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Iridium Oxide Nanoparticles Used to Harvest Hydrogen

Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory developed a first-principles-based, variable-charge force field that has shown to accurately predict bulk and nanoscale structural and thermodynamic properties of IrO2. Catalytic properties pertaining to the oxygen reduction reaction, which drives water-splitting for the production of hydrogen fuel, were found to depend on the coordination and charge transfer at the IrO2 nanocluster surface. Image: Courtesy of Maria Chan, Argonne National Laboratory

Iridium oxide (IrO2) nanoparticles are useful electrocatalysts for splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen — a clean source of hydrogen for fuel and power. However, its high cost demands that researchers find the most efficient structure for IrO2 nanoparticles for hydrogen production.

A study conducted by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory, published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A, describes a new empirical interatomic potential that models the IrO2 properties important to catalytic activity at scales relevant to technology development. Also known as a force field, the interatomic potential is a set of values describing the relationship between structure and energy in a system based on its configuration in space. The team developed their new force field based on the MS-Q force field.

“Before, it was not possible to optimize the shape and size of a particle, but this tool enables us to do this,” says Maria Chan, assistant scientist at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

Prospector-X™: An International Mission to Test Technologies for Asteroid Mining

Deep Space Industries and the Luxembourg Government announce partnership to commercialize space resources.

Asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries, together with the Luxembourg Government and the Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement (SNCI), the national banking institution in Luxembourg, have signed an agreement formalizing their partnership to explore, use, and commercialize space resources as part of Luxembourg’s spaceresources.lu initiative.

The Luxembourg Government will work with Deep Space Industries to co-fund relevant R&D projects that help further develop the technology needed to mine asteroids and build a supply chain of valuable resources in space.

“Liberation technologies” and the ones who will gain

How could global economic inequality survive the onslaught of synthetic organisms, micromanufacturing devices, additive manufacturing machines, nano-factories?
(http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/lordre/2016/04/obsessed-…L36KMDo.99)

Narrated by Harry J. Bentham, author of Catalyst: A Techno-Liberation Thesis (2013), using the introduction from that book as a taster of the audio version of the book in production. (http://www.clubof.info/2016/04/liberation-technologies-to-come.html)

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-Techno-Liberation-Harry-J-Ben…atfound-20

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-Techno-Liberation-Harry-J-Ben…atfound-20

Audio: coming soon!

Interview: CEO of Deep Space Industries, Daniel Faber

With long-term plans for in-space resource extraction in the form of asteroid mining, Deep Space Industries (DSI) is offering an exciting business opportunity. It is aiming to change the economics of space by providing the technical resources, capabilities and systems required to harvest, process, manufacture and market in-space resources. DSI is already generating revenue from commercial contracts, as well as government and university research projects.

The Disrupt Space summit brought together a large number of entrepreneurs from around Europe and the world who are intent on reinventing the space industry. A panel of judges chose Deep Space Industries as the winner among five finalists in a start-up pitch.

Spaceoneers caught up with Daniel Faber, Deep Space Industries’ CEO at the summit to hear about the company’s long-term plans and the exciting business opportunity in asteroid mining.

What IBM’s new quantum processor means for the future of computing

Here is the impact of today’s IBM QC announcement & if proven real then the following will certainly be fasttracked:

1. IBM is now ahead of everyone in QC

2. China & Russia are now going to heat up their own QC efforts.

3. Google and Microsoft will accelerate their efforts to showcase QC in many areas of IoT including AI.

4. Apple will now need to join the QC revolution or face a future of non-existence in the long run because devices, networks & platforms, communications, etc. will now be quick to make the transition.

5. Robotics, genetic research capabilities and other medical technologies, etc. will be drastically advance to levels that we have.

Three most likely creation theories for the phantom “Planet Nine”

A team of researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has released a paper outlining the probability for each of the three leading theories explaining how the phantom “Planet Nine” could have ended up in its current theorized orbit.

The existence of Planet Nine is predicated on a series of computer simulations ran by a pair of Caltech scientists to explain the trajectory of six Kuiper Belt objects, which may have been sent in to highly eccentric orbits after an encounter with a huge body roughly 10 times the mass of Earth.

The researchers asserted that the planet takes between 10 — 20 thousand years to traverse a single, highly-elliptical orbit, ranging between 40 and 140 billion miles from the Sun.

Own a piece of Siberia for free: Russia offers hectare of land to citizens willing to move to Far East

Russia’s new frontier land grab. Anyone wanting to move to Siberia?

WASHINGTON — Call it the Muscovite version of “manifest destiny.” On Monday, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill that offers every Russian citizen a tract of land in their country’s remote Far East.

“All citizens will be entitled to apply for up to hectare of land in the Kamchatka, Primorye, Khabarovsk, Amur, Magadan and Sakhalin regions, the republic of Sakha, or the Jewish and Chukotka autonomous districts,” the Moscow Times reports. This is a vast stretch of territory spanning the upper Arctic reaches near Alaska, down to islands off the coast of Japan and deep into the Siberian hinterland.

Those interested in the venture can hold their hectare free of payment or tax for five years. After that, they would receive titles to their plot provided they have put it to use in the prior years.