Penny-sized Nuclear Powered Battery

http://www.gizmag.com/smaller-nuclear-battery/13076/

Researchers at the University of Missouri are currently in the developmental stage of engineering a battery that is smaller, lighter and more efficient than current nuclear batteries that have been on the market for years and have powered items such as pacemakers, satellites and underwater systems.

Nuclear batteries are unlike nuclear reactors that power our cities and towns as they do not use a chain reaction that is continuous. Nuclear batteries use emissions from radioactive isotopes to generate electricity, so there is no risk of a meltdown.

The battery is currently being developed by Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Missouri University. What makes his battery innovative over existing nuclear batteries is that he is utilizing liquid semiconductor as opposed to a solid conductor. In the past, the radiation energy would damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor, by using a liquid semiconductor, Kwon hopes to minimize that problem.

9/12/09 Innovative Green Food Packaging

As manufacturing struggles with the continuing increase in costs of packaging material, due to the fact that the majority of packaging in the market today are either made from non-renewable (depleting) fossil fuels or trees, they are always on the look out for alternative forms of packaging that are cheaper and "greener" than existing packaging.

Last week as I was thumbing through a trade magazine called Packaging Digest, which covers the latest and greatest in packaging design and marketing, I came across this new packaging that SunChips is coming out with, a biodegradable bag, which with debut on Earth Day 2010.

For those of you who do not know too much about SunChips, the name comes from the fact that FritoLay uses solar energy to help generate steam which in turn is used to heat the oil used in cooking SunChips. In addition, 33% of the current bag is from renewable plant based material, in continuing with this green initiative, Sunchips is launching their new innovative biodegradable bag in 2010, which will degrade in 12-16 weeks under normal aerobic hot composting conditions (1). So anyone and everyone who has a compost pile or pin can now add SunChip's bag to the list of compostable material and certainly feel less guilty about it. The only draw back to the new bag, just like the majority of existing packaging, it does not significantly decompose in anaerobic conditions, which is typical of what you would find in landfills.



Below is the link to the video where SunChips built a compost bin with a glass panel on one side to view the degrading bag and took pictures every 15 minutes over a 14 week period (1). Click the link below to watch the short video.


http://sunchips.com/advertising_television.shtml



(1) http://sunchips.com/resources/pdf/SunChips_BehindtheScenes.pdf