The most successful players in the 'New Energy Economy' will be those who advance and profit from materials that enable cleaner interactions between molecules.

Even the 'greenest' consumers and markets will be stuck in a lower part of the value chain to countries and companies who dominate the Nanoscale Era of Science and Engineering.  The future will shaped by those who become Masters of Molecules.  So we pay close attention to investments by energy incumbents who are pushing forward around science.

Science Parternships with Petro Kingdoms
Saudia Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is funding advanced research at Cornell University to develop nanomaterial applications for water desalination, Carbon capture and sequestration, solar energy and the 'greening' of oil and gas production.

'Pom Poms' to the Rescue?  Nanoparticle Ionic Materials (NIMS)
The performance qualities of elements such as carbon, iron, platinum (et al) change dramatically at the nanoscale (billionth of a meter). The KAUST-Cornell research will focus on a new material discovered at Cornell called Nanoparticle Ionic Materials (NIMS).

Researchers describe NIMS as:  "pom-poms; that is, a squishy core made out of inorganic nanoparticles, and a hairy exterior called a corona that is made out of an organic polymer. This exterior can capture things such as Carbon Dioxide in a coal power plant, and the core can then be the catalyst to fix the carbon dioxide and convert it into something else, thereby preventing the building of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

Category: Energy
Year: 2020
Tags: energy, research, nanomaterials, nanotechnology, nanoscale