Appliance Design - November 2008 - (Page 11)

NEWS WATCH CATCHING THE WAVE. Black & Decker has joined the Z-Wave Alliance and will soon offer new Z-Wave enabled residential access control solutions marketed under brands such as Baldwin, Kwikset, and Weiser Lock. The alliance is an open consortium of companies dedicated to making products based on Z-Wave technology, an interoperable wireless mesh networking technology. used when selecting portable battery technology. SOLAR CELL RECORD. SIN LIST RELEASED. An international coalition of non-governmental organizations have released a list of 300 “high concern” chemicals on the market in an effort to speed up the implementation of the European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use EC 1907/2006, better known as REACH, short for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances, which entered into force on June 1, 2007. The list is referred to as the SIN list, for Substitute It Now. The complete SIN list can be found at www.sinlist.org. RUNTIME IS PIVOTAL. Runtime and battery capacity are the most important factors in selecting batteries for portable products, according to a survey by Nexergy, a Columbus, Ohio, manufacturer of battery packs and chargers. These factors were the most important elements of battery performance among both design engineers and marketers. Cost ranked low on the list of seven factors. Engineers ranked cost fifth, while marketers ranked cost as sixth on the list of most important factors that are www.applianceDESIGN.com Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a world record in solar cell efficiency with a photovoltaic device that converts 40.8 percent of the light that hits it into electricity. This is the highest confirmed efficiency of any photovoltaic device to date. The inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell was designed, fabricated and independently measured at NREL. Efficiency was measured under concentrated light of 326 suns. (One sun is about the amount of light that typically hits Earth on a sunny day.) The solar cell differs from the previous recordholding cell, also developed at NREL, which used a germanium wafer as the bottom junction of the device. The new design uses compositions of gallium indium phosphide and gallium indium arsenide to split the solar spectrum into three equal parts that are absorbed by each of the cell’s three junctions for higher potential efficiencies. This is accomplished by growing the solar cell on a gallium arsenide wafer, flipping it over, then removing the wafer. The resulting device is extremely thin and light and represents a new class of solar cells with advantages in performance, design, operation and cost, the researchers said. track medical equipment can cause breakdowns in devices such as breathing and dialysis machines. Electromagnetic emissions from the wireless systems can interfere with equipment such as respirators, external pacemakers, and kidney dialysis machines, according to the study. Researchers discovered the problem in 123 tests they performed in an intensive-care unit at an Amsterdam hospital. Glitches occurred in almost 30 percent of the tests when microchip devices similar to those in many types of wireless medical equipment were placed within about one foot from the machines. Nearly 20 percent of the cases involved hazardous malfunctions that could harm patients, including breathing machines that switched off, mechanical syringe pumps that stopped delivering medication, and external pacemakers that malfunctioned. The wireless systems are used to tag and keep track of medical equipment like heart-testing machines, joint replacements, and surgical staplers. They can help quickly locate devices that are elsewhere in the hospital and help prevent theft. The technology also is viewed as a way to prevent drug counterfeiting, by embedding microchips in drug containers, and to prevent harmful medical errors by keeping tabs on devices used during surgery. SCULPTING NANORODS. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered how to direct the growth of nanorods made MED DEVICES DISRUPTED. A study of medical equipment by Dutch researchers found that wireless systems used by many hospitals to applianceDESIGN AD11084Ark.indd 1 November 2008 11 10/10/08 11:41:00 AM http://www.sinlist.org http://www.ark-plas.com http://www.ark-plas.com http://www.appliancedesign.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Appliance Design - November 2008

Appliance Design - November 2008 Contents Editorial Shipments/Forecasts News Watch Metals & Metal Parts Gas Technology Displays Quality & Standards New Products Design Marts Association Report: AHAM Advertiser's Index

Appliance Design - November 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.