molybdenum may revolutionize nanotechnology

Molybdenum May Revolutionize Nanotechnology

Thu, Feb 3, 2011 Feature Articles, Moly Articles

By Michael Montgomery

The demand for molybdenum is dominated by its use as an alloying agent by the steel industry. However, scientists have been playing around with moly?s unique attributes to make a whole host of new products that in the future may add a new dimension to demand.

Included in these scientific breakthroughs is the use of molybdenum in thin-film (CIGS) solar panels, reducing the cost. The use of moly in hydrogen generation dramatically cuts the cost of production by eliminating platinum as the cathode material. Now scientists have found that molybdenum when used in the latest nano-computing technology can exponentially increase computing speed.

The discovery of a revolutionary material called Graphene, made from simple ?pencil lead? and a process of removing the atoms with scotch tape, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010. The material is 1 atom thick, 100 times stronger than steel, and can drastically increase computing speed over silicon, will be the wave of future. But this material apparently has a flaw, electrical leakage. This is where molybdenum-disulfide comes in.

?Molybdenite can be made into smaller transistors than Silicon, down to 0.65 nanometers thick and 4-5 nanometers long? As important, it has properties that graphene doesn?t have? First, it is a semiconductor? Second, the molybdenite ?turns off? more efficiently than silicon does,? reported Jesse Emspak, for International Business Times.

What this all means is molybdenum and graphene will revolutionize computing technology by making it smaller, faster, and energy efficient. These materials also have the ability to generate and store energy, and may be used to generate electricity from waste heat in gas and coal power plants that loose around 50 to 70 percent of energy produced in the form of heat.

?These new materials could also be used in next generation batteries known as ?supercapacitors,? which can deliver energy thousands of times faster than standard batteries and could vastly improve technologies such as electric cars,? according to Kate Kellend, for Reuters.

While this technology is still in early developmental stages, and requires a very small amount of molybdenum to produce the various applications, the scale and scope of the industries that they could revolutionize is massive.