Products of Tomorrow

This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.

Miniaturized, Wireless Oxygen Sensor for Sick Infants

The mobile, wearable device could allow babies to leave the hospital and be monitored from home.

Method Recovers Metals from Electronic Waste

The technology recovers pure and precious metals from alloys in cellphones and other electrical waste.

Tiny Wireless Implant Detects Oxygen Deep Within the Body

The device, powered by ultrasound waves, could help doctors monitor the health of transplanted organs and provide early warning of potential transplant failure.

New Method Makes Computer Memory from Titanium Oxide

The material, commonly found in house paint, can be used in a device to more efficiently process information.

Generating Renewable Hydrogen Fuel from the Sea

Membranes that remove salt from water help split sea water into fuel.

Biosensor Enables Real-Time Oxygen Monitoring for Organs-On-A-Chip

This sensor makes it possible to ensure that such systems more closely mimic the function of real organs.

Oxygen Sensor for Sick Infants

A mobile, wearable device the size of a Band-Aid could allow babies to leave the hospital and be monitored from home.

Potassium-Oxygen Battery Stores Clean Energy

Researchers have developed a more efficient, more reliable potassium-oxygen battery with a cathode that stores the energy produced by a chemical reaction in a metal-oxygen or metal-air battery....

Invisible Tags Write, Read, and Erase Using Light

A method was developed that enables information to be contained in simple plastic foils with a thickness of less than 50 μm, which is thinner than a human hair. Organic luminescent molecules...

Endovascular Variable Aortic Control Catheter

The Air Force has developed improved devices for hemostatic management of patients with life-threatening blood loss from an arterial wound or surgery. Current aortic occlusion devices...

Graphene Coating Takes Oxygen Out of Lithium Battery Fires

Lithium batteries allow electric vehicles to travel several hundred miles on one charge. Their capacity for energy storage is well known — so is their tendency to occasionally...

Skin-Like Sensor Maps Blood-Oxygen Levels

A new type of oximeter — or blood-oxygen sensor — is made of organic electronics printed on bendable plastic that molds to the contours of the body. Unlike fingertip oximeters, it can detect...

NIST/NASA Study Shows One Detector Doesn't Fit All for Smoke in Spacecraft

What had been a peaceful and productive mission for the six men aboard the Russian space station Mir, including U.S. astronaut Jerry Linenger, nearly became a tragic...

Portable Brain Imaging System

Currently, concussion is measured by the symptoms someone experiences, but it is difficult to know what is happening in the brain in any one person. To address this problem, a portable brain imaging system was...

Self-Powered Paper Patch Measures Glucose

The most common methods for glucose self-testing involve monitoring glucose levels in blood. These conventional measurements are not suitable for preventing hypoglycemia during exercise. The...

Aluminum as a Fuel

Batteries and combustion engines each have distinctive benefits and limitations. Batteries have simple construction and operate silently; however, their energy density (i.e., the energy per unit volume) is poor, and...

Compact Cooling for Superconducting Single-Photon Detectors

A new form of compact cooling technology developed for space astronomy could pave the way for use of advanced superconducting detectors for better cancer treatments, driverless...

Freeze-Dried Boron Nitride Foam Soaks Up Carbon Dioxide

A light foam was created from two-dimensional sheets of hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) that absorbs carbon dioxide. Freeze-drying h-BN turned it into a macro-scale foam that...

Extrusion Method Improves Structural Properties of Magnesium

Magnesium is 75 percent lighter than steel, 33 percent lighter than aluminum, and is the fourth most common element on Earth behind iron, silicon, and oxygen. But despite its light...

Ultrathin Semiconductor Materials “Rust” to Insulate Circuitry

Silicon has several qualities that have led it to become the bedrock of electronics. One is that it features a very good “native” insulator — silicon dioxide, or...