Ignitor: MIT-Projected Fusion Reactor

 

New project aims for fusion ignition

MIT-led Ignitor reactor could be the world’s first to reach major milestone, perhaps paving the way for eventual power production.

May 10, 2010

Exterior view of the Ignitor fusion reactor, whose core will be built in Italy and external housing built outside Moscow, where it will be installed.

Russia and Italy have entered into an agreement to build a new fusion reactor outside Moscow that could become the first such reactor to achieve ignition, the point where a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining instead of requiring a constant input of energy. The design for the reactor, called Ignitor, originated with MIT physics professor Bruno Coppi, who will be the project’s principal investigator.

[...]

Ignitor would be about twice the size of Alcator C-Mod, with a main donut-shaped chamber 1.3 meters across, and have an even stronger magnetic field. It will be much smaller and less expensive than the major international fusion project called ITER (with a chamber 6.2 meters across), currently under construction in France. Though originally designed to achieve ignition, the ITER reactor has been scaled back and is now not expected to reach that milestone.

The Ignitor reactor, Coppi says, will be “a very compact, inexpensive type of machine,” and unlike the larger ITER could be ready to begin operations within a few years. Its design is based on a particularly effective combination of factors that researchers  unexpectedly discovered during the many years of running the Alcator program, and that were later confirmed in experiments at other reactors. Together, these factors produce especially good confinement of the plasma and a high degree of purity (impurities in the hot gases can be a major source of inefficiency). The new design aims to preserve these features to produce the highest plasma current densities — the amount of electric current in a given area of plasma. The design also has additional structures needed to produce and confine burning fusion plasmas in order to create the conditions needed for ignition, Coppi says.

[...]

Collected from: New project aims for fusion ignition

Welcome to the IGNITOR WWW site

Collected from: Ignited plasma in Tokamaks - The IGNITOR project

Fusion reactor aims to rival ITER

But scientists doubt that IGNITOR will lead to fusion power.

Italy and Russia plan to fund a compact nuclear-fusion experiment called IGNITOR, according to an intra-governmental memorandum signed on Monday in Milan, Italy. But fusion scientists contacted by Nature have dismissed claims made by its inventor that the reactor is a bigger step towards fusion power than the much more expensive international ITER project.
 [...]

Günther Hasinger, the scientific director of the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany, says that even if IGNITOR is successful it will still require an ITER-like project to scale up because there is no room in the smaller reactor for other components to absorb the energy produced by the fusion reaction.

[...]

Collected from: Fusion reactor aims to rival ITER : Nature News

Sources

New project aims for fusion ignition
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/fusion-ignition-0510.html
Ignited plasma in Tokamaks - The IGNITOR project
http://www.frascati.enea.it/ignitor/
Fusion reactor aims to rival ITER : Nature News
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100430/full/news.2010.214.html

Related

New project aims for fusion ignition: Ignitor reactor could be world’s first to reach major milestone
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100512145348.htm
Russia, Italy and MIT Working on Ignitor Fusion Reactor
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/russia-italy-and-mit-working-on-ignitor.html
Ignitor: MIT-Projected Fusion Reactor, Built in Italy and Assembled in Russia, Better Than ITER | Nuclear Power
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2010/05/14/ignitor-fusion-reactor-russia/
Howstuffworks "How Nuclear Fusion Reactors Work"
http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-reactor.htm/printable

Solar Cells Printed on Paper

MIT researchers print solar cell on paper

Vladimir Bulovic, director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center, holds a solar cell printed onto a piece of paper to spell MIT. This is the first paper solar cell, according to MIT and Eni.

Quantum dots

The paper solar cells are one of many avenues being pursued around nanoscale materials at the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. Layers of these materials could essentially be sprayed using different manufacturing techniques to make a thin-film solar cell on a plastic, paper, or metal foils. 

[...]

MIT is focusing much of its effort on quantum dots, or tiny crystals that are only a few nanometers in size. A human hair is about 50,000 to 100,000 nanometers thick.

By using different materials and sizes, researchers can fine-tune the colors of light that quantum dots can absorb, a way of isolating good candidates for quantum dot solar cells.

Collected from: MIT researchers print solar cell on paper | Green Tech - CNET News

Nanoscale layers promise to boost solar cell efficiency

MIT experts are developing novel solar cells that call for multiple layers of nanoscale materials tuned to capture specific wavelengths, or colors, of light. One way they achieve such tuning is by using quantum dots, tiny chunks of material whose absorption color changes with particle size. To prepare the samples shown above, the researchers chemically synthesized colloidal suspensions of quantum dots in inert solvents. By carefully selecting and controlling the quantum-dot size, they produced samples with markedly different colors.

Depositing the nano layers

[...]
Using their novel printing methods, the researchers have created stacked nanostructured PVs. They can layer the nanomaterials on flexible substrates such as rollable plastic or metal foils, or they can deposit them on conventional silicon-based PVs to form “tandem” structures with boosted efficiency. Because of the crystalline nature of silicon, meshing it with other crystalline semiconductors is not easy. Nanomaterials, on the other hand, work fine because they are created in an optically active form before being deposited on the silicon. As a result, the researchers can use simple room-temperature processes, such as printing of nanostructured inks, stamping, or silk screening.

Conversion targets

According to Bulović, first-principles calculations suggest that if they do everything exactly right using a single nanostructured layer on top of silicon, they should achieve 15 percent efficient conversion—somewhat better than today’s commercial PVs. But if they combine multiple layers that are good at absorbing differing parts of the spectrum, theory says that they should get up to 25 percent power conversion.

Collected from: MITEI | Nanoscale layers promise to boost solar cell efficiency

Laboratory of Organic Optics and Electronics is forging the future of Solar Cell Technology and Quantum Dot Lighting using nanotechnology and quantum chemistry expertise

Collected from: MIT EECS - EECS Prof. Vladimir Bulovic and EECS grad students develop Quantum Dot lighting--the light of the future

Sources:

1. MIT researchers print solar cell on paper | Green Tech - CNET News
2. MITEI | Nanoscale layers promise to boost solar cell efficiency
3. MIT EECS - EECS Prof. Vladimir Bulovic and EECS grad students develop Quantum Dot lighting--the light of the future

Related:

1. Media alert: Opening of new Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center on May 4
2. Gleason Lab Homepage
3. MIT Unveils First Solar Cells Printed on Paper | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Solar Panel Origami

clipped from www.psfk.com

3D Origami Solar Panels

A new kind of solar panel design could offer a significant increase in efficiency. A team at MIT is experimenting with a 3D solar panel, which is folded up in an origami-like shape. The theory is that the increased surface area of the panel could absorb much of the light that’s usually reflected off of the flat surface of a standard panel.

clipped from web.mit.edu

Solar power in 3-D

Using a computer program that allows shapes to evolve over time, Jeffrey Grossman and students tested many thousands of shapes to see which would be most efficient at generating electricity. This sequence shows the evolution of one of the more effective theoretical shapes for a solar panel — although, in practice, a much simpler version would be used.

clipped from www.inhabitat.com

GALLERY: Solar Origami: MIT Working on Super Efficient Folded Solar Panels

clipped from www.inhabitat.com

clipped from www.inhabitat.com

clipped from www.inhabitat.com

clipped from www.inhabitat.com

clipped from www.inhabitat.com

Sources:

1. 3D Origami Solar Panels - PSFK
2. Slideshow: Solar power, shaped up
3. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/brightcovevideos.php?id=76643502001&video_id=167&iframe=true&width=496&height=542
4. Solar Origami: MIT Working on Super Efficient Folded Solar Panels Traditional flat solar panels are optimized only at one point of the sun's trajectory and otherwise need automated tracking systems to follow the sun. – Inhabitat

Related:

1. Solar Origami: MIT Working on Super Efficient Folded Solar Panels What resulted were gorgeous shapes that resemble origami. – Inhabitat
2. Solar Panel Productivity Boosted by Origami | LiveScience
3. | LiveScience
4. Origami-Inspired Folded Solar Panels Could Increase Efficiency
5. High-Tech Glitter to Create Flexible Solar Panels
6. Knowing when to fold

Clipped from: Self-assembling computer chips

Self-assembling computer chips

Molecules that arrange themselves into predictable patterns on silicon chips could lead to microprocessors with much smaller circuit elements.

The features on computer chips are getting so small that soon the process used to make them, which has hardly changed in the last 50 years, won’t work anymore. One of the alternatives that academic researchers have been exploring is to create tiny circuits using molecules that automatically arrange themselves into useful patterns. In a paper that appeared Monday in Nature Nanotechnology, MIT researchers have taken an important step toward making that approach practical.

MIT researchers coaxed tiny, chainlike molecules to arrange themselves into complex patterns, like this one, on a silicon chip. Previously, self-assembling molecules have required some kind of template on the chip surface — either a trench etched into the chip, or a pattern created through chemical modification. But the MIT technique instead uses sparse silicon “hitching posts.” The molecules attach themselves to the posts and spontaneously assume the desired patterns.
Image: Yeon Sik Jung and Joel Yang

Clipped from: Magnetic Materials and Devices Group - MIT

Research Areas:

Prof. Ross’s group research is directed towards the following areas:

• Fabrication of magnetic films, multilayers and small magnetic structures, with applications in magnetic logic, magnetic random access memory, hard disks, and bit-patterned media
  
• Magnetooptical oxides including perovskites and other oxides for use in integrated optical components such as magnetooptical isolators
  
• Self-assembly of block copolymers, with particular application to nanolithography, and in other self-assembling systems such as dewetting of thin metal films and porous alumina formation.

Clipped from: Thomas Research Group

MISSION

Our research is focused on the development of novel polymers and polymer-based composite materials with unusual optical, mechanical, and electronic properties. The research is very interdisciplinary with members having backgrounds in materials science, chemistry, physics and mechanical engineering. The main areas of current interest include photonics, phononics, mechanical properties of complex materials, and polymer structure and morphology.

Clipped from: Molecules could create tiny circuits on computer chips

Molecules could create tiny circuits on computer chips

With its minor reliance on electron-beam lithography, the new method could offer cost-effective fabrication in areas besides computer chips. For example, the technique could be used to produce stamps for creating magnetic patterns on hard disks, which are currently produced with electron-beam lithography. However, more research is required before manufacturing individual computer chips with self-assembling molecules, such as getting the molecules to form the exact patterns needed to produce functioning circuits.

More information: Joel K. W. Yang, Yeon Sik Jung, Jae-Byum Chang, R. A. Mickiewicz, A. Alexander-Katz, C. A. Ross & Karl K. Berggren. “Complex self-assembled patterns using sparse commensurate templates with locally varying motifs.” Nature Nanotechnology. Doi:10.1038/nnano.2010.30.
via: MIT News

Sources:

1. Self-assembling computer chips
2. Magnetic Materials and Devices Group - MIT
3. Thomas Research Group
4. Thomas Group Research
5. Molecules could create tiny circuits on computer chips

Related:

1. Building microchips from the bottom up (8/16/2008)
2. MIT building self-assembling computer chips | Crave - CNET
3. Microsoft Word - chuang_tsa.doc - Powered by Google Docs
4. Molecules arrange themselves into predictable patterns
5. Building microchips from the bottom up
6. DMSE - Faculty - Caroline A. Ross
7. Complex self-assembled patterns using sparse commensurate templates with locally varying motifs : Abstract : Nature Nanotechnology

Plastic with High Thermal Conductivity

Clipped from: New Plastic Conducts Heat Better Than Metals, But Only in One Direction | Popular Science

New Plastic Conducts Heat Better Than Metals, But Only in One Direction

Polyethylene Chains of polyethylene molecules like the one above tend to arrange themselves chaotically, but by figuring out how to make the molecules line up straight, MIT researchers have created a highly conductive new polymer that conducts heat in only one direction.

Clipped from: MIT NanoEngineering Group

NANO   ::   HEAT   ::   ENERGY

 

The Nanoengineering Group is part of the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT. Our research is focused on nanoscale energy transport, conversion, and storage. There are fundamental differences between transport processes at the nanoscale and the macroscale due to quantum and classical size effects; for example, both classical diffusion laws and Planck's law for blackbody radiation break down in nanostructures.

Clipped from: NanoEngineering: News

MIT News: Insulators made into conductors

Sheng Shen, Asegun Henry, Jonathan Tong, Ruiting Zheng, and Professor Gang Chen have shown that polymers can be as good conductors as many metals. Their letter, published March 7 in Nature Nanotechnology, describes how drawing polymer fibers causes molecular chain alignment. This alignment leads to the anisotropically high thermal conductivity while maintaining low electrical conductivity. Materials with such properties could be used to solve many thermal management problems. Read the full article in MIT News.

Clipped from: Insulators made into conductors

 

The new method involves pulling a thin thread of material (top) from a liquid solution (bottom), and in the process the individual polymer filaments, which start out as a tangled mass, become very highly aligned.

At top, an illustration of the tangled nature of the polymer filaments, with heat-stopping voids indicated as dark blobs. When drawn and heated into a thin thread (bottom), the molecules line up and the voids are compressed, making the material a good conductor.

Clipped from: MIT MechE - Gang Chen

Gang Chen

Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering
Director, Pappalardo Micro and Nano Engineering Laboratories
Director, DOE EFRC: Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC Center)
 

Sources:

1. New Plastic Conducts Heat Better Than Metals, But Only in One Direction | Popular Science
2. MIT NanoEngineering Group
3. NanoEngineering: News
4. Insulators made into conductors
5. MIT MechE - Gang Chen

Related:

1. Polyethylene nanofibres with very high thermal conductivities : Abstract : Nature Nanotechnology
2. Insulators made into conductors: Polymers coaxed to line up, transformed into materials that could dissipate heat
3. Heat-conducting plastic has big implications for electronics

Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) Scans Indoor Environments

clipped from smart-machines.blogspot.com MIT's Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) A team of students from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence lead by Prof. Nick Roy developed an autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicle capable of autonomously mapping and navigating a complex environment. The team participated in and won the AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) which was held on the campus of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM.) clipped from iarc.angel-strike.com MIT Quad-Rotor Vehicle Entering Window MIT Map Generation and Vehicle Path clipped from groups.csail.mit.edu Air Vehicle (1) Hokuyo laser rangefinder (2) laser-deflecting mirrors for altitude (3) monocular USB camera (4) inertial measurement unit (5) GumStix processor with wiFi link (6) ARM microprocessor running low-level control loop at 1000Hz clipped from www.youtube.com Autonomous MAV Filght in GPS Denied Environments

Sources:

1. Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: MIT's Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV)
2. International Aerial Robotics Competition
3. MIT Micro Aerial Vehicle Team
4. YouTube - Autonomous MAV Filght in GPS Denied Environments

Related:

1. MIT Micro Aerial Vehicle Team
2. Home - Ascending Technologies GmbH
3. quad-rotor autonomous helicopter eschews gps in favor of lasers. laz0rz! on [technabob]
4. quad-rotor autonomous helicopter eschews gps in favor of lasers. laz0rz! | Stupid Dog | Blog Syndication at it's Finest
5. MIT create autonomous intelligent robot helicopter [Video] - SlashGear

Wireless Power

clipped from en.wikipedia.org

Wireless energy transfer

Wireless energy transfer or wireless power transmission is the process that takes place in any system where electrical energy is transmitted from a power source to an electrical load, without interconnecting wires. Wireless transmission is useful in cases where instantaneous or continuous energy transfer is needed, but interconnecting wires are inconvenient, hazardous, or impossible.

clipped from electronics.howstuffworks.com

How Wireless Power Works

Inductive Coupling

­
An electric toothbrush's base and handle contain coils that allow the battery to recharge.

­ © Copyright Splashpower 2006 A Splashpower mat uses induction to recharge multiple devices simultaneously.

clipped from electronics.howstuffworks.com

Resonance and Wireless Power

The MIT wireless power project uses a curved coil and capacitive plates.

According to the theory, one coil can recharge any device that is in range, as long as the coils have the same resonant frequency.

clipped from www.tfcbooks.com

MIT WITRICITY
NOT SO ORIGINAL AFTER ALL

For those who believe the 2006 MIT “Witricity” demonstration was the first of its kind, look at this illustration from “Tesla Apparatus and Experiments—How to Build Both Large and Small Tesla and Oudin Coils and How to Carry On Spectacular Experiments With Them,” by H. Winfield Secor, Practical Electrics, November 1921.

clipped from www.witricity.com

Imagine a future in which wireless electricity makes everyday products more convenient, reliable, and environmentally friendly.

WiTricity Corp.’s vision is to develop a family of wireless electric power components that will enable OEM’s in a broad range of industries and applications to make their products truly “wireless.” Wireless electric power delivered over room scale distances, and with high efficiency. Wireless electric power that is safe for people and animals. Wireless electric power—imagine no more… it’s here!

clipped from www.witricity.com

WiTricity Prototype System

This WiTricity prototype system demonstrates wireless powering of an LCD TV. In this demonstration system, a WiTricity power source is positioned on the floor. It is connected to AC power and converts AC current to an oscillating magnetic field. The WiTricity capture device (to the right of the LCD TV), converts the magnetic energy to alternating current and powers the LCD TV. The WiTricity power source and capture devices are highly resonant magnetic systems that can exchange energy in a very efficient manner. WiTricity Corp. is miniaturizing and packaging the technology so that it can be built directly into a wide variety of products and systems—with no need for an external power capture device as shown in this prototype configuration.

clipped from electronics.howstuffworks.com

Long-distance Wireless Power

The Stationary High Altitude Relay Platform (SHARP) unmanned plane could run off power beamed from the Earth.

Stations on Earth can receive energy from the moon via microwaves.

clipped from www.msfc.nasa.gov

Imagine providing the Earth or a moon base with harnessed solar power, or traveling in space without returning to Earth for fuel. That’s the idea behind space-based solar power generators such as this SunTower. Depending upon size, two small panels on a tall tower could power a communications satellite, four panels might power a robotic interplanetary probe, six a manned spacecraft, while 20 panels might supply energy down to Earth or for a lunar base.

clipped from www.msfc.nasa.gov

clipped from www.msfc.nasa.gov

This giant disk floating in space isn’t a UFO. It’s a power generator, harvesting energy from the Sun for a variety of uses back on Earth.

clipped from www.msfc.nasa.gov

Sources:
Eric Giler demos wireless electricity | Video on TED.com
Wireless energy transfer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HowStuffWorks "How Wireless Power Works"
MIT Witricity — Not So Original After All
WiTricity Corp. Home — Wireless Electricity Delivered Over Distance
WiTricity Corp. — Basics of WiTricity Technology
File:Suntower.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marshall Space Flight Center News Photos
Related:
Wireless Power Consortium
Wireless Electricity, Explained | Design & Innovation | Fast Company
Wireless Electricity Is Here (Seriously) | Page 3 | Fast Company