#carbon nanotubes

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Water treatment: Catching steroid hormones with nanotubes

Steroid hormones are among the most widespread aquatic micropollutants. They are harmful to human health, and they cause ecological imbalances in aquatic environments. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), researchers have investigated how steroid hormones are degraded in an electrochemical membrane reactor with carbon nanotube membranes. They found that adsorption of steroid hormones on the carbon nanotubes did not limit the hormones' subsequent degradation. Supplying clean water to people around the world is one of the great challenges of today and tomorrow. Various micropollutants (organic and inorganic substances) are present in low concentrations in wastewater but can still be harmful to humans and the environment.

Read more.

[nutzo0001]

AGORA, NOSTALGIA, LEARNED LAZINESS AND MISTRUST INC.

Welcome, My Dear readers! 18/30s, 2/8/23

Sorry if this will end out weirdly. I just cant really write to the theme, you see. In those posts of mine, you met me at my lowest lows - and I am that type of writer who will write to ease out his head. So I guess, please Lord, let me turn this into something that will not be so self-centred and let me not be it at least not the half-bad the usual cry-anger-post.

This post is written as part of Agora Road Travelogue two-parter.

You might have seen Webring in the middle-top part of my „webpage" really. Also the part (and idea-rel. consisting of Friends [#PALS id-tag] Section. We know each other from Webring - and therefore, Agora.

Today, we will talk about this one place. Very nice place. Not quite for everyone. Well, yes, but „no". It is quite similar to how Old-Web used to be; before 2010s-mid 2010s trends come to be normalized, bastardized, on nose and then forgotten, shrug off and „repainted", as trends tend to *happen* (as the saying goes, „Average voter has memory of 6 months.") ...

Well - as You (dear reader) can see, I am pretty nostalgic right (t)here. There was something magical. Or that people were more open. Or I am just like those Old folks (to say it nicely) who cry about „good old days". You are not imune to Nostalgia Marketing - see Y2K trends comming back, Citypop 80s Revival or right (t)here - Old-Web Nostalgia...

Yes, that would be *it*. I miss what never was - Faux Nostalgia - Techzine Futures - things that „were promised", but never come to be, never stood the test of time, were always, really - just Vaporware...

[see tags]

As is too this one place. Just imagine this situation:

You started to frequent this Fandom about Aesthetics (plural) while ago, when you at once, find yourself on article/page on Y2K (Futurism). As you are, once in a while, reading the whole article much more aware than you are usually - you are startled and your brain freezes. „What did I just read? Place I dont know, a - secretative place? On Net? How is that!?"

You click. „Damn, cute. Whats the catch?" (You didnt read the article at all, now you recall.Your memories are mixed-up...) - Nostalgia huh. You love-hate that [/in my POV, case]. It cant let you go. You cant let it. And those Fandomers, too. Kids. And Kids who never grew up. -

I am angry-glad I am not „the only one". Well, what a typische attitude, an Aquarius INFP Enneagram 4 ... But you fit those both places. Agora and Aesthetics. Both of those, nostalgic. Kids, Children, Raised up [by Web] - those, longing for What never was - Y2K, Old-Web, idealized Nostalgia. False memory. Old folks with „in my times", „when [Communists]" and „Youd never survive with that attitude". It happened to us too. This curse of being human. With every generation, the pattern repeats...

And oh, those all Promises. „Imagine the Future if (only)..." basically. Fukuyama. Long Bloom (July) ´97 Issue of Wired, Barrilé with Once upon a time...Space, those cheesy 1900s postcards of „[X] in 21st Century"... You wanna cry. You are nota lone, bet on that. But it may make you salty. Grumpy. „How dare they, too!?" - if you are (in all disgust you may feel for me) me - the author. Sorry not sorry for that.

Laziness, or, is it Disgust? Whatever those Dreams were. Shit that was told to us - „Internet will destroy capitalism; We will with help of it, eat the rich; Infinite prospect for all, thanks to infinite education and Human [GVC/Aero] unity".

Sweet. At time, you could believe all that. Now, you grew up (depends) and learned from that mistake - and maybe even from some info on Web getting shadowbanned, deleted [TINC 1, 2, 3...] - and from your memories „how it all was", both good and bad - to not trust people. Others. Institutions. [/tptb]

Those elderly - I am not blaming them, you shouldnt too - they too, believed once. Conspiracies are just cope - you see, „world didnt used to be this big!" And being apart, it seems we were more connected, understanding. - Things need to be Special, really; from Mundanity comes... Laziness. You get used to it/that. Normalized behaviours, good and bad - learned (used to) - generalized, bastardized even. „Things never change.", if only you tried; but „what for!" Only if there was alternative to this Numbness - is this *the only one* World, Universe to live in, Reality!? - Alternative; Stirner, Fukuyama, Fisher at it again...

You were learned to be, made to be, what you are. It would be awesome to be able to accept unknown, - without any disonance at all, wouldnt it?! What would future then - present times now - look like then; we can only dream. Yet, why would we at all - isnt it all futile - waste of time, brainpower - to think of what we cant change; and, at times, not only about past - try to think about things where we have no influence... It is just „first-world problem", really(?). And „love" to self-hate under Rich bitch´es blame-game; how disgusting - yet, do you see???

Call [them] schizos, conspiratiories - tell what you want. But if you agree what I just told you - and I am not (sadly, LOL) alone, then - I can navigate you. As I said before (2x), there is this one place, and I too, mentioned it in this story already. - „Will you join the Black Parade?" /jk, will you *hold my hand*? Come and see, place to be, and Webring, if you seek - and learn, Kid...

Agora Road. Where did you may hear(d) it already? Rings a bell? T as in Traveler. O, maybe in „of". R - Road. But what Road? Road 66? Well, kinda maybe, you know - Route. Add R. Router. Add S. Routers. But what of T.O.R? Or is it TOR? What about now? Sounds familiar?

TOR - And Deep, Dark Web. Roads - and inspiration. Namesakes. Products. „On Router" - and in Real-life route. Onion's, - and, real life's - Silk Road. Agora Road too, in the first case too -

If you are kid of Old Web, you bet. Those stories. And greentexts. Copypastas. UrbDic. Feels nostalgic?

Those poor kids, you may say, seeing those „Newbies". Using only Surface Web! And apps! Blasphemy!! What we did (not) to them, I hear you say, am I? As if curiosity was gone! Buried in deep ends of 2000s and mid-00s. Where are those kids, who would dissect computer as if it was their sacred obligation? Or, would you wish your kid was one of Those? Perhaps even, you being That kid - can it be that!?

I wonder and cant find any answer. What happened to those, where are they now - was that thing with comps just one-time 80s-00s, Utopian Scholastic fad? What, precisely, happened between „Y2K" and 2010s, that this „fascination" stopped?

Is it simply vendor lock-ins, XaaS, phone apps and somewhat „nerd is cool now"? - Is that just psyop to „homogenize" [i.e. "globohomo blobs"] all niche under „one roof", be-it Google, Fandom, Discord and so? -

But then, is it really just laziness and comfort, to not self-host, to go the way of least resistence, to not speak up your mind? - What can we lose, but return to what made Web, WWW, „it"!? It is *easy* to understand that those at the top dont want, allow, and shadowban you for that.

They radicalized „normies" unto thinking of „only way". If it isnt 55-150 words-a-line, if it isnt easily understandable and if it goes against neo-liberalism („solving" capitalism problems with even more of (it) capitalism). Generalizations, bagetelizations, simplifications. „Leaders know the best". As if! If only they cared - who will they have „slaves" of!? Does it make sense? Is something missing from this equation?...

But do you really care for being celebrity - do you? Or you just came here to make friends, to chat, to share Your part of world and view - as Net supposed to be in the first place!!?

- Talking about all that: Do you feel something, then? Maybe I am just „stupid-smart", someone who just scrapes surface of everything, and nothing at all (of it). So fake. So vain. - Just second-hand experiences and stories.

Who knows, really. If you are sucker for nostalgia, you could love Agora Road as well as I do. You may miss Forums, those were good - then youd love *that* place. Or maybe you hate it - hate that you can relate. I know that feeling if you are that dense as edgy, as I tend to be, when I find that „other does [thing] too" - funny-sad, isnt it...

Or I am too, very vague. As I said in the beggining, it is very hard to write about „things", when you are not used to do that. Feelings is what I can write for hours - without even getting to point. My brain just Works - or not, this way.

Agora Road! 

Rediscover hobbies

[sanjay-chem]

Medical Marvels: The Role of Carbon Nanotubes in Drug Delivery

The global carbon nanotubes (CNT) market is on the verge of an unprecedented expansion, projected to grow from USD 1,166.2 million in 2025 to an astounding USD 2,812.1 billion by 2035. This surge reflects a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2%, driven by advancements in nanotechnology and an increasing demand for CNTs across multiple industries, particularly in energy storage, electronics, and automotive sectors. With superior mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties, CNTs are revolutionizing materials science and industrial applications.

𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐔𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐍𝐓 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

Carbon nanotubes in their pristine form are hydrophobic, tend to bundle together due to van der Waals forces, and are difficult to integrate into most solvent systems or polymer matrices. These limitations significantly reduce their utility in real-world industrial applications. Functionalization—either through covalent or non-covalent modification—addresses these challenges at the molecular level.

Covalent functionalization alters the intrinsic structure of CNTs by attaching functional groups such as carboxyl, hydroxyl, or amine groups directly onto the tube walls. This enhances solubility and reactivity but can sometimes degrade electrical properties. Non-covalent techniques, on the other hand, involve wrapping CNTs with polymers or surfactants, preserving their core structure while improving dispersion and processability.

𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐀𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭: 𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐰! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-78

Such molecular-level adaptations not only improve CNT performance but also allow them to be tailored to specific industries. For instance, polymer-wrapped CNTs can be seamlessly integrated into hydrophilic media for biomedical use, while carboxylated CNTs exhibit enhanced compatibility with epoxy matrices used in structural composites. These changes open doors to new application domains and mitigate regulatory concerns surrounding toxicity and bioaccumulation.

"With rapid technological advancements and growing industrial demand, the carbon nanotube market is poised for exponential growth. The integration of CNTs in energy storage, electronics, and structural materials will redefine multiple industries, creating new opportunities for innovation and commercialization," says Nikhil Kaitwade, Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights (FMI).

𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐮𝐛𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲:

The global carbon nanotubes market will experience a CAGR of 9.2% from 2025 to 2035, with a valuation reaching USD 2812.1 billion by the end of the forecast period.

Lithium-ion battery and supercapacitor applications will significantly contribute to market expansion due to CNTs' role in enhancing energy efficiency and storage capacity.

Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the CNT market, with China leading the production and application of CNTs across various industries.

Companies are investing in research and development to improve CNT production efficiency and explore novel applications in healthcare, construction, and flexible electronics.

The market faces challenges such as high production costs and technical limitations in large-scale manufacturing, but ongoing research is addressing these barriers.

𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭: 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐍𝐓𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

As functionalization techniques mature, CNTs are entering sectors once considered inaccessible due to incompatibility or safety concerns. One noteworthy domain is biodegradable electronics, where functionalized CNTs are used as conductive inks in wearable biosensors that degrade safely in the body or environment after use. In 2023, a Japanese startup successfully launched a biodegradable patch for ECG monitoring that employed non-covalently modified CNTs within a biodegradable polymer matrix, highlighting how functionalization directly influences product viability.

The textile industry is another emerging frontier. Functionalized CNTs are being used to create anti-bacterial, conductive fabrics that can monitor temperature or humidity. These “smart textiles” are gaining traction in sportswear and military uniforms, where data collection and comfort intersect. Functionalized CNT coatings also play a role in water purification membranes, enhancing filtration rates and antimicrobial properties, especially when bonded with silver or titanium dioxide nanoparticles.

𝐄𝐱𝐡𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭: 𝐀 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/global-carbon-nanotubes-market

Such applications are not just technically innovative—they are expanding the segmentation of the CNT market into areas that previously showed minimal interest due to integration barriers. As more companies adopt CNT-based solutions in fields like biosensing, medical imaging, and environmental tech, the market narrative around CNTs is evolving from a niche, high-tech material to a broadly applicable industrial component.

𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐮𝐛𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

By Product:

Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNT)

Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNT)

By Application:

Application in Polymers

Application in Energy

By Region:

North America

Latin America

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

East Asia

South Asia & Pacific

Middle East & Africa

[newstodays1]

Carbon Nanotubes: The Miracle Material Revolutionizing Tech, Medicine, and Space Exploration

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), ultra-strong, lightweight cylinders of carbon atoms, are transforming industries from aerospace to medicine. With 200x the strength of steel and unmatched electrical conductivity, this “wonder material” could redefine the future. Here’s how—and why scientists call it the backbone of 21st-century innovation. 1. What Are Carbon Nanotubes? ⚛️ Atomic Structure Made of…

[brent-emery-pieczynski]

Building an Elevator to Outer Space – Adam Brown

[jcmarchi]

Making agriculture more resilient to climate change

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/making-agriculture-more-resilient-to-climate-change/

Making agriculture more resilient to climate change

As Earth’s temperature rises, agricultural practices will need to adapt. Droughts will likely become more frequent, and some land may no longer be arable. On top of that is the challenge of feeding an ever-growing population without expanding the production of fertilizer and other agrochemicals, which have a large carbon footprint that is contributing to the overall warming of the planet.

Researchers across MIT are taking on these agricultural challenges from a variety of angles, from engineering plants that sound an alarm when they’re under stress to making seeds more resilient to drought. These types of technologies, and more yet to be devised, will be essential to feed the world’s population as the climate changes.

“After water, the first thing we need is food. In terms of priority, there is water, food, and then everything else. As we are trying to find new strategies to support a world of 10 billion people, it will require us to invent new ways of making food,” says Benedetto Marelli, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT.

Marelli is the director of one of the six missions of the recently launched Climate Project at MIT, which focus on research areas such as decarbonizing industry and building resilient cities. Marelli directs the Wild Cards mission, which aims to identify unconventional solutions that are high-risk and high-reward.

Drawing on expertise from a breadth of fields, MIT is well-positioned to tackle the challenges posed by climate change, Marelli says. “Bringing together our strengths across disciplines, including engineering, processing at scale, biological engineering, and infrastructure engineering, along with humanities, science, and economics, presents a great opportunity.”

Protecting seeds from drought

Marelli, who began his career as a biomedical engineer working on regenerative medicine, is now developing ways to boost crop yields by helping seeds to survive and germinate during drought conditions, or in soil that has been depleted of nutrients. To achieve that, he has devised seed coatings, based on silk and other polymers, that can envelop and nourish seeds during the critical germination process.

A new seed-coating process could facilitate agriculture on marginal arid lands by enabling the seeds to retain any available water.

In healthy soil, plants have access to nitrogen, phosphates, and other nutrients that they need, many of which are supplied by microbes that live in the soil. However, in soil that has suffered from drought or overfarming, these nutrients are lacking. Marelli’s idea was to coat the seeds with a polymer that can be embedded with plant-growth-promoting bacteria that “fix” nitrogen by absorbing it from the air and making it available to plants. The microbes can also make other necessary nutrients available to plants.

For the first generation of the seed coatings, he embedded these microbes in coatings made of silk — a material that he had previously shown can extend the shelf life of produce, meat, and other foods. In his lab at MIT, Marelli has shown that the seed coatings can help germinating plants survive drought, ultraviolet light exposure, and high salinity.

Now, working with researchers at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco, he is adapting the approach to crops native to Morocco, a country that has experienced six consecutive years of drought due a drop in rainfall linked to climate change.

For these studies, the researchers are using a biopolymer coating derived from food waste that can be easily obtained in Morocco, instead of silk.

“We’re working with local communities to extract the biopolymers, to try to have a process that works at scale so that we make materials that work in that specific environment.” Marelli says. “We may come up with an idea here at MIT within a high-resource environment, but then to work there, we need to talk with the local communities, with local stakeholders, and use their own ingenuity and try to match our solution with something that could actually be applied in the local environment.”

Microbes as fertilizers

Whether they are experiencing drought or not, crops grow much better when synthetic fertilizers are applied. Although it’s essential to most farms, applying fertilizer is expensive and has environmental consequences. Most of the world’s fertilizer is produced using the Haber-Bosch process, which converts nitrogen and hydrogen to ammonia at high temperatures and pressures. This energy intensive process accounts for about 1.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the transportation required to deliver it to farms around the world adds even more emissions.

Ariel Furst, the Paul M. Cook Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, is developing a microbial alternative to the Haber-Bosch process. Some farms have experimented with applying nitrogen-fixing bacteria directly to the roots of their crops, which has shown some success. However, the microbes are too delicate to be stored long-term or shipped anywhere, so they must be produced in a bioreactor on the farm.

MIT chemical engineers devised a metal-organic coating that protects bacterial cells from damage without impeding their growth or function.

To overcome those challenges, Furst has developed a way to coat the microbes with a protective shell that prevents them from being destroyed by heat or other stresses. The coating also protects microbes from damage caused by freeze-drying — a process that would make them easier to transport.

The coatings can vary in composition, but they all consist of two components. One is a metal such as iron, manganese, or zinc, and the other is a polyphenol — a type of plant-derived organic compound that includes tannins and other antioxidants. These two components self-assemble into a protective shell that encapsulates bacteria.

Play video

Mighty Microbes: The Power of Protective Polymers

Video: Chemistry Shorts

“These microbes would be delivered with the seeds, so it would remove the need for fertilizing mid-growing. It also reduces the cost and provides more autonomy to the farmers and decreases carbon emissions associated with agriculture,” Furst says. “We think it’ll be a way to make agriculture completely regenerative, so to bring back soil health while also boosting crop yields and the nutrient density of the crops.”

Furst has founded a company called Seia Bio, which is working on commercializing the coated microbes and has begun testing them on farms in Brazil. In her lab, Furst is also working on adapting the approach to coat microbes that can capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into limestone, which helps to raise the soil pH.

“It can help change the pH of soil to stabilize it, while also being a way to effectively perform direct air capture of CO2,” she says. “Right now, farmers may truck in limestone to change the pH of soil, and so you’re creating a lot of emissions to bring something in that microbes can do on their own.”

Distress sensors for plants

Several years ago, Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, began to explore the idea of using plants themselves as sensors that could reveal when they’re in distress. When plants experience drought, attack by pests, or other kinds of stress, they produce hormones and other signaling molecules to defend themselves.

Strano, whose lab specializes in developing tiny sensors for a variety of molecules, wondered if such sensors could be deployed inside plants to pick up those distress signals. To create their sensors, Strano’s lab takes advantage of the special properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes, which emit fluorescent light. By wrapping the tubes with different types of polymers, the sensors can be tuned to detect specific targets, giving off a fluorescent signal when the target is present.

For use in plants, Strano and his colleagues created sensors that could detect signaling molecules such as salicylic acid and hydrogen peroxide. They then showed that these sensors could be inserted into the underside of plant leaves, without harming the plants. Once embedded in the mesophyll of the leaves, the sensors can pick up a variety of signals, which can be read with an infrared camera.

Sensors that detect plant signaling molecules can reveal when crops are experiencing too much light or heat, or attack from insects or microbes.

These sensors can reveal, in real-time, whether a plant is experiencing a variety of stresses. Until now, there hasn’t been a way to get that information fast enough for farmers to act on it.

“What we’re trying to do is make tools that get information into the hands of farmers very quickly, fast enough for them to make adaptive decisions that can increase yield,” Strano says. “We’re in the middle of a revolution of really understanding the way in which plants internally communicate and communicate with other plants.”

This kind of sensing could be deployed in fields, where it could help farmers respond more quickly to drought and other stresses, or in greenhouses, vertical farms, and other types of indoor farms that use technology to grow crops in a controlled environment.

Much of Strano’s work in this area has been conducted with the support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and as part of the Disruptive and Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP) program at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), and sensors have been deployed in tests in crops at a controlled environment farm in Singapore called Growy.

“The same basic kinds of tools can help detect problems in open field agriculture or in controlled environment agriculture,” Strano says. “They both suffer from the same problem, which is that the farmers get information too late to prevent yield loss.”

Reducing pesticide use

Pesticides represent another huge financial expense for farmers: Worldwide, farmers spend about $60 billion per year on pesticides. Much of this pesticide ends up accumulating in water and soil, where it can harm many species, including humans. But, without using pesticides, farmers may lose more than half of their crops.

Kripa Varanasi, an MIT professor of mechanical engineering, is working on tools that can help farmers measure how much pesticide is reaching their plants, as well as technologies that can help pesticides adhere to plants more efficiently, reducing the amount that runs off into soil and water.

Varanasi, whose research focuses on interactions between liquid droplets and surfaces, began to think about applying his work to agriculture more than a decade ago, after attending a conference at the USDA. There, he was inspired to begin developing ways to improve the efficiency of pesticide application by optimizing the interactions that occur at leaf surfaces.

“Billions of drops of pesticide are being sprayed on every acre of crop, and only a small fraction is ultimately reaching and staying on target. This seemed to me like a problem that we could help to solve,” he says.

Varanasi and his students began exploring strategies to make drops of pesticide stick to leaves better, instead of bouncing off. They found that if they added polymers with positive and negative charges, the oppositely charged droplets would form a hydrophilic (water-attracting) coating on the leaf surface, which helps the next droplets applied to stick to the leaf.

Graduate student Maher Damak (left) and associate professor of mechanical engineering Kripa K. Varanasi, have found a way to drastically cut down on the amount of pesticide liquid that bounces off plants.

Later, they developed an easier-to-use technology in which a surfactant is added to the pesticide before spraying. When this mixture is sprayed through a special nozzle, it forms tiny droplets that are “cloaked” in surfactant. The surfactant helps the droplets to stick to the leaves within a few milliseconds, without bouncing off.

In 2020, Varanasi and Vishnu Jayaprakash SM ’19, PhD ’22 founded a company called AgZen to commercialize their technologies and get them into the hands of farmers. They incorporated their ideas for improving pesticide adhesion into a product called EnhanceCoverage.

During the testing for this product, they realized that there weren’t any good ways to measure how many of the droplets were staying on the plant. That led them to develop a product known as RealCoverage, which is based on machine vision. It can be attached to any pesticide sprayer and offer real-time feedback on what percentage of the pesticide droplets are sticking to and staying on every leaf.

RealCoverage was used on 65,000 acres of farmland across the United States in 2024, from soybeans in Iowa to cotton in Georgia. Farmers who used the product were able to reduce their pesticide use by 30 to 50 percent, by using the data to optimize delivery and, in some cases, even change what chemicals were sprayed.

He hopes that the EnhanceCoverage product, which is expected to become available in 2025, will help farmers further reduce their pesticide use.

“Our mission here is to help farmers with savings while helping them achieve better yields. We have found a way to do all this while also reducing waste and the amount of chemicals that we put into our atmosphere and into our soils and into our water,” Varanasi says. “This is the MIT approach: to figure out what are the real issues and how to come up with solutions. Now we have a tool and I hope that it’s deployed everywhere and everyone gets the benefit from it.”

[thenewsfactsnow]

Cleaner, Greener New Carbon Nanotubes Synthesis Unveiled

Feb 14: In a breakthrough development in Carbon Nanotubes Synthesis science, researchers at the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, have unveiled a pioneering method for the synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) directly on glass substrates. This innovative technique,…

[coldpenguintaco]

Carbon Nanotubes Market – Global Industry Trends, Uses, Applications, Business Analysis, Growth Opportunities, Segmentation, Graph and Forecast Share to 2028

The carbon nanotube (CNT) market exhibits high growth potential and is projected to reach a market size of USD 2.3 billion by 2028 from USD 1.1 billion in 2023, at a CAGR of 14.6%. Asia Pacific is the largest carbon nanotube (CNT) industry that is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecasted period. This high growth is due to the growing demand from the automotive, electronics &…

[rodspurethoughts]

Carbon Nanotubes and the Sustainability Puzzle

Credit: Katie McKissick, The Kavli FoundationMatteo Pasquali of Rice University discusses unlocking the power of carbon as a sustainable material, replacing conventional, hard-to-decarbonize materials widely used in infrastructure today. Newswise — An international team of researchers receives over $4M to advance understanding of carbon nanotube synthesis and its potential for producing…

[materialsscienceandengineering]

A fresh new way to produce freshwater: Sonicated carbon nanotube catalysts

Water is one of the most precious resources on the planet. Freshwater is vital for humans, animals, and plants—but it can become contaminated from overflowing stormwater and surface water. We are already starting to feel the squeeze on our tight water supply, so we can't afford to waste a single drop. Thankfully, contaminated water sources can be rejuvenated again as freshwater via advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). Researchers at Tohoku University made a breakthrough by using sonicated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to enable a reaction pathway that can pinpoint specific contaminants and break them down to help save our water. The findings were published in Advanced Materials on May 21, 2025.

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[nnctales]

Starcrete: Paving the Way to a Sustainable Future in Construction

Introduction In the ever-evolving world of construction and infrastructure development, innovation is key to meeting the growing demands of our global population while minimizing environmental impact. One such innovation that holds the promise of revolutionizing the construction industry is “Starcrete.” Starcrete, a groundbreaking material born out of scientific advancements and sustainability…

[ncx-tec]

NCX: Pioneering Carbon Nanotube X-Ray Technology for Precision Imaging

NCX is a premier US-based manufacturer specializing in cold-cathode X-ray sources expertly crafted with cutting-edge carbon nanotube (CNT) technology.  We offer a wide range of high-quality X-ray source products to meet the needs of a variety of medical X-ray sources, industrial X-ray sources, and specialty X-ray sources. In addition to our X-ray source products, we also offer a range of solutions and support services to meet the needs of our customers: custom solutions, and technical support.  For more information about our innovative products and cutting-edge solutions, please visit our website. 

[nanotechnologyworld]

Yuichiro Kato and two colleagues, all at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics, have pinned down exactly how up-conversion photoluminescence (UCPL) works in single-walled carbon nanotubes—drinking-straw-like cylinders of carbon just a few billionths of a meter wide.

[speci-society]

Does the river ever wonder / What will come round the bend? / As it twists and meanders / Down its slow descent

[lyrical-kitty]

Thinking about akiha's graphite anon... what a fascinating life...