Recent Patents on Nanotechnology - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2017

Background: Nanocomposites (integrating the nano and composite technologies) for advanced fuel cells (NANOCOFC) demonstrate the great potential to reduce the operational temperature of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) significantly in the low temperature (LT) range 300-600ºC. NANOCOFC has offered the development of multi-functional materials composed of semiconductor and ionic materials to meet the requ Read More

Background: Graphene (GRP) is an interesting class of nano-structured electronic materials for various cutting-edge applications. Objective: To date, extensive research activities have been performed on the investigation of diverse properties of GRP. The incorporation of this elegant material can be very lucrative in terms of practical applications in energy storage/conversion systems. Method: Among various those sys Read More

Objective: Thermal energy storage (TES) systems using phase change materials (PCM) have been lately studied and are presented as one of the key solutions for the implementation of renewable energies. These systems take advantage of the latent heat of phase change of PCM during their melting/ solidification processes to store or release heat depending on the needs and availability. Low thermal conductivity and latent he Read More

Background: Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are attractive nanostructures in this regard, primarily due to their high aspect ratio coupled with high thermal and electrical conductivities. Consequently, CNT polymer composites have been extensively investigated for various applications, owing to their light weight and processibility. However, there have been several issues affecting the utilization of CNTs, such as aggregation (bundl Read More

Objective: In this brief review, the importance of nanotechnology in developing novel magnetic energy storage materials is discussed. Method: The discussion covers recent patents on permanent magnetic materials and especially covers processing of permanent magnets (rare-earth and rare-earth free magnets), importance of rare-earth permanent magnets and necessity of rare-earth free permanent magnets. Magnetic ene Read More

Background: Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) have received considerable attention as large-scale electrochemical energy storage systems. In particular, VRFBs offer a higher power and energy density than other RFBs and mitigate undesirable performance fading, such as inevitable ion crossover, because of the unique advantage that only the vanadium ion is employed as the active species in the two electrolytes. Descri Read More

Background: Most of the chemical substances which emerge out as potential drug candidates (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) are either weak acids or weak bases. The poor aqueous solubility of these drug substances is a common concern. Several R centers are focused on developing suitable, economic, simpler and more feasible solubility enhancement techniques for increasing the solubility and thereby bioavailability Read More

Backgroud: The transparent conductive ZnO film is widely used in solar cell. Enhancing the transmittance and electrical conductivity of the films is attracting many attentions to improve cell efficiency. Methods: This work focuses on the fabrication and potential application of the various cation-doped ZnO materials in recent patents and literature and then presents the La codoping effects of Al-doped ZnO films. Films were depos Read More

Background: The widespread entrance of antibiotics from the pharmaceuticals industry and human medication into aquatic environment increased concern over public health. Due to the importance of the antibiotics removal, a considerable amount of patents reported the conventional methods for the removal of antibiotics from the wastewaters. However, newly of patents reported improvements in the removal capacity. The pr Read More