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For a long time, we humans are relying too much on fossil energy sources, especially oil. Therefore, scientists are constantly exploring to replace them with new sources of energy that are cleaner, safer and more sustainable.

Hydrogen raw material is the highly expected solution. However, previously, to produce hydrogen, people need rare metals like platinium and iridium. Therefore, the cost of generating hydrogen is too great.

But it will all become a thing of the past with new equipment made by experts from Stanford University. This is an electrolysis machine that separates hydrogen from water at extremely low cost. The materials that make up the device only include a nickel, iron and a 1.5V battery.

The device works continuously for 7 days without any problems!

The reason electrolysis equipment produces a lot of hydrogen is by the construction of two electrodes from nickel – iron oxide. The spread of particles into metal particles pressed together increases the contact area in the water of the poles. As a result, hydrogen is produced more and consumes less energy.

Chemical mechanism when electrolytic water

Yi Cui, a Stanford professor of materials science and engineering, commented, “This process creates very strongly connected microscopic particles, so the catalysts will have good and stable electrical conductivity. Moreover, the use of nickel and iron catalysts have more advantages because of low cost.

Haotian Wang, the owner of the invention, said that the electrolytic device is very stable, can maintain itself for 1 week with an efficiency of 82% at room temperature.

On the morning of May 18, 2015, University of Technology (Hanoi National University) announced information about the microchip product VNU-UET VENGME H.264 / AVC @ 2014 (hereinafter referred to as VENGME H.264 / AVC). This is Vietnam’s first dedicated video coding IC.

The project, chaired by Assoc. Prof. Tran Xuan Tu, has designed and built a hardware architecture to implement video encoding function compatible with H.264 / AVC standard for mobile devices. After the design was successful, the blueprint was sent for production at Global Foundry with 130 nm CMOS semiconductor technology.

VENGME H.264 / AVC is the most widely used specialized generation IC in the world today and has a very high complexity, integrating over two million logic ports (equivalent to 8 million transistors). ). In addition to approaching and mastering the design technology to meet the standard coding function of the IC, the team also has some development of its own optimal solutions, such as 4-stage pipeline treatment techniques, methods data reuse, computation techniques in the process of data transmission between basic blocks, low power design techniques.

Video encoding chip VNU-UET VENGME H.264 / AVC @ 2014 was designed and manufactured by the research team of Assoc. Prof. Tran Xuan Tu. (Photo: Bui Tuan).

Microchips have some outstanding features compared to other technology products in the application field being researched and deployed in the world in terms of performance, energy consumption and design cost. It can handle real-time videos of up to HD 720p resolution at 100MHz, with a relatively small power consumption (53 mW). These creative contents are the basis for the author group to publish 10 articles in the ISI / Scopus system and be interested by the international scientific community, cited up to 26 times.

Through research, the University of Technology has built a relatively strong scientific staff, mastered integrated circuit design technology and is capable of solving modern technology issues, allowing deployment. design important circuits for the field of national defense and security with internal resources.

The VENGME H.264 / AVC video signal chip is designed to target applications such as security cameras, traffic cameras, field surveillance cameras or simply buildings, schools, and surveillance cameras. public places … and mobile devices like smartphones, video cameras. At the ceremony, the University of Technology and Saigon Smart Solutions Co., Ltd. signed an agreement on technology transfer and application development cooperation for VENGME H.264 / AVC.

The technology products of the project have also been partly shared with the Institute of Electronics and Informatics under the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA-LETI) of the Republic of France to continue developing in the direction of reducing the power consumption. – one of the increasingly demanding requirements of green technology-driven mobile devices.

Nguyen Thanh Binh, Director of the Department of Science and Technology (Government Cipher Department), said that Cipher Committee also set a target to design an IC for its use soon. “We have had a meeting with Associate Professor Tu and found that the ability to cooperate after the announcement was very good. Although the road to the product is still long, this is the first step of the technology development orientation. High quality technology gradually replaces the outsourced labor, “Mr. Binh said.

“The national product development program is oriented towards microchip development, the Technology Innovation Fund also aims to develop electronic circuits as one of the key directions. The Ministry of Science and Technology will therefore facilitate so that research and training units can participate in the programs of the Ministry of Science and Technology together “, said Mr. Nguyen Van Tang, representative of the National Product Development Program Office (Ministry of Science and Technology). ), affirmative.

Microchips are a key part of all industrial products, especially electronics, and can be likened to “industrial rice.” Proactively producing diversified electronic circuit boards and updating the world’s most modern technology will enhance the value of electronic products made in Vietnam with a profit of up to 30%. The successful research and manufacturing of ICs also contributes to the training of high quality human resources for the knowledge economy, reducing the import of electronic components and technological solutions, creating photo products. and greatly affect the development of the country’s economy.

With this product, Vietnam can also master electronic technology for national security and defense, design and manufacture important electronic circuits in weapons systems, military equipment, and navigation systems. pepper; information security. These are issues that cannot be ordered or hired by foreign designers and manufacturers.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Duc, Vice President of Vietnam National University, Hanoi, assessed that the research team of Associate Professor Tran Xuan Tu has incorporated the perspectives on practical research and international integration (derived from practical requirements). of the country, but should be implemented in an international standard approach); basic research and technological development with high level (ensuring the discovery of new knowledge, new solutions of publication value in international journals, or registration of inventions and inventions) and Applied research sites with high scientific content.

“Along with the development program of IC industry in Ho Chi Minh City, VENGME H.264 / AVC video chip product of Hanoi National University contributes to empowering Vietnam on the real map. chip production of the world, consolidating the 3rd position in the ASEAN region, Hanoi National University will continue to support and invest for the IC’s research and application development group to manufacture and develop the New generation of ICs can compete globally, “said Professor Nguyen Huu Duc.

Vortex technology is shaped like pillars poking straight into the sky. Instead of capturing energy through the rotation of the propeller, the bladeless wind turbine generates electricity through vortex movement, the aerodynamic phenomenon that creates tornadoes.

Wind power technology has a simple shape, like large pillars poking straight into the sky. (Photo: Vortex)

Vortex’s shape was developed by computer technology to ensure the swirling winds work simultaneously throughout the column body. In the first version, the column body was made of a mixture of fiberglass and carbon fiber, allowing it to move at maximum. The bottom of the column is two opposing magnets, acting as a non-electric motor. When the pole oscillates in one direction, the magnet pulls it in the opposite direction. This kinetic energy is then converted into electricity through an electric knife.

In terms of performance, a Vortex Mini with a height of about 12 m can collect 40% of wind energy in ideal conditions (when the wind reaches 42 km / h). According to experimental results, Vortex Mini gains 30% less energy than current wind turbines, however, with the same area of ​​fan turbine, we can place two Vortex.

The developers claim that the technology costs 51% less than current technologies because of the absence of gears, bolts or machine moving devices, and maintenance costs are also lower. In addition, technology also has many other advantages such as not making noise and safety for birds.

The researchers expect the first product to be a 100-watt, 2.7-meter high turbine that will be released by the end of this year.

New materials for making high-end electronic components are often expensive and are of high technology. But a team in France recently showed that energy storage components called supercapacitors can be made from a very “dirt” material called grilled seaweed.

Francois Béguin of the Center for CNRS Research on Isolation in the city of Orléans (France) and colleagues say seaweed, when burned into a coal-like form, would become a suitable material to create an electrode in high-performance supercapacitors,works well not lose carbon materials originally used in commercial devices.Mildred Dresselhaus, a carbon materials expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), points out that coconut husks have been used as porous carbon to produce water filters and for other applications. The polymer derived from the seaweed that Béguin produces (called alginate) is non-toxic and has been used as a thickener in food and cosmetics. Each year 20,000 tons of alginate is extracted from seaweed, so the price is very cheap.

Supercapacitors replace batteries in storing power in mobile electronics. It consists of a pair of plates, or electrodes, that carry a charge that can be switched on / off, creating an electric current. Capacitors can provide more power – higher currents or voltages – than batteries, but store less total power. They can be applied as emergency power to computers or auxiliary power in electric vehicles, for example, they can store the energy collected during braking.

The amount of energy stored in a capacitor depends on the charge on the electrodes. Many current supercapacitors have electrodes made from a porous form of graphite-like material, called activated carbon, which is cheap and can store electricity. However, porosity is a disadvantage due to the storage of a large amount of electric charge in a low density material that requires a large amount of material, which is not suitable for applications in small electronic devices.

What Béguin and his colleagues really need is a relatively thick, conductive carbon that is capable of storing large amounts of electricity. Researchers think that cellulose (plant fiber) may be appropriate because it contains a lot of stored oxygen atoms but most of the oxygen is gone when heating cellulose. They then thought of alginate, an excess in brown seaweed, which is chemically similar to cellulose but can hold oxygen when heated.

The French team cooked alginate in an airless enclosure to turn it into black powder. Next, they combined the powder with a polymer to create the hard material they shape into electrodes to use for supercapacitors. The amount of charge and energy these devices can store is relatively equal to those made from activated carbon. However, seaweed capacitors can be charged at twice the voltage without breaking, as the material is twice as thick. Besides, it is also highly durable, and its stored charge decreases by only 15% after every 10,000 charge cycles. Béguin said it will quickly commercialize the material and some companies show interest in the technology.

When your eyeglass frames are bent, it will be difficult to bring them back to their original shape. However, if your glasses are made of this new self-forming alloy, you don’t need to worry, because just putting your frames in hot water will return to its original shape. New studies have given rise to materials that can be usefully used in the construction industry.

SMA alloys help increase the quality of construction
Research institute of Bergakademie Freiberg Technical University, Germany conducted an experiment in which SMA shaped memory alloys were forged to a temperature of 1,1500 degrees Celsius. SMA alloys can return to their original form after being Severe deformation naturally or after heat use. This useful material is used not only for frame types but also for technical applications like thermostats, actuators. Other applications in the construction industry are as bridge reinforcement.

If reinforced concrete beams are cast with rods made of SMA material, then they can be “activated” through thermal applications. To reinforce the bridge it is necessary to create the necessary force on SMA rods simply by heating them by passing an electric current through them.

Nickel titanium alloys used as frames are not suitable for use in construction industries. Iron-based SMA materials are useful in construction because of low raw material costs and production costs. However, a major problem is that to activate the effect, the temperature must be raised to 4000 degrees Celsius, for sensitive materials such as concrete, mortar, this level of heat is too high. In a new study, scientists have come up with an iron-manganese-silicon-based SMA memory alloy, which only needs to be activated at 1600 degrees Celsius, suitable for concrete.

Source: Internet

A construction materials company in the UK has introduced a miraculous concrete that can absorb 4,000 liters of water in a minute, which is expected to be a useful solution when flooding occurs.

Absorbent concrete is called Topmix. It is designed with a super absorbent coating, which allows water to seep through the surface quickly and prevent stagnation.

In a recent test in a parking lot, this concrete was able to absorb 4,000 liters of water in just 60 seconds. The water from the sprayer quickly disappears after it spills onto the road.

Topmix – Super absorbent concrete. (Photo taken from video).

According to Lafarge Tarmac, their waterproof concrete products not only help cope with flooding, but also reduce the heat generated by the asphalt material generated during hot weather. For flood prone areas, this method can replace conventional concrete and effectively solve problems.

Mirror on 21/9 said, the idea of ​​producing this special concrete comes from the desire to minimize the impact caused by floods. In fact, this is not a completely new idea. Water-repellent concrete has been around for nearly 60 years, but it is used to pave the bottom. Meanwhile, Topmix is ​​the ideal material for parking lot surfaces and driveways.

The only problem with super absorbent concrete is cold weather, when water can freeze and cause cracking or surface damage.

Learn about analyzers, computer systems … spread out in a 27 km circumference under the giant LHC particle accelerator project, viewers will understand more about the operation of the planet’s most expensive machine. man-made.

Learn about the greatest machine in human history

Observing from the universe, the scientists found that ordinary matter such as galaxies, stars and planets accounted for only 4% of the universe. The rest is black matter (23%) and dark energy (73%). Physicists believe that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could open the door to these cognitive gaps.

The main purpose to build it is to break the current limitations and fundamental theories of particle physics. CERN head, French physicist Robert Aymar said: “The findings from the € 6.4 billion ($ 9.2 billion) project, bringing together researchers from 50 countries will bring improvements. ever-great scientific set. ”

The LHC began testing in 2008, but failed after a few days because of helium leakage. After the problem is fixed, it works again. But in the first few days of November 2009, the machine broke down again due to the sudden increase in temperature in many parts. Up to now, the repairing work is completed. The first proton went through a 27km long tunnel.

Structure of an LHC
The giant LHC machine contains more than 1,000 giant magnets to guide the proton in the machine’s pipe, at a speed of 11,000 rpm, roughly the speed of light.

Swiss and French border areas with three circles. The smallest ring (lower right) is the Synchrotron Proton, the middle ring is the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) with a circumference of 7 km and the largest is LEP, with a portion of Lake Geneva having a circumference of 27 km. The LHC can accelerate particles to energies of 14 TeV (14,000 billion electron volts).

Diagram of the location of the Analysis Units in the 27km Tunnel. LHC is currently operating at 3.5 TeV. It is only half the design capacity but is three and a half times higher than the world’s second largest particle accelerator, the US Tevatron.

The magnet system of the machine is cooled by liquid helium. The machine is located at a depth of 100 m below the ground in the French-Swiss border area. The tunnel has a diameter of 3.8 m, has a concrete structure and was built between 1983 and 1988.

Six analyzers (detectors) have been built into the LHC system, located in large burrows below the ground excavated at the LHC intersections. Two of them, ATLAS (black matter detector) and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) (Higgs detectors, “Lord’s particles”) are large multi-purpose particle analyzers. A set of A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) and LHCb with more specific functions are responsible for understanding moments after Big Bang’s “clones” and detecting antimatter particles. The other two are much smaller, TOTEM and LHCf, for other specialized research

Here are pictures of the analyzers:

ATLAS – one of two multi-purpose analyzers, will be used to look for new physical signs, including the origin of mass and auxiliary dimensions. ATLAS detectors contain a dense array of concentric pillars, where there is interaction of the collision proton beam.

Like ATLAS, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) will scour the Higgs particles and look for clues about the nature of dark matter. In the picture is the inner “Heart” of the CMS machine.

ALICE will study a “liquid” form of matter called a plasma quark-gluon, a very short-lived form after the Big Bang.

LHCb – compares the amounts of matter and antimatter produced during the Big Bang. The LHCb will try to find out what happened to “lost” antimatter. LHCb is very large, 6X7 square meters consisting of 3,300 blocks containing scintillator, optical fiber and lead. It will measure the energy of particles produced during proton-proton collisions.

TOTEM – measure the size of the proton and LHC’s luminosity. In quantum physics, brightness affects the accuracy of a large particle accelerator in conflict creation.

LHCf – study of naturally occurring cosmic rays.

Computer System

The computing system for the LHC project is also the largest computer network in the world. The collisions of photons are stored on computers with a capacity of 15 terabytes of data each year. Most of the data will be stored in Oracle databases and some commercial storage systems.

The role of the computer network that CERN establishes is to gather vast computational and storage power to give scientists the ability to access data and computational tools as needed. The sites on this grid also include universities and research centers from Japan to Canada, plus two HP laboratories.

Supermicro Server system at the Calculation Center of LHC Project.

All computing systems contribute power with a total of more than 10,000 processors and hundreds of millions of gigabytes of tape and disk storage. Information about collisions of particles in the accelerator is sent to all research centers in Europe, Asia and the USA for data storage and processing.

Many mysteries of physics and the universe are the goal of experiments. The impact of the LHC experiment will be greater than that of going to the moon for the first time. It is hard to predict the actual benefits of this project.

Heavy duty of a billion-dollar machine
Experts with the LHC, the European Nuclear Research Organization (CERN), estimate the cost of repairs and other safety related to the LHC is about US $ 37 million. The money comes from the budgets of the 20 countries involved. Currently, no country member of CERN has expressed its opposition to the LHC project.

This is the core inside of the LHC. More than 15 countries provide funding for the construction of a large particle accelerator. More than 8,000 scientists and hundreds of universities and laboratories have participated in designing the machine

With the LHC super-powerful particle accelerator, scientists can study particles at sizes of 1/10 billion billion meters, measuring times of 1/10 million billion billion seconds. “We will know what the universe has at 1 / 1,000,000 of a second right after the Big Bang and that is amazing,” said physicist Robert Aymar.

The test was performed on a magnet section in the LHC tunnel. It is important that each magnet is properly positioned so that the beam path is precisely controlled.

The goal of the experiment is also to find “Higgs particles”, a type of elementary particle belonging to the subatomic particle group (smaller than the atom), which is the type of particle that creates mass for matter and creates the universe. The name of the particle is named after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, who calculated the existence of the particle. While everyone calls the particle Higgs, Peter Higgs is called the particle of God (God particle).

In addition, there are many mysteries of physics and the universe, including supersymmetry, black matter, dark energy …, unsolved mysteries hidden in the dimensions of space that the LHC has. the task of discovery, (most elementary particles cannot be seen leaving traces after the collision but some particles are not detected because they can move along … extra dimensions of space, as well as create objects). Invisible dark matter).

New Zealand will soon become the main center for launching satellites into orbit after Rocket Lab, the US aerospace company, announced plans to build a launch pad in the country.

Business Insider (USA) on July 25 reported that Rocket Lab is aiming to remove barriers to commercializing aerospace through the launch of affordable satellites.

A drawing of Rocket Lab’s launch pad is posted on the Rocket Lab homepage

The company announced plans to build a launch site in the Kaitorete Spit strip of the Canterbury area, near the city of Christchurch. Here they will set up a launch pad and rocket called Electron, which will launch small satellites to low Earth orbit.

Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, said he chose New Zealand because the country “has the technical, logistical and economic advantages” that NASA once used for flights under orbit.

“The area in New Zealand is tilted and in sync with the Sun’s orbit, making it ideal for launching small satellites,” Beck said.

With traditional launch systems facing the prospect of overloading, Rocket Lab decided to build its own launcher with the goal of 100 launches in a year.

“The construction and commissioning of our satellite launch point is essential to meet the growing needs of our customers. With regular satellite launch from this launch point, Rocket Lab will take a step forward. closer to the goal of commercializing the aerospace industry, “Beck added.

Reportedly, the first launch is expected to be carried out later this year.

A tour of Corning’s labs will show you the brand new functions of Gorilla Glass. Even someday, our smartphone can test whether the surrounding water is clean enough to drink or not.

Although no clean water applications are currently available, Corning researchers have discovered that they can use Gorilla Glass, a toughened glass manufactured by the company. – to create extremely sensitive biochemical sensors that detect traces of toxic gases in the air or pathogens in the water.

The sensor is just one of many ongoing projects in Corning’s R&D laboratories in New York, USA. In recent decades, Corning’s advances in glass manufacturing have brought us technologies like fiber optics or flat panel displays. Now thanks to Gorilla Glass, it has helped create the latest smartphones. But despite the remarkable success of this tempered glass, Corning is still moving toward the next technological breakthrough.

In 2014, Corning spent about 8% of its revenue on R&D activities (product research and development). It is an investment of up to 800 million USD. The purpose of this is to prepare for the risk that one of its businesses may face difficulties like it has in the past. Between 2000 and 2002, Corning lost more than half of its revenue when the optical fiber business collapsed. Its shares have dropped from 113 USD / share to just over 1 USD / share. And now, the company faces a new challenge as its biggest customer, Apple, is close to replacing Gorilla Glass with sapphire glass.

Phone screens still account for nearly half of Corning’s revenue, and nearly a third of that comes from Gorilla Glass. To expand its market share and combat the challenges of other materials, Corning is trying to explore more features for this toughened glass, such as turning it into a sensor. Along with that, the company is looking for new markets for Gorilla Glass, in addition to the mobile screen market.

The ability to turn a phone screen into a biochemical sensor is one of the first steps of the project at Corning. Its researchers have discovered that they can create very high quality waveguides – which help guide light – in Gorilla Glass. They can create waveguides located close to the surface to turn the glass into a type of sensor. This is not feasible with conventional glass because they are very fragile. To make waveguides, scientists must project a high-intensity laser towards the surface of the glass, and then trace it onto the surface – a job that often changes the optical properties of the glass. glass.

To make a sensor from Gorilla Glass, researchers have to make a waveguide split into two separate lines. Then make the two roads converge, and the light on the two roads intersect. One line will act as the sensor line, and the other is the reference line. Even a slight change of light in the sensor path – such as its intensity – can be detected by observing the interference of light from the two paths. The researchers simulated this process with a simple sensor that could detect a change in temperature. When heated the sensor line, its shape will be changed, resulting in changes in the properties of light passing through this line.

Because the waveguides are located close to the surface, a portion of the light will escape from the glass, and anything placed on the glass will interact with that light. This means that to create a chemical or biological sensor, scientists can change the surface of the glass to keep a specific target. For example, we can add antibodies corresponding to E.coli to the glass. Meanwhile, to detect the presence of this bacterium, we will just need to drop a drop of water on the phone screen is done.

Because the waveguides are very small in size, they will not interfere with the screen’s visibility. And because of that, sensors for different chemical and biological objects can be integrated into the same smartphone.

Corning researchers have also found that Gorilla Glass has a very useful acoustic property, which is how this glass vibrates differently than conventional glass – it can suppress sound waves. The simplest application of this finding is to use Gorilla Glass as a soundproof glass.

But with this acoustical feature, scientists can turn Gorilla Glass displays into a set of speakers. Such a prototype was created in Corning’s lab. It consists of a wire on the inside of the screen, which is attached to a small actuator that vibrates the glass to make sound. Thanks to that, sound waves can be better controlled, helping to produce sound with a much better quality.

In another Corning lab, researchers are creating a very special glass window. It looked normal like any other glass window, but with just a switch on the circuit board, the glass had turned into a television screen, and viewers could only vaguely see the scenery behind the glass. But without showing the video, we can see through it like any other glass window. Corning still has a secret about how to create this type of screen.

The most mysterious item of Corning’s lab inventions is a glass slinky toy. It is created by a very thin type of Gorilla glass that is bent into a spiral using a newer laser tool. Slinky is a toy that when you hold one end and release the other, it will expand towards the ground. The glass will often crumble when doing so, but because Gorilla glass is harder, it will tend to bounce back like a spring. The key to creating this stretchable glass is making Gorilla glasses thinner.

Corning is also creating Willow Glass, a glass only 100 micrometers thick – a quarter of the thickness of Gorilla glass used as a phone screen. It can be delivered to customers in the form of “rolls”, making glass production cheaper and easier. Potential customers are still considering the applicability of this product, but right now, an even more flexible glass has been studied by Corning, according to Chief Technology Officer David Morse. . This glass can be folded around the edge of thin objects such as notebooks, and folds millions of times without breaking. It could be an important factor in foldable electronics in the future.

Founded in 1851, Corning glass manufacturer has existed since then thanks to the ability to constantly discover new uses of glass. When the optical fiber market collapsed, Corning’s manufacturing of glass-making cathode ray tubes was severely affected. But it overcame the crisis by inventing a process of producing high quality glass for transistors in LCD screens. A few years later, Corning received a call from Steve Jobs, who needed a toughened glass for his first iPhone. And Corning brought a whole new technology – a type of tempered glass called Gorilla Glass. Judging by what’s going on in the labs above, Corning seems ready for the next phone call.