Yearly Archives: 2016

2016

Under pressure: stable storage for radioactive waste

A stable and compact nuclear waste technology is moving from research level to industrial-scale at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

The Synroc can (left) becomes significantly smaller (pictured centre and right) following Hot Isostatic Pressing, minimising disposal volumes.
The Synroc can (left) becomes significantly smaller (pictured centre and right) following Hot Isostatic Pressing, minimising disposal volumes.

The planned full-scale nuclear waste treatment plant incorporates ANSTO’s Synroc innovation that locks away radioactive waste products by mimicking natural geology.

“A key part of the Synroc process is Hot Isostatic Pressing, which applies heat and pressure to minimise the disposal volume and transform liquid radioactive waste into a chemically durable material suitable for long term storage,” says Gerry Triani, Technical Director at ANSTO Synroc.

Continue reading Under pressure: stable storage for radioactive waste →

2016

Putting a window and lasers in a ship’s hull to improve efficiency

Every shipping manager wages an endless battle against fouling—the bacteria, seaweed, barnacles and other marine life that take up residence on the hull of ships within days of it entering the water.

window4-300x169[1] This biofouling is thought to add more than 20 per cent to the fuel costs of commercial shipping, not to mention the added journey time for a ship weighed down with barnacles. That’s a big cost for the maritime trading nations of Australia and Indonesia, potentially adding up to billions of dollars per year.

Using lasers and a window in a ship’s hull, researchers will assess how quickly the efficiency of the ship declines, and then how to balance fuel efficiency and the cost of putting a ship in dry dock to clean it. Continue reading Putting a window and lasers in a ship’s hull to improve efficiency →

2016

Can algae fuel our future?

We can make biofuels with algae, but can we make them commercially viable?

A University of Queensland (UQ) research team is working towards it – and Siemens, Neste Oil Corp, the Queensland Government and others have joined their quest.

The Solar Biofuels Research Centre is one of the most advanced national facilities investigating the development and use of high-efficiency microalgae production platforms.

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2016

The walls and roof are battery

Lithium batteries have transformed power storage—from smartphones to electric cars and submarines. But like every battery their chemical composition changes through every charge cycle.

Lithium ions sitting in layers of graphite move between electrodes and change the oxidation state of, magnesium oxide, for example. The chemical rearrangements cause the graphite and oxide layers to physically expand and contract by up to 15 per cent at every cycle, cracking and detaching from the electrodes.

Continue reading The walls and roof are battery →

2016

The ageing brain can repair itself

Professor Perry Bartlett is putting people with dementia on treadmills.

Mapping the vast networks of the brain; 10,000 million neurons, each with 10,000 connections. Credit: Queensland Brain Institute
Mapping the vast networks of the brain; 10,000 million neurons, each with 10,000 connections. Credit: Queensland Brain Institute

He has already reversed dementia and recovered spatial memories in mice through exercise. And in 2016 he and colleagues at The University of Queensland will begin clinical trials to see if exercise will have the same impact in people with dementia. Then he’ll look at depression.

Underpinning these projects is the idea that the brain is constantly changing; and that learning, memory, mood, and many other brain functions are in part regulated by the production of new neurons.

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2016

Sending quantum information around the world

Sending quantum messages over long distances will be challenging. The signal will have to be amplified every few hundred kilometres, but conventional optical amplification would destroy the quantum message.

In a quantum information system, if you measure the light, you will destroy the information encoded on it. You need to store the light itself.

“We have to catch and store the light, but we’re not allowed to look at it to see what information it contains. If the system is working, the light will be exactly the same when we let it out again. We do this by absorbing the light into a cloud of atoms,” says Dr Ben Buchler.

Continue reading Sending quantum information around the world →

2016, Prime Minister's Prizes for Science

Making polymers with light

Polymers are being used for non-stick coatings, anti-fouling technology, precision drug delivery, medical diagnosis, imaging, and many other applications.

Cyrille Boyer (Photo credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science/WildBear)
Cyrille uses light to make new and complex polymers. Credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science/WildBear

Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer’s ideas are built on the revolutionary RAFT techniques (a technique to precisely control how small molecules are linked together to form large polymer chains) for which Professor David Solomon and Dr Ezio Rizzardo received the 2011 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science. His latest technology uses light and chlorophyll to catalyse the production of polymers.

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2016

Distilling value from industrial waste

Hot and salty water is a common by-product of industries such as textiles, food and dairy production. But new technology that allows this water to be purified, collected and re-used on site has been developed by Victorian scientists.

Their compact module, smaller than the size of a human, can transform a wasteful industrial operation into an efficient process that recycles energy, water and materials.

“We’ve calculated that our module can reduce water use by more than 90 per cent in some industrial settings,” Professor Mikel Duke says.

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2016

Making efficient ports to keep cities connected

Port cities can be lively, vibrant hives of activity—the hub of a nation’s economic health— if they’re planned well.

Indonesia’s busiest port, Tanjung Priok, has roughly two and a half times the container traffic as the Port of Melbourne. But it also has a reputation as one of the least efficient ports in Asia.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has recognised the need to transform the nation’s ports and plans to develop 24 new ports by 2019. One recently established, state-of- the-art port is Teluk Lamong in Surabaya.

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2016

Making waves in a wind tunnel

We know the Southern Ocean plays a big role in our climate, but there’s much to learn about how and where clouds form over the sea, how they influence global temperatures, and how the wind affects cloud formation and how much carbon dioxide our oceans can absorb.

A wave pool in a wind tunnel: Professor Jason Monty’s work on air-sea interaction will inform climate models and more. Credit: Joe Vittorio
A wave pool in a wind tunnel: Professor Jason Monty’s work on air-sea interaction will inform climate models and more.
Credit: Joe Vittorio

Now a 60m ‘wave pool in a wind tunnel’ built by Associate Professor Jason Monty is allowing researchers from The University of Melbourne, Swinburne, and Monash University to find out.

“We know that small eddies at the surface of the ocean affect how evaporation occurs and gasses are exchanged, but this turbulence is not included in climate models, as no one has been able to measure it,” Jason says.

Continue reading Making waves in a wind tunnel →