Saturday, April 4, 2009

Louisville Science Center NanoDay

NanoDay was at the Louisville Science Center on April 4, 2009. The Science Center is located in Louisville, Kentucky overlooking the Ohio River and is near the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory and Kentucky Center for the Arts.

It was a full day of presentations by researchers from the University of Louisville, Indiana University Bloomington, and University of Kentucky.

I helped out with a number of events. One was pictured below which is Dr. Cohn from U of L taking about "The Nanotechnology Poster Children". This took place in the Chemistry Kitchen and another presentation that was shown in the same lab was Dr. Gobin of U of L speaking on "Tissue Welding Using Light and Nanoparticles".



I stopped by main entrance point to the World We Create exhibit and learned about an optics company in eastern Louisville that makes equipment and materials to create eyeglass lens that anti-reflective properties. They had a nice demo of exposing a lens to a strobe light and it instantly turns tinted.

Students from the University of Louisville Institute for Advanced Materials and Renewable Energy and The ElectroOptics Research Institute & Nanotechnology Center were on hand. One demo showed using solar cells to perform electrolysis (breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen) and then using the hydrogen component for fuel. The other demo was using plasma to create nanomaterials.


The tech forum had a number of lectures which I was only able to attend one: Dr. Kang of U of L speaking about "Nanoparticles for Biomedical Diagnosis and Treatment". It involved gold nanoparticles heated by magnetic fields to kill cancer tissue.

Outside the forum was a demonstration of clean room technology and devices to see very small particles. Also Indiana University Bloomington Nanoscience Center had a popular exhibit making images using silver nitrate on glass plates. It was some real wet chemistry going on.



There was also a professor that teaches organic chemistry at Indiana University talking about using nanotechnology to treat cancer tumors. She was using jello models to demonstrate this in the Discovery Gallery. In addition some students from Indiana University were demonstrating memory wire and nanocloth that was hydrophobic.