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Researchers are testing different ways of improving rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and nanotechnology plays an important role in the development. The aim is to offer batteries that have fast charge and discharge rates as well as high stored energy per mass. This can make electric vehicles a competitive alternative to petrol-powered vehicles.

Imagine a cell phone battery that charges with every step you take or a spacesuit that uses astronauts' expended energy to run the suit's electronics. A team of college students conducting NASA research on this innovative use of nanotechnology took their research to new heights. The team, comprising Hannah Clevenson, Olivia Lenz and Tanya Miracle, flew an experiment related to their nanotechnology research on a NASA reduced-gravity flight.

In a paper published today, Thursday, 21 April, in IOP Publishing's journal Nanotechnology, Professor Mike Kelly, Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics, University of Cambridge, stated that you cannot mass produce structures with a diameter of three nanometres or less using a top-down approach.

Nourishing crops with synthetic ammonia (NH3) fertilizers has increasingly pushed agricultural yields higher, but such productivity comes at a price. Over-application of this chemical can build up nitrate ion (NO3-) concentrations in the soil -- a potential groundwater poison and food source for harmful algal blooms. Furthermore, industrial manufacturing of ammonia is an energy-intensive process that contributes significantly to atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Watching things disappear "is an amazing experience," admits Joachim Fischer of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. But making items vanish is not the reason he creates invisibility cloaks. Rather, the magic-like tricks are attractive demonstrations of the fantastic capabilities that new optical theories and nanotechnology construction methods now enable.

Dr. Yuri Lvov, professor of chemistry and T.C. Pipes endowed chair in micro and nanosystems at Louisiana Tech University, recently led a symposium at the 241st Conference of the American Chemical Society (ACS), discussing his application of a more eco-friendly and cost-effective nano-material that can be used to significantly improve the properties of plastics, paints and other synthetic composites.

In this month's Physics World, Jason Reese, Weir Professor of Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics at the University of Strathclyde, describes the role that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could play in the desalination of water, providing a possible solution to the problem of the world's ever-growing population demanding more and more fresh drinking water.

In a solar cell, sunlight hits a light-harvesting material, causing it to release electrons that can be harnessed to produce an electric current. The new MIT research, published online this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, is based on findings that carbon nanotubes - microscopic, hollow cylinders of pure carbon - can enhance the efficiency of electron collection from a solar cell's surface.