Sentences with phrase «silicon nanoparticles»
Silicon nanoparticles are tiny particles made out of silicon, a chemical element. They are much smaller than usual silicon materials, and their size gives them unique properties. These nanoparticles have a wide range of applications, such as in electronics, medicine, and energy storage, due to their ability to conduct electricity and interact with light. Full definition
So, Yang He from the University of Pittsburgh explored the coated silicon nanoparticles in action at EMSL.
pnnl.gov
Last year, materials scientist Chunmei Ban and her colleagues at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and the University of Colorado, Boulder found that they could cover silicon nanoparticles with a rubber - like coating made from aluminum glycerol.
Even with today's recycling programs, billions of glass bottles end up in landfills every year, prompting the researchers to ask whether silicon dioxide in waste beverage bottles could provide high purity silicon nanoparticles for lithium - ion batteries.
Russian physicists from ITMO University have discovered that spherical silicon nanoparticles can be effectively heated and simultaneously emit light depending on their temperature.
Researchers built upon current technology by making a new type of anode that consists of single silicon nanoparticles inside carbon shells, much like yolks inside eggs.
Researchers at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) think they've come up with a novel way to do just that by using silicon nanoparticles that swell to increase the amount of lithium ions that can be stored, resulting in a lithium - ion battery system that can store seven times more energy and be discharged and recharged five times as many times as the current technology.
To create the anodes, the team used a three - step process that involved crushing and grinding the glass bottles into a fine white power, a magnesiothermic reduction to transform the silicon dioxide into nanostructured silicon, and coating the silicon nanoparticles with carbon to improve their stability and energy storage properties.
The silicon nanoparticles it produces may even enable lithium battery capacity to be boosted by a factor of 10.
Researchers did not know how this coating improved the performance of the silicon nanoparticles.
In the future, the researchers would like to develop an easier method of coating the silicon nanoparticles.
Because of this property, silicon nanoparticles may one day serve as easily detectable «tags» for tracking nanosized substances in biological, environmental or other dynamic systems.
The coolest part of this new system is that the silicon nanoparticles swell when filled with the lithium ions, but don't burst the carbon shell.