Next-Gen Scientists Honored for Evolving Medicine and Renewables [Slide Show]: Scientific American

Next-Gen Scientists Honored for Evolving Medicine and Renewables [Slide Show]: Scientific American: "Artificial antibodies, 3-D genome imaging, inexpensive prosthetics, a liner for hydrogen-car fuel tanks--winning ideas from the Lemelson-M.I.T. awards for students"
Kayvan Rafiee of RPI is developing a way to line a hydrogen vehicle's fuel tank with a one-atom-thick layer of graphene, essentially a sheet of single-walled carbon nanotubes that have been opened up and laid flat, so that the tank can better store and release hydrogen. His goal is to help automakers speed hydrogen-fueled cars to the market. "The hydrogen economy is the main key to solving oil dependency," he says.

The challenges to making an automobile run on hydrogen are primarily those of hydrogen production, storage, distribution and energy conversion, says Rafiee, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering who plans to graduate next year. As a gas, hydrogen is a very low density material and difficult to store. "We need a cheap, porous material to store and release hydrogen at low pressure and at room temperature, and it needs to be a reversible process, for when the tank needs to be refilled," he says, adding that he and his colleagues are working on a business plan that will help them commercialize their work.