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Researchers in Switzerland and the United States are using molybdenite, also known as molybdenum disulfide, to improve current technology.
As Moly Investing News reported last year, molybdenum, which is mainly known as an additive that makes steel harder and more resistant to rust, also has other diverse applications.
Now, as the molybdenum market recovers from a lackluster 2012, scientists in Switzerland and the United States are using molybdenum disulfide, also known as molybdenite, to develop some of these less common uses for the metal.
Improving digital camera technology
Since 2011, an École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) team led by Andras Kis has been investigating how the “amazing” semiconducting properties of molybdenite can be harnessed for a variety of technological applications. Specifically, the team’s interest is in examining molybdenite’s potential in image sensors, a key component of today’s digital cameras, according to R&D Magazine.
R&D Magazine explains that all digital cameras have a silicon-based sensor whose surface is a semiconducting material that reacts to light by generating a specific electrical charge that is then “transferred to the camera’s firmware for processing.” The efficiency of that process depends on how much light is required to set off the charge. By using molybdenite as a replacement for silicon, the EPFL team has been able to create a “prototype of an image sensor” that has “five times the light sensitivity of current technology.”
If EPFL’s work continues successfully, it could lead to the development of digital cameras that are five times more sensitive to light than those available at the moment. Such cameras “would open up the huge area of low-light or night photography, without resorting to ‘noise’-generating amplification techniques, slowing down the shutter speed or using a flash,” R&D Magazine states. Put more simply, they would enable people to take photographs using only starlight, Kis told the publication.
No word yet on when the new technology may make its way to the market.
Greening the economy
Meanwhile, Nanowerk reported that PhD student Mark Lukowski and associate professor Song Jin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison have introduced a new catalyst structure that is able to “facilitate the use of electricity to produce hydrogen gas from water,” a process that is considered important due to hydrogen’s status as “the ultimate non-carbon, non-polluting fuel for storing intermittent energy from the wind or sun.”
Platinum is normally required to create the hydrogen-producing reaction, but the researchers have come up with a way to avoid using it by depositing “nanostructures of molybdenum disulfide on a disk of graphite” and then applying a lithium treatment. Nanowerk notes that when the material is grown on graphite it is a semiconductor, but becomes metallic after being treated with lithium. In this second stage, it has increased catalytic properties.
Jin told Nanowerk that while the new catalyst is still not as efficient at producing hydrogen as platinum is, he believes it is valuable because it is important to begin shifting toward the use of “common elements” that are not as rare and expensive as platinum. He and Lukowski have received support from the US Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences program and hope to continue to improve the process.
Again, the researchers have not indicated when the procedure may become more mainstream.
Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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