Nearly a year after its launch, OPITO, the UK’s Oil & Gas Academy, is making strides to secure a safe and effective workforce in the sector.

Canadian company Carbon Sense Solutions Inc claims its technique to accelerate concrete curing will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but will replace conventional energy-intensive steam and heat accelerated curing techniques.

A cheap but effective polymeric coating to repair damaged aircraft wires and prevent them from sparking and causing an explosion is available, says a chemist at the University of Dayton Research Institute, USA.

A water-soluble fullerene resist for lithography could make electronics manufacturing safer and more environmentally friendly by removing the need for toxic and flammable solvents. Using the resist, a team at the University of Birmingham, UK, has demonstrated a high resolution of about 30nm for the transfer of integrated circuit patterns onto silicon wafers and a strong durability to etching of these substrates.

Dynamic Photometric Stereo (PS) is new approach to inspect fast moving, difficult to analyse surfaces, such as glazed or textured ceramic tiles. It allows manufacturers to produce images of complex 2D and 3D features or flaws, and reduce waste caused by defective tiles.

A sulphide reduction process (SRP) that enables ‘fast and cheap’ extraction of gold from sulphide ores is available from Haber Inc, based in Arlington, USA.

The risk of fraudsters or terrorists hacking into our personal data will reduce if novel ultrathin switches are incorporated into biometric passports and contactless credit cards, says the team at Peratech in Richmond, UK. The technology is made from quantum tunnelling composites (QTCs) and allows the owner to restrict when sensitive information, contained in radio frequency identification (RFID) microchips, is read by pressing the control. 

Applying aluminium instead of phosphorous dopant ions to optical fibre glass lasers may help manufacturers better tackle photodarkening, which reduces the lifetime of the device. This could aid materials processing where lasers are used for cutting, drilling and welding.

Polymers that exhibit metallic and semiconductor-like properties are the focus of research at the University of Leicester, UK. The team wants to enhance the fundamental understanding and properties of these materials for potential use in microactuators, bio-electrochemical sensors and batteries for energy storage. One significant finding is that incorporating single-walled carbon nanotubes improves the rheological properties of thin polyaniline films.

Spanish researchers hope to enhance the efficiency of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) by producing a super lattice that improves ionic conductivity near room temperature by a factor of almost 100 million.