Under the onslaught of 21st century traffic, modern asphalt isn’t likely to hold up for anywhere near 2,700 years. But at Michigan Technological University, Zhanping You is paving the way for brand-new asphalt blends to fight off cracks, rutting and potholes.

His work has drawn so much attention that one of his papers made SciVerse ScienceDirect’s Top 25 Hottest Articles of 2011 . . .]]> 2-101-67607 Thu, 3 May 2012 14:53:37 -0400 Road ruts Ruts like these pose a serious threat to motorists. Zhanping You and his team have discovered that adding nanoclay to the asphalt pavement mix may help roads resist rutting. http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/may/story67592.html Industrial archaeology studies the past and seeks to enshrine it as heritage.  In that undertaking, archaeologist Tim Scarlett, of Michigan Technological University’s Department of Social Sciences, has his eyes focused far into the future: he wants an ironclad way to preserve artifacts in order “to curate into perpetuity.”

Scarlett’s world is filled with discarded items on industrial sites, where he unearths iron: nails, forge and blacksmith wastes, tools, and scrap iron—all artifacts whose very nature is to corrode and break down, a process that spells ruin for preservationists.

Scarlett and chemical engineering professor Gerard Caneba have received $25,000 from the National Park Service . . .]]> 2-101-67592 Wed, 2 May 2012 14:45:02 -0400 Tim Scarlett at Quincy Mine Archaeologist Timothy Scarlett with a pulley stand at the Quincy Mine, near Hancock. He's searching for a simple way to keep such iron artifacts from rusting away. http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/april/story67534.html Nearly 80 percent of disease in developing countries is linked to bad water and sanitation. Now a scientist at Michigan Technological University has developed a simple, cheap way to make water safe to drink, even if it’s muddy.

It’s easy enough to purify clear water. The solar water disinfection method, or SODIS, calls for leaving a transparent plastic bottle of clear water out in the sun for six hours. That allows heat and ultraviolet radiation to wipe out most pathogens that cause diarrhea, a malady that kills 4,000 children a day in Africa.

It’s a different story if the water is murky, as . . .]]> 2-101-67534 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:09:13 -0400 SODIS Leaving bottles of water in the sun kills pathogens--but only if the water is transparent. Michigan Tech's Joshua Pearce has devised a simple way to clarify water, so even muddy water could be made safe for drinking. SODIS Eawag photo SODIS Michigan Tech scientist Joshua Pearce on a new technology that could bring safe drinking water to millions in the developing world http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/april/story67100.html The coolest new nanomaterial of the 21^st century could boost the efficiency of the next generation of solar panels, a team of Michigan Technological University materials scientists has discovered.

Graphene, a two-dimensional honeycomb of carbon atoms, is a rising star in the materials community for its radical properties. One of those properties is electrical conductivity, which could make it a key ingredient in the next generation of photovoltaic cells, says Yun Hang Hu, a professor of materials science and engineering.

Dye-sensitized solar cells don’t rely on rare or expensive materials, so they could be more cost-effective than cells based on silicon and thin-film . . .]]> 2-101-67100 Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:38:07 -0400 Graphene Graphene http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/april/story67073.html Note: The University is recognizing two faculty members with the 2012 Research Award, Robert Nemiroff and Andrew Storer. The article on Storer's accomplishments appears here.

From leading-edge research to extraordinary showmanship, few scientists have made as big an impact on their field as astrophysicist Robert Nemiroff, the co-recipient of Michigan Technological University’s 2012 Research Award.

Nemiroff, a professor of physics, is best known in the lay community for being half of the team behind NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. With half a million hits daily, it is “the most successful and popular astronomy site on the web,” wrote Bradley E. . . .]]> 1-101-67073 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:40:02 -0400 Robert Nemiroff Robert Nemiroff http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/april/story67053.html Professor Andrew Storer (SFRES) is an entomologist by training, but according to enthusiastic professional colleagues, the professor who shared the University’s 2012 Research Award with Professor Robert Nemiroff (Physics) is so much more.

“In my 30-year career, I have rarely found one professor’s scholarly endeavor to be as connected, focused and relevant as Dr. Storer’s,” said Frank J. Sapio, director of the US Forest Service’s Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team. “As natural resource managers, we are better off because of the tools that Dr. Storer’s work has led to.”

Storer, who has been on the faculty of Michigan Tech’s School of Forest Resources . . .]]> 1-101-67053 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:52:59 -0400 Andrew J. Storer Faculty Photo Andrew J. Storer http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/april/story66377.html Pressure-treated wood is great stuff, but the chemicals used to preserve it from decay can leach out, where they can be toxic to bugs, fungi and other hapless creatures that have the bad luck to be in the neighborhood. Now, a team of Michigan Technological University scientists has used nanotechnology to keep the chemicals inside the wood where they belong.

“It’s a new method that uses nanoparticles to deliver preservatives into the lumber,” said chemistry professor Patricia Heiden. “In our experiments, it reduced the leaching of biocides by 90 percent.”

The nanoparticles are tiny spheres of gelatin or chitosan (a material found . . .]]> 1-101-66377 Fri, 6 Apr 2012 13:35:59 -0400 Pressure-treated lumber Pressure-treated lumber is generally safe, but chemicals can leach out. Michigan Tech researchers are using nanotechnology to keep the chemicals inside, where they can do no harm to the environment. http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/april/story66279.html It took Thomas Edison two years and over 3,000 experiments to develop a marketable light bulb. It has taken 10 times that long and who-knows-how-many experiments to develop a system that is far more complicated: the inner workings of a reliable, marketable hydrogen fuel cell.

Now a research team led by Jeffrey Allen of Michigan Technological University is nearing development of a mathematical model that will slash that R&D time and effort. It focuses on water, a fuel cell’s worst enemy.

Water vapor is the only emission coming out of the tailpipe of a hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle, a big reason why fuel . . .]]> 1-101-66279 Tue, 3 Apr 2012 15:08:22 -0400 Ezequiel Medici and Jeff Allen With PhD student Ezequiel Medici, Jeffrey Allen, right, has created a mathematical model that can predict the flow of water inside a hydrogen fuel cell. http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/march/story65656.html About 250,000 children in the United States have high levels of lead in their systems, say the Centers for Disease Control. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely affect mental and physical development. At very high levels, lead poisoning can be fatal.

Most people know that old paint (from before 1978) can contain high amounts of lead and that children can be poisoned by ingesting paint flakes. But that paint can also slough off into neighboring soils, creating a hazard for gardeners—and children playing in the dirt.

Now, a biologist at Michigan Technological University is . . .]]> 1-101-65656 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:49:45 -0400 Vetiver Vetiver grass growing in lead-contaminated soil in San Antonio, Texas. Ramesh Attinti photo