WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? House Republicans will propose legislation on Tuesday calling for $260 billion in spending on transportation infrastructure for up to five years, an election-year proposal touted as a job creator in a tough economy.
Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica was due to formally introduce the measure and unveil details for funding road, bridge, and rail improvements at a news conference, his office said.
Additional elements could be tacked on by other committees in coming days, including a plan to authorize the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline despite the refusal of President Barack Obama to advance the project.
While both Republicans and Democrats agree that Congress must lay out a new long-term blueprint for infrastructure improvements, finding the political common ground to do so in legislation has been difficult in a charged partisan climate and with elections looming in November.
Proponents say the highway bill would create tens of thousands of jobs in the hard-hit construction industry at time when unemployment is stubbornly high.
Transportation and engineering experts have said that the United States is woefully behind on infrastructure spending, especially on bridge repair.
States, which rely on federal reimbursements, have been clamoring for direction from Washington on how to plan and pay for big-ticket projects.
To meet their needs, states and local governments have relied on a string of temporary spending measures from Congress since the last long-term federal funding plan expired in September 2009.
The current temporary spending extension expires on March 31.
Mica's proposal is far less ambitious than infrastructure measures floated by Obama that went no where in Congress.
In his State of the Union address last week, Obama proposed that a portion of money saved from war spending be used for infrastructure development. Democrats unsuccessfully pushed a similar idea last fall as part of deficit reduction.
Mica's plan is likely to be adopted on a party line vote in the Republican-led House. A smaller, two-year bipartisan effort is making its way through the Democratic-controlled Senate.
To pay for Mica's proposal, the government would continue to tap a trust account funded by gasoline tax receipts. The Highway Trust Fund has shrunk in recent years due to more fuel efficient cars and trucks on the road and less driving overall by motorists in a rough economy.
A Congressional Budget Office report on Tuesday is expected to detail new erosion of the account, congressional officials said.
There are no plans by Republicans or Democrats to increase gas taxes to fortify the trust fund and House committees other than Mica's are expected to address the shortfall.
Republican leaders said in November they would propose lifting a U.S. ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling and use related royalties to at least help finance any shortfall in infrastructure spending.
The Obama administration has proposed a modest expansion of offshore drilling. But lifting the drilling ban stands virtually no chance of passage in the Senate.
Mica's plan is also expected to cut government "red tape" in the project approval process and encourage private-sector participation in financing and building infrastructure. The plan also seeks to allow heavier trucks on U.S. highways.
So far, the U.S. government has opened few doors to private investors who mainly seek new tolling or other revenue-raising opportunities to generate a return.
(Reporting By John Crawley; Editing by Eric Beech)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? James Marsh won the documentary prize Saturday at the Directors Guild of America Awards for "Project Nim," his chronicle of the triumphs and trials of a chimpanzee that was raised like a human child.
It was the latest major Hollywood prize for Marsh, who earned the documentary Academy Award for 2008's "Man on Wire." Among those Marsh beat out for the guild award was Martin Scorsese, who had been up for the documentary honor for "George Harrison: Living in the Material World" and also was nominated for the evening's highest honor, for feature-film directing.
The film favorites were guild awards regular Scorsese for his Paris adventure "Hugo" and first-time nominee Michel Hazanavicius for his silent movie "The Artist."
Also in the running were Woody Allen for his romantic fantasy "Midnight in Paris"; David Fincher for his thriller "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"; and Alexander Payne for his family drama "The Descendants."
At the start of the ceremony, Guild President Taylor Hackford led the crowd in a toast to one of his predecessors, Gil Cates, the veteran producer of the Academy Awards broadcast who died last year.
Robert B. Weide won the comedy directing award for an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
Other early television winners at the guild ceremony were:
? Reality programming: Neil P. DeGroot, "The Biggest Loser."
? Musical variety: Glenn Weiss, "The 65th Annual Tony Awards."
? Daytime serials: William Ludel, "General Hospital."
? Children's programs: Amy Schatz, "A Child's Garden of Poetry."
? Commercials: Noam Murro.
The Directors Guild Awards are one of Hollywood's most accurate forecasts for who will win at the industry's top honors, the Oscars, which will be handed out Feb. 26. Only six times in the 63-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to take home the Oscar for best director, and more often than not, the film winning the best director Oscar is voted best picture.
Fincher had been the favorite going into the Directors Guild ceremony last year for "The Social Network," but Tom Hooper came away the winner for "The King's Speech." Hooper went on to win the Oscar, too, and his film also earned best picture.
This time, Fincher's the odd man out at the Directors Guild show. The other four guild nominees made the best-director cut at Tuesday's Oscar nominations, but Fincher missed out. The fifth Oscar slot went to Terrence Malick for the family chronicle "The Tree of Life."
French filmmaker Hazanavicius, whose credits include the spy spoofs "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" and "OSS 117: Lost in Rio," had been a virtual unknown in Hollywood until "The Artist," his black-and-white throwback to early cinema that has been a favorite at earlier film honors.
"The Artist" won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy and is considered a best-picture front-runner for the Oscars.
But Scorsese won the Globe for directing over Hazanavicius.
Unlike Hazanavicius, the other nominees all have competed for Directors Guild honors before. Scorsese earned his ninth and 10th guild nominations this season for "Hugo" and his George Harrison documentary.
Scorsese is a past feature-film winner for 2006's "The Departed," as well as a TV drama winner a year ago for an episode of "Boardwalk Empire." The family film "Hugo" was a departure for Scorsese, known for dark crime tales, and the movie also was his first shot in 3-D.
Allen has been nominated five times and won for 1977's "Annie Hall." He had not been nominated since his 1989 "Crimes and Misdemeanors" but has been on a critical and commercial resurgence for "Midnight in Paris," his biggest hit in decades.
This was the third nomination for Fincher. Payne was nominated one time previously, for 2004's "Sideways."
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum canceled his Sunday morning campaign events and planned to spend time with his hospitalized daughter.
"Rick and his wife Karen are admitting their daughter Bella to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia this evening," spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement Saturday night, adding "Rick intends to return to Florida and resume the campaign schedule as soon as is possible."
Santorum had been scheduled to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" and attend church in Miami. Officials did not cancel Sunday's afternoon events in Sarasota and Punta Gorda.
Isabella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. When asked about her, Santorum says his daughter was not expected to survive until her first birthday and often has to catch himself to stop from tears.
"I have a little girl who's 3 ? years old," he told Christian conservatives in Iowa before winning that lead-off contest.
"I don't know whether her life is going to be measured ? it's always been measured ? in days and weeks. Yet here I am. ... because I feel like I wouldn't be a good dad if I wasn't out here fighting for a country that would see the dignity in her and every other child."
When voters ask him about her, he calls the decision to campaign "gut-retching" but says he goes forward for all special needs families.
"You think she's fine, and then one cold and she's this close to dying," he told The Washington Post last year in an interview.
In October, he missed one of Bella's surgeries to participate in a debate and told the audience that he planned to take an all-night flight home from Las Vegas to be with her.
"I look at the simplicity and love she emits," Santorum said in a web video his campaign released after his scheduling drew questions, "and it's clear to me we're the disabled ones."
Santorum largely has kept his daughter off the campaign schedules, preferring her to stay home with her mother. But Bella did join Santorum for a few days around Iowa's straw poll in August, and she joined her family in Charleston, S.C., the day of its primary.
She didn't join her six siblings for the public speech. She stayed backstage.
OTTAWA (AP) ? Price is not holding up the sale of the Phoenix Coyotes, and it's premature to discuss a Plan B for the franchise's future, according to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.
Speaking after the NHL's Board of Governors meeting on Saturday during the All-Star weekend in Ottawa, Bettman remained hopeful a deal can be reached with one of three prospective buyers to keep the league-controlled Coyotes in Glendale, Ariz.
"We hope, based on the things that are ongoing, to have a sale in place before the end of the season that would keep the team in Glendale," Bettman said. "I don't see any reason to discuss a Plan B at this point."
He disputed concerns raised by Glendale officials that the NHL's asking price ? believed to be around $170 million ? might be holding up the sale. Bettman said the price hasn't been an issue with any of the three groups interested in purchasing the team.
On other topics, Bettman acknowledged a longstanding rift between New Jersey Devils owners Jeff Vanderbeek and Ray Chambers. Describing the franchise as stable, Bettman said the NHL is attempting to resolve the dispute by having one or the other assume control.
As for labor talks, Bettman said he intends to open informal discussions with the NHL Players' Association soon, but adds no timetable has been set for formal talks. The current deal expires in September.
The Coyotes remain the NHL's most pressing concern. The league has been operating the club for the past two seasons, with Glendale kicking in $25 million in each of the past two years to help keep the team afloat.
Two groups known to have expressed interest in the Coyotes are one led by former San Jose Sharks president and CEO Greg Jamison, and another by Chicago sports mogul Jerry Reinsdorf. Without providing names, Bettman on Thursday revealed there is also a third group that's shown "serious" interest in the team.
Bettman on Saturday declined to shed any new light on the third group and who might be involved.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly described the third group as "legitimate."
"They've been working at it for a while," Daly said. "They've been spending money, they've been doing due diligence. So those are all positive signs. It doesn't mean they're going to buy the franchise so we'll see how it plays out."
Bettman said there's no timetable for completing a sale, and the commissioner also sent a message to any North American market interested in luring the Coyotes by saying the league's not making any assurances.
"We've told anybody in any market who's asked, who doesn't have a team, 'Don't do anything on planning on having a team because we're not making anybody any promises of anything,'" Bettman said.
Bettman didn't mention what communities he was referring to, but his statement came before a large contingent of French-Canadian media and amid speculation that Quebec City might be the latest Canadian city in line to regain a franchise after the Nordiques relocated to Denver in 1995.
The Jets returned to Winnipeg last summer after relocating from Atlanta.
The dispute among the Devils' owners has been growing for more than a year, which Bettman acknowledged has resulted in "some difficult consequences in terms of the operation of the club."
Bettman said the NHL is attempting to resolve the dispute. Without being specific, Bettman also said the league might have to consider other alternatives to handling the matter.
The owners have been at odds because they have different visions for the team. Vanderbeek had been adamant that he would keep part of the franchise.
On the bright side, Bettman said the sale of the St. Louis Blues to prospective buyer Tom Stillman is proceeding on track. Stillman is a Blues minority owner who has signed a purchase agreement to buy the franchise from Dave Checketts.
Bettman was optimistic the sale could be completed in "the not too distant future," but declined to provide a better timetable because of what he called the "magnitude" of the deal, and also because it requires NHL approval.
"We think it's on a timely track, so we're pretty optimistic that based on everything we're hearing, including from Tom, this should be a go," Bettman said.
As for labor talks, Bettman said the league is remaining patient in part because NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr is only entering his second year on the job and still assessing the needs of his members.
"We're ready and we have been ready, but the union has had some work to do," Bettman said. "We're being patient. I'm not concerned about the time frame."
Fehr spoke later and expects a timetable for talks to be established within the next few weeks. He prefers having players present at what he called "the really significant sessions" of labor talks, but said that doesn't mean negotiations will have to wait until the season's over.
Fehr is meeting with Bettman in Ottawa this weekend, though that's not unusual because he said the two meet regularly.
Bettman also announced next year's All-Star game will be held in Columbus, Ohio, on the final weekend of January.
Washington -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is predicting that Democrats will recapture the House in November, a move that could open the possibility of the San Francisco Democrat regaining the speakership and becoming the first politician to return to that office after a defeat since Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn in 1955.
Pelosi, 71, needs a net gain of 25 Democrats nationwide, a goal she calls her "Drive for 25." She has predicted gains as large as 35, produced in part by a Democratic romp through California, where the redrawing of legislative districts by a nonpartisan citizens commission promises the biggest shakeup in the state's congressional delegation in two decades, along with gains in Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida.
SEOUL, South Korea ? Samsung Electronics Co. reported a 17 percent jump in fourth quarter profit on the strength of smartphone sales even as the company battled claims it had copied Apple's iPhone.
Samsung said Friday in a regulatory filing that its net profit reached 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in the three months that ended in December. The company earned 3.4 trillion won in the same quarter a year earlier.
The Suwon, South Korea-based company said its operating profit jumped 75.8 percent to 5.3 trillion won in the fourth quarter. The figure was closely in line with the company's estimate earlier this month of a 73 percent rise.
The company, however, posted an operating loss of 220 billion won in its display division in the fourth quarter despite a sales increase of 19 percent from the previous year.
"If profit in handsets continues to stream in, this year will also likely be a solid one for Samsung," said Jae Lee, an analyst at Daiwa Securities in Seoul. "The biggest threat would be if the global economy worsens."
Samsung, the world's biggest manufacturer of memory chips and liquid crystal displays, said demand for semiconductors in mobile products and servers remained solid despite weakness in personal computers, which face stiff competition from the rising popularity of tablets.
Samsung has over the decades grown into a key global manufacturer of components that let PCs, digital music players and handsets store data and display it on flat, high-resolution screens. The company has recently been stepping up its challenge against Apple Inc. in the global smartphone business, releasing models such as the Galaxy S II.
Cupertino, California-based Apple, which spurred the smartphone boom with the launch of its iPhone in 2007, has accused Samsung of "slavishly" copying its smartphone and iPad in design, user interface and packaging. Apple sued Samsung in April last year in the United States.
The legal battle has now spilled into 10 countries, according to Samsung officials. Court rulings so far have tended to side with Apple.
Lee said legal battles with Apple would start weighing less on Samsung this year as the South Korean company is expected to release models with new designs.
The quarterly profit brought 2011 net profit to 13.7 trillion won, down 15 percent from the previous year.
Samsung shares rose 0.4 percent to 116,000 won in Seoul.
If there IS intelligent life out there, I have serious doubts that they consider us being under the same umbrella as them
Actually, that's my least favorite Star Trek cliche - the benevolent, highly-evolved, omnipotent alien race that sees humans as mere children, either unworthy of their time, or in need of friendly guidance (and hectoring lectures about killing each other). I would say exactly the opposite is more likely to be true: any alien species aggressive and inventive enough to explore space is guaranteed to have endured warfare and ecological destruction in recent memory. Species that lose their aggression will stay at home smoking pot, eating takeout, and watching cartoons until they all die of boredom and/or congestive heart failure. That doesn't mean that they'll find our behavior at all intelligible; if a space-faring race was highly collectivist (either by evolution or by engineering), they might find our individuality and the violence that it often leads to incomprehensible. But I doubt they'll have managed to avoid strip mining, fossil fuels, or nuclear fission in the course of their technological development, and they'll probably engage in practices that we would find abhorrent, like compulsory euthanasia.
That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll advertise their presence to us - there are a number of good reasons to avoid doing so, which would apply even if we were a pacifistic agrarian species. But I absolutely think they would study us, because they won't even be exploring interstellar space unless they were either exceptionally curious, or exceptionally desperate. I personally find it more likely that intelligent life rarely makes it out of their home solar system in person - although I'd wager that there are a few scattered derelicts full of cryogenically frozen alien colonists drifting for centuries.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Reuters) ? A U.S. Marine accused of leading a 2005 massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha was spared jail time when he was sentenced on Tuesday for his role in killings that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops.
The harshest penalty Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 31, now faces for his guilty plea on Monday to a single count of dereliction of duty is a demotion to the rank of private, the lowest rank in the service, as recommended by a military judge.
More serious charges of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault were dismissed as part of a plea deal that cut short Wuterich's court-martial and was decried by a victim's relative as a disgrace.
The outcome appeared certain to stoke outrage among Iraqis, adding to anger over other abuses by U.S. soldiers or contractors, including the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal, during the more than eight years troops spent in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Even before it became clear that Wuterich would be spared jail time, the head of the Iraqi parliament's human rights committee, Saleem al-Jubouri, said terms of the deal were "a violation of Iraqis' dignity" and vowed to convene his panel on Wednesday to discuss the matter.
Wuterich, who could have faced a maximum penalty of three months in jail after pleading guilty, showed no emotion as a military judge pronounced his sentence.
But in a pre-sentencing statement he read in court earlier in the day, Wuterich expressed remorse for the slayings and said he realized that his name would always be associated with "being a cold-blooded baby-killer, an out-of-control monster."
Wuterich was accused of being the ringleader in a series of shootings and grenade attacks on November 19, 2005, that left two dozen civilians dead in Haditha, a city west of Baghdad that was then an insurgent hotspot.
The killings were portrayed by Iraqi witnesses and military prosecutors as a massacre of unarmed civilians -- men, women and children -- carried out by Marines in anger after a member of their unit was killed by a roadside bomb.
As part of his guilty plea, Wuterich accepted responsibility for giving negligent verbal instructions to the Marines under his command when he told them to "shoot first and ask questions later," orders that resulted in the deaths of civilians.
Wuterich, in his pre-sentencing statement, said that when he gave that order, "the intent wasn't that they should shoot civilians. It was that they would not hesitate in the face of the enemy."
He said that he and his fellow Marines behaved honorably under extreme circumstances, and that he "never fired my weapon at any women or children that day."
A final decision on a demotion of rank for Wuterich is up to the commander of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command, Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser, who had ruled out any confinement as part of the punishment.
Any discharge process faced by Wuterich, a father of three girls, will be separate from his sentencing.
OUTRAGE IN IRAQ
Even before sentencing, word of a plea deal that carried a maximum jail term of three months ignited anger in Iraq, where Ali Badr, a Haditha resident and relative of one of the victims, called it "solid proof that the Americans don't respect human rights."
"This is not a traffic felony," said Khalid Salman, a lawyer for the Haditha victims' relatives and a cousin of one of those killed, expressing his shock at the plea ahead of sentencing.
Six of the seven other Marines originally accused in the case had previously had their charges dismissed by military judges, while another was cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
Defense lawyers argued the deaths resulted from a fast-moving combat situation in which the Marines believed they were under enemy fire.
Wuterich, in his statement on Tuesday, directed an apology to family members of those killed in Iraq, but said civilians were not singled out for attack.
"Words cannot express my sorrow for the loss of your loved ones," he said. "The truth is, I don't believe anyone in my squad ... behaved in any way that was dishonorable or contrary to the highest ideals that we all live by as Marines."
"But even with the best intentions, sometimes combat actions can cause tragic results," he added, reading calmly and deliberately.
Jeffrey Dinsmore, an intelligence officer with Wuterich's battalion at the time of the killings, testified on Tuesday that "insurgent groups ... had complete control over the city (of Haditha) at the time" and the unit had received word that an ambush was likely.
He said insurgents were known to commandeer homes as places to launch attacks and to deliberately use civilians as human shields.
Wuterich enlisted in the Marines after his 1998 graduation from high school, where he was an athletic honor-roll student and played with the marching band. He was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq when the Haditha incident occurred.
It's that special time of year after CES, when many tech companies regale us with their latest earnings reports. Texas Instruments is the most recent firm to divulge its financials, and while the company isn't breaking any records, it did beat Wall Street's expectations. TI pulled in $3.42 billion in revenue, a three percent dip from the previous year, and profit dropped to $298 million from the $942 million it made in Q4 2010. While the company's spinning the numbers as a positive, stating that orders for its chips are up and its revenue beat estimates, the fact that TI's closing two manufacturing plants over the next year and a half doesn't paint such a rosy picture. Of course, if the future with OMAP 5 is as good as we think it is, Texas Instruments should be just fine.
Water sees right through graphenePublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice University, Rensselaer study reveals graphene enhances many materials, but leaves them wettable
Graphene is largely transparent to the eye and, as it turns out, largely transparent to water.
A new study by scientists at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has determined that gold, copper and silicon get just as wet when clad by a single continuous layer of graphene as they would without.
The research, reported this week in the online edition of Nature Materials, is significant for scientists learning to fine-tune surface coatings for a variety of applications.
"The extreme thinness of graphene makes it a totally non-invasive coating," said Pulickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry. "A drop of water sitting on a surface 'sees through' the graphene layers and conforms to the wetting forces dictated by the surface beneath. It's quite an interesting phenomenon unseen in any other coatings and once again proves that graphene is really unique in many different ways." Ajayan is co-principal investigator of the study with Nikhil Koratkar, a professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering at RPI.
A typical surface of graphite, the form of carbon most commonly known as pencil lead, should be hydrophobic, Ajayan said. But in the present study, the researchers found to their surprise that a single-atom-thick layer of the carbon lattice presents a negligible barrier between water and a hydrophilic water-loving surface. Piling on more layers reduces wetting; at about six layers, graphene essentially becomes graphite.
An interesting aspect of the study, Ajayan said, may be the ability to change such surface properties as conductivity while retaining wetting characteristics. Because pure graphene is highly conductive, the discovery could lead to a new class of conductive, yet impermeable, surface coatings, he said.
The caveat is that wetting transparency was observed only on surfaces (most metals and silicon) where interaction with water is dominated by weak van der Waals forces, and not for materials like glass, where wettability is dominated by strong chemical bonding, the team reported.
But such applications as condensation heat transfer -- integral to heating, cooling, dehumidifying, water harvesting and many industrial processes -- may benefit greatly from the discovery, according to the paper. Copper is commonly used for its high thermal conductivity, but it corrodes easily. The team coated a copper sample with a single layer of graphene and found the subnanometer barrier protected the copper from oxidation with no impact on its interaction with water; in fact, it enhanced the copper's thermal effectiveness by 30 to 40 percent.
"The finding is interesting from a fundamental point of view as well as for practical uses," Ajayan said. "Graphene could be one of a kind as a coating, allowing the intrinsic physical nature of surfaces, such as wetting and optical properties, to be retained while altering other specific functionalities like conductivity."
###
The paper's co-authors are Rice graduate student Hemtej Gullapalli, RPI graduate students Javad Rafiee, Xi Mi, Abhay Thomas and Fazel Yavari, and Yunfeng Shi, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at RPI.
The Advanced Energy Consortium, National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research graphene MURI program funded the research.
Read the abstract at http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat3228.html
Download high-resolution images at media.rice.edu/images/media/NewsRels/0123_wet.jpg
CAPTION:
Drops of water on a piece of silicon and on silicon covered by a layer of graphene show a minimal change in the contact angle between the water and the base material. Researchers at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute determined that when applied to most metals and silicon, a single layer of graphene is transparent to water. (Credit: Rahul Rao/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Water sees right through graphenePublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Ruth david@rice.edu 713-348-6327 Rice University
Rice University, Rensselaer study reveals graphene enhances many materials, but leaves them wettable
Graphene is largely transparent to the eye and, as it turns out, largely transparent to water.
A new study by scientists at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has determined that gold, copper and silicon get just as wet when clad by a single continuous layer of graphene as they would without.
The research, reported this week in the online edition of Nature Materials, is significant for scientists learning to fine-tune surface coatings for a variety of applications.
"The extreme thinness of graphene makes it a totally non-invasive coating," said Pulickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry. "A drop of water sitting on a surface 'sees through' the graphene layers and conforms to the wetting forces dictated by the surface beneath. It's quite an interesting phenomenon unseen in any other coatings and once again proves that graphene is really unique in many different ways." Ajayan is co-principal investigator of the study with Nikhil Koratkar, a professor of mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering at RPI.
A typical surface of graphite, the form of carbon most commonly known as pencil lead, should be hydrophobic, Ajayan said. But in the present study, the researchers found to their surprise that a single-atom-thick layer of the carbon lattice presents a negligible barrier between water and a hydrophilic water-loving surface. Piling on more layers reduces wetting; at about six layers, graphene essentially becomes graphite.
An interesting aspect of the study, Ajayan said, may be the ability to change such surface properties as conductivity while retaining wetting characteristics. Because pure graphene is highly conductive, the discovery could lead to a new class of conductive, yet impermeable, surface coatings, he said.
The caveat is that wetting transparency was observed only on surfaces (most metals and silicon) where interaction with water is dominated by weak van der Waals forces, and not for materials like glass, where wettability is dominated by strong chemical bonding, the team reported.
But such applications as condensation heat transfer -- integral to heating, cooling, dehumidifying, water harvesting and many industrial processes -- may benefit greatly from the discovery, according to the paper. Copper is commonly used for its high thermal conductivity, but it corrodes easily. The team coated a copper sample with a single layer of graphene and found the subnanometer barrier protected the copper from oxidation with no impact on its interaction with water; in fact, it enhanced the copper's thermal effectiveness by 30 to 40 percent.
"The finding is interesting from a fundamental point of view as well as for practical uses," Ajayan said. "Graphene could be one of a kind as a coating, allowing the intrinsic physical nature of surfaces, such as wetting and optical properties, to be retained while altering other specific functionalities like conductivity."
###
The paper's co-authors are Rice graduate student Hemtej Gullapalli, RPI graduate students Javad Rafiee, Xi Mi, Abhay Thomas and Fazel Yavari, and Yunfeng Shi, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at RPI.
The Advanced Energy Consortium, National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research graphene MURI program funded the research.
Read the abstract at http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat3228.html
Download high-resolution images at media.rice.edu/images/media/NewsRels/0123_wet.jpg
CAPTION:
Drops of water on a piece of silicon and on silicon covered by a layer of graphene show a minimal change in the contact angle between the water and the base material. Researchers at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute determined that when applied to most metals and silicon, a single layer of graphene is transparent to water. (Credit: Rahul Rao/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is less than 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
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Public release date: 23-Jan-2012
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