Oil and Water Mixed…

And now batteries are better

Honestly, my first thought when learning about nanotech, is that this is just going to be about three main buckets: computers, nanoparticles, and medicine

Because it can be applied almost ANYWHERE:

• Superconductors for quantum
• More efficient crypto-miners
• Better food
• Solar panels
• Batteries
• Personalized medicine
• More food. Like more.
• you get the point

One of the best parts is the crazy reactivity, with such a small size — kinda like how cooking pasta in cold water causes people to flip out.

#1 Nanosandwiches

Yum.

So #yum, in fact, that here’s a recipe for your inner home chef 👨‍🍳:

1. Ingredients

• 3 layers graphene (atomic thickness is for maximum effectiveness)
• Boron nitride (basically frosting)
• The ability to manipulate magnetic fields

2. Directions

1. Take your and spread them all out in individual sections
2. Take some of that frosty deliciousness, Nutel… I mean boron nitride and stack it on 2 of the graphene sheets
3. Plop them on top of each other (no need to take care like you needed to with the 2 layer sandwich)
4. Congrats!! You now have the basis for a superconductor

3. Superpowers

If you followed the recipe just right, your DIY superconductor should have the following properties and look more or less like this (on the atomic scale):

Can’t. Look. Away. Oh wait, I can. Nvm.

• the ability to work at room temperature
• less of a need for fine-tuning (no magical angles allowed)
• the ability to turn it on or off with an electrode
• less energy waste (because it’s a superconductor)

But on a larger scale, this actually means a lot for quantum computers— hardware for quantum computers is actually a yuuuuge bottleneck in scaling up qubits.

As well as computers in general — things like smartphones could become as powerful as a laptop in the near future, or have increased battery life. The no fan laptop (that’s also really powerful) could all be *things* in the next 2–3 years.

*cue level up animation*

#2 Nanobots, except they’re not (but also yes)

According to most predictions, nanobots are supposed to be viable in the next 5–7 years, so more of a moonshot goal for nanotech. Except that it could probably be sooner.

Like in the next year or so sooner. 🤯

Scientists using nanoparticles in a “swarm” have been able to guide nanoparticles by using oscillating magnets. While that doesn't seem like a nanobot at first glance, the ability to control nanostructures within the human body is.

Kinda reminds me of french fries…

Misunderstood but movie-level misunderstood

The interesting part about being able to control nanoparticles AND change their shape is the nanoparticles themselves. In the life of a nanoparticle, you are a sensitive and misunderstood teen, you react to seemingly small things and no person understands why your red when you’re technically gold.

So being able to get some sort of control over these moody nanoparticles is useful, in that it can allow reactivity deep in the body where nanoparticles would have been unlikely to get to without reacting with something along the way.

That could be the future. L(・o・)」

Of course, it’s not all sunshine here in Nanoparticle Life ©, there has to be some drama otherwise it wouldn’t be interesting (looking at you most South-Asian dramas 🙄).

Nanoparticles have a huge toxicity risk, when you can go almost anywhere (perhaps in a cell) and seemingly react with anything randomly, it’s more likely than not you’re going to damage something.

Sort of sounds like me as a kid.

The implications for drug delivery and possibly disease cures are immense. Say if a certain virus were to infiltrate the system, knowing what’s in it could (say biochemistry) mean that you can send nanoparticles to react with that certain part of the virus

*now you’re going super-sayan*

#3 When Oil & Water mix

Little known fact about oil and water is that when you mix them you get this gel/sponge. You just need some nanoparticles.

Mind blown yet?

Me neither.

I know what you’re thinking — a sponge sounds so lame!

Except it’s not just a sponge.

The water + oil + nanoparticle gel — can actually do so much more as well:

Improve Battery Tech

Oil by itself can’t conduct electricity, but when it dissolves into water, ions are formed which allow a current to flow through. The gel by itself doesn’t act as a superconducting gel, but it does increase the surface area when applied to surfaces.

• Faster charging batteries — spread on, say the cathode (positive terminal), of a battery — to increase the surface area of that cathode. So with there being more ways for electricity to cross over, it acts as a great way to increase energy transfer rate.
• Higher battery capacity — It can also be used within batteries to store more energy since the gel/liquid can fill the space in between layers with electrons as well.

Better Sensors

Remember when I said that nanoparticles are moody teens that react to anything? They can also react to light, so by using this gel as a probe of sorts, it can detect minute changes in light causing it to change color.

So not only could it change color, but it could even be used as a sensor to detect really small changes in light. With possibilities to detect

<side note>

My mind went to photonic computing when I thought about it. That sensitivity could be almost a transistor, with even smaller amounts of light, and with the large number of “micro tunnels” which allow for different paths for everything.

But it probably wouldn’t work, since as a gel it’s not physically viable. (though a gel computer would be cool)

</side note>

But the main benefit of this gel specifically, is the appeal to manufactures, if you read this article on the basics of nanotech, then you know that scalability is one of nanotech’s bottlenecks.

But this gel uses a general approach of shoving a bunch of nanoparticles in this oil/water mix instead of custom designing them. So while the material costs are higher, the production costs are significantly lower.

Main Takeaways/tl;dr

• 3 layers of graphene = (more) controllable superconductor = potentially no fan laptop
• Nanoparticle swarm = nanobot = better drug delivery/potential toxicity
• Oil + Water + nanoparticles = gel that makes windows, batteries, sensors, etc.

What’s up!!

I’m Hamza an enthusiastic teen about nanotech and working towards a better world (also sometimes cooking and seeing how high I can jump on a trampoline)

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