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"The game I play is a very interesting one. It's imagination in a tight straightjacket, which is this: that it has to agree with the known laws of physics. [...] It requires imagination to think of what's possible, and then it requires an analysis back, checking to see whether it fits, it's allowed, according to what's known, okay?"
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February 09 2012
High-Density Energy Storage Using Self-Assembled Materials
Christopher E. Wilmer, Omar K. Farha, Patrick E. Fuller
Northwestern University
In one of the most famous scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, futuristic spaceships spin and twirl to The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss. Christopher Wilmer and colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, kick off their video with that same whimsical waltz. Instead of spinning spaceships, however, their visualization shows hundreds of molecules floating around and joining to each other to form solid crystals. Wilmer, a big fan of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, had for years looked for an “excuse” to dramatize his research using Strauss's music: Kubrick “wanted to convey the majesty of space engineering,” Wilmer says. “I also wanted to convey the majesty of self-assembly on the molecular scale.”
Wilmer's work focuses on how gaseous fuel molecules such as methane cling to solids. Unlike liquid gasoline, gaseous methane—a much cleaner energy source—is tough to squeeze into automobile gas tanks. But when scientists add special porous crystals to those tanks, methane begins to cluster inside the pores, greatly increasing the gas's density. His team employs computer algorithms to screen thousands of possible crystal structures to identify the ones best suited to concentrating methane and other gases. The topic isn't simple, but, with the help of this playfully animated video, Wilmer says he and his labmates have finally been able to explain their research to relatives. The homage to a sci-fi classic doesn't hurt.
scyphi
