbon composites are exposed to air containing mercury vapor, their electrical resistances decrease by measurable amounts. The films can be operated and regenerated at mild temperatures.
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SiGe is an important semiconductor alloy for high-speed field effect transistors (FETs), high-temperature thermoelectric devices, photovoltaic solar cells, and photon detectors. The growth of SiGe layer is difficult because SiGe alloys have different lattice constants from those of the common Si wafers, which leads to a high density of defects, including dislocations, micro-twins, cracks, and delaminations.
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By exposing an aqueous solution to a treatment medium that includes weathered volcanic ash from Pu’u Nene - a cinder cone on the Island of Hawaii - uranium, lead, and possibly other toxic or radioactive substances can be removed.
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NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has introduced a new cell designed to mimic the photosynthetic processes of plants in order to convert carbon dioxide into carbonaceous products and oxygen at high efficiency.
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A John H. Glenn Research Center-developed controller features distributed charge control and a masterless communication bus, enhancing its robustness for use in battery energy-storage applications. The modular battery charge controller is required in battery chemistries that need cell-level charge control for safety.
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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has found palladium chloride films to be useful alternatives to gold films previously used to detect airborne elemental mercury at concentrations on the order of parts per billion (ppb). These sensors can be regenerated under relatively mild conditions.
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Gold nanowire sensors have also been found to be useful for detecting airborne elemental mercury at concentrations on the order of parts per billion (ppb). Nanowires of a given material covering a given surface may exhibit greater sensitivity than a film of the same material, because nanowires have a greater surface area.
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