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ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2011) ? Imagine if the next coat of paint you put on the outside of your home generates electricity from light -- electricity that can be used to power the appliances and equipment on the inside.
A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame has made a major advance toward this vision by creating an inexpensive "solar paint" that uses semiconducting nanoparticles to produce energy.
"We want to do something transformative, to move beyond current silicon-based solar technology," says Prashant Kamat, John A. Zahm Professor of Science in Chemistry and Biochemistry and an investigator in Notre Dame's Center for Nano Science and Technology (NDnano), who leads the research.
"By incorporating power-producing nanoparticles, called quantum dots, into a spreadable compound, we've made a one-coat solar paint that can be applied to any conductive surface without special equipment."
The team's search for the new material, described in the journal ACS Nano, centered on nano-sized particles of titanium dioxide, which were coated with either cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide. The particles were then suspended in a water-alcohol mixture to create a paste.
When the paste was brushed onto a transparent conducting material and exposed to light, it created electricity.
"The best light-to-energy conversion efficiency we've reached so far is 1 percent, which is well behind the usual 10 to 15 percent efficiency of commercial silicon solar cells," explains Kamat.
"But this paint can be made cheaply and in large quantities. If we can improve the efficiency somewhat, we may be able to make a real difference in meeting energy needs in the future."
"That's why we've christened the new paint, Sun-Believable," he adds.
Kamat and his team also plan to study ways to improve the stability of the new material.
NDnano is one of the leading nanotechnology centers in the world. Its mission is to study and manipulate the properties of materials and devices, as well as their interfaces with living systems, at the nano-scale.
This research was funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Notre Dame. The original article was written by Arnie Phifer.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Matthew P. Genovese, Ian V. Lightcap, Prashant V. Kamat. Sun-BelievableSolar Paint. A Transformative One-Step Approach for Designing Nanocrystalline Solar Cells. ACS Nano, 2011; 111214102150001 DOI: 10.1021/nn204381g
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Rule #1: CARDIO CARDIO CARDIO THESE ROLEPLAYS NEED CHARACTERS The Trek: What will you do when you're sentenced to death on a twisted gameshow in which you must travel 50 miles through the wastes of America and battle a strange plague which twists humans into viscous beasts? The Stranded When a freak plane accident strands you and multiple other survivors on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, tensions rise, bonds will be made, and hope will be lost.
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) ? Israel began seeking tenders to build more than 1,000 homes in the occupied West Bank Sunday, part of a settlement plan it accelerated after Palestinians won recognition by a U.N. body, but a move which complicates a return to negotiations.
Palestinians have conditioned a return to peace talks on a freeze to settlement building. Peace talks collapsed a year ago over the settlements issue and the Palestinians have since sought recognition for statehood from the United Nations.
Last month, the day after Palestinians won recognition from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Jewish state announced it was speeding up settlement building activity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the accelerated construction of some 2,000 housing units in settlements that Israel has said it intends to keep as part of any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
The Housing Ministry statement Sunday said it was marketing land for 500 homes in Har Homa, 348 in Betar Illit and 180 in Givat Zeev.
Betar Illit and Givat Zeev are settlements in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem. Har Homa, bordering Bethlehem, is situated in a part of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after it captured the eastern part of the city in a 1967 war.
In an interview with Army Radio, Housing Minister Ariel Atias said the bidding process was part of the plan to build 2,000 housing units announced in November.
"It's the same, recycled headline from a month and a half ago," Atias said. "Some (approvals) went out last month, the next are going out now."
Most countries consider settlements Israel has built in the West Bank illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical links to the area, which it calls Judea and Samaria.
Palestinians, who seek to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, say settlement expansion will deny them a viable country.
Israel says negotiations should resume without preconditions and that most of its settlement construction takes place in areas it intends to keep in any future peace deal.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Ben Harding)
PHILADELPHIA -- A 13-year-old boy says he spent more than nine cold, hungry and lonely hours trapped in a stairwell at a Philadelphia school.
Seventh-grader David Fields says he was looking for a new way out of Roosevelt Middle School on Thursday afternoon but ended up locked inside an emergency exit tower when a door closed behind him.
Janitorial staff apparently didn't hear his cries for help. His mother, Angela Johnson, says workers wouldn't allow family members to look for him after he didn't come home.
Relatives say they heard David's screams when they returned with school police around 12:10 a.m. Friday. David was freed about 20 minutes later.
District spokesman Fernando Gallard (gy-YARD') says the emergency exit tower is supposed to be unlocked until a final nightly inspection.
COUPEVILLE, Wash. ? Colton Harris-Moore, the "Barefoot Bandit," was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to dozens of state charges.
The 20-year-old man gained international notoriety while evading police across the country in stolen planes, boats and cars during a two-year crime spree.
He looked down and showed no reaction as the sentence was delivered.
Judge Vickie Churchill said, "This case is a tragedy in many ways, but it's a triumph of the human spirit in other ways."
She described Harris-Moore's upbringing as a "mind numbing absence of hope," and believed he was genuinely remorseful and contrite.
Friday's proceedings consolidated cases against Harris-Moore in three Washington counties. He has already pleaded guilty to federal charges in Seattle and will be sentenced for those crimes early next year. He will serve his state and federal sentences at the same time.
Harris-Moore faced a sentencing range of between seven and just under 10 years.
"Colton's very pleased," said his attorney John Henry Brown, who called the sentence fair. "He was expecting the worst."
Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks said he's glad the case is over and he could live with the sentence.
"I can see why people are sympathetic to him," Banks said. "It's still a significant amount of time for someone who's never been in the adult system."
Wearing handcuffs and an orange jail uniform, Colton Harris-Moore spoke softly in court while entering his pleas.
In a statement provided to the judge, he said his childhood was one he wouldn't wish on his "darkest enemies."
Still, he said he takes responsibility for the crime spree that brought him international notoriety.
Harris-Moore said he studied manuals and online videos to teach himself to be a pilot, and the thrills he experienced while flying stolen planes renewed his passion for life and will help him rehabilitate while in prison.
"The euphoria of the countdown to takeoff and the realization of a dream was nearly blinding," he wrote of his first illicit flight on Nov. 11, 2008. "My first thought after takeoff was `Oh my God, I'm flying.' I had waited my entire life for that moment."
He said he'll use his prison time to study and get ready to apply to college, with the hope of earning an aeronautical engineering degree.
Several victims and a few curious citizens watched Harris-Moore enter his pleas in Island County Superior Court, along with Harris-Moore's aunt.
Harris-Moore pleaded guilty to a total of 16 counts from Island County, including identity theft, theft of firearm and residential burglary. Then the hearing continued with Harris-Moore pleading guilty to 17 counts from San Juan County.
Harris-Moore's daring run from the law earned him international fame and a movie deal to help repay his victims after he flew a stolen plane from Indiana to the Bahamas in July 2010, crash-landed it near a mangrove swamp and was arrested by Bahamian authorities in a hail of bullets.
State prosecutors had asked for a nine-and-a-half year sentence. Browne and fellow defense attorney Emma Scanlan sought a low-end, six-year term, citing Harris-Moore's bleak childhood in a Camano Island trailer with an alcoholic mother and a series of her convict boyfriends. They laid out the details of his upbringing in psychiatric and mitigation reports filed with the court.
Browne also said the young man's time on the run was horrific and included spending nights in culverts and portable toilets.
Harris-Moore's first conviction came at age 12, in 2004, for possession of stolen property, and according to the reports, his first experience with burglary came when he broke into the homes of his classmates to steal food because his mother spent most of her Social Security income on beer and cigarettes ? something she has denied.
Over the next three years he was convicted of theft, burglary, malicious mischief and assault, among other crimes.
In 2007, the boy was sentenced to three years in a juvenile lockup after pleading guilty to three burglary counts in Island County. But he fled the minimum-security facility in April 2008 and was soon back to his old tricks, breaking into unoccupied vacation homes, stealing food and sometimes staying there.
As red-faced investigators repeatedly failed to catch him, his antics escalated: He began stealing planes from small, rural airports and crash-landing them ? at least five in all.
Waves of burglaries broke out on Orcas Island, where Kyle Ater runs his Homegrown Market and Deli, in late 2009 and in early 2010, after stolen planes were found at the airport there. The second time, Harris-Moore left Ater's new security system in a utility sink, under a running faucet.
Harris-Moore's final spree came after he stole a pistol in eastern British Columbia and took a plane from a hangar in Idaho, where investigators found bare footprints on the floor and wall. That plane crashed near Granite Falls, Wash., after it ran out of fuel.
He made his way to Oregon in a 32-foot boat stolen in southwestern Washington ? stopping first to leave $100 at an animal shelter in Raymond, Wash. From Oregon, authorities said, Harris-Moore traveled across the United States, frequently stealing cars from the parking lots of small airports. In Indiana, he stole another plane and made for the Bahamas, more than 1,000 miles away, where authorities finally caught him in a manhunt that spanned multiple islands.
Among the courtroom spectators Friday were 18-year-olds Annie Cain and Hayley Hanna, who drove from nearby Langley to be at the courthouse at 5:30 a.m. ? four hours before the hearing.
"We wanted to be here just because he's so young, and everything he did, it's fascinating," Cain said.
Fox bought the movie rights in a deal that could be worth $1.3 million, and Dustin Lance Black, who won an Academy Award for writing the movie "Milk," about the gay rights activist Harvey Milk, is working on the screenplay.
Harris-Moore doesn't get to keep any of the money under the terms of his federal plea deal.
SEE PHOTOS FROM THE 'BAREFOOT BANDIT' CASE:
In this February 2010 photo provided by the Islands' Sounder newspaper, chalk drawings of bare feet are shown on the floor of the Homegrown Market on Orcas Island, Wash., after the store was broken into overnight. Investigators say Colton Harris-Moore -- also known as the "Barefoot Bandit" -- was behind the break-in, as well as airplane thefts, numerous burglaries and a high-speed boat chase. (AP Photo/Courtesy Islands' Sounder, Meredith Griffith, File)
In this February 2010 photo provided by the Islands' Sounder newspaper, chalk drawings of bare feet are shown on the floor of the Homegrown Market on Orcas Island, Wash., after the store was broken into overnight. Investigators say Colton Harris-Moore -- also known as the "Barefoot Bandit" -- was behind the break-in, as well as airplane thefts, numerous burglaries and a high-speed boat chase. (AP Photo/Courtesy Islands' Sounder, Meredith Griffith, File)
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Barefoot Bandit
In this February 2010 photo provided by the Islands' Sounder newspaper, chalk drawings of bare feet are shown on the floor of the Homegrown Market on Orcas Island, Wash., after the store was broken into overnight. Investigators say Colton Harris-Moore -- also known as the "Barefoot Bandit" -- was behind the break-in, as well as airplane thefts, numerous burglaries and a high-speed boat chase. (AP Photo/Courtesy Islands' Sounder, Meredith Griffith, File)
SIOUX CITY, Iowa ? Newt Gingrich says he's trying to edit himself so he doesn't come across as "zany."
Gingrich's remarks at the Republican debate Thursday night were aimed at rival Mitt Romney, who in an interview on Wednesday used the word "zany" to describe the former House speaker.
Gingrich smiled when he was asked a question about how he would counsel Republicans on the political controversy over construction of a new pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
Gingrich said that at times he is accused of using language that is too strong and so he was "editing" himself. He then quipped that he's very concerned about not appearing to be "zany."
Romney has stepped up attacks on Gingrich's temperament as Gingrich has vaulted to the top of the GOP field.
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