Tiny Magnets out of Bacteria - Nano Technology

Nano technology comes to News again, i mean comes to my news again :) . Well this time Scientists in Manchester have found a clean and green way of making tiny magnets for high tech gadgets – using natural bacteria that have been around for millions of years. Sounds cool ha then

In most of the gadgets like Cell phones, recording devices we use magnets as a key element. Now with the help of Nano technology which is usually a revolutionary method being followed to create new technologies, this time the scientists have thought a bit different in making magnets from the bacteria that's natural and have beem around for millions of years.

Usually Magnets in mobile phones or any recording devices are made with usual nasty chemicals and energy intensive methods.Researchers studied iron-reducing bacteria that occur naturally in soils and sediments and found they can be used to create iron oxide nanoparticles with magnetic properties similar to those created through complex chemical processes.

The work paves the way for nanometer-size magnets to be made without the usual nasty chemicals and energy intensive methods
In the process of making these magnets Researchers added cobalt, manganese or nickel to the basic iron-based energy source used by bacteria, which resulted in the production of tiny magnets containing these elements. This greatly enhanced their useful magnetic properties.

and for verifying the findings they used high-tech paritcle accelerators at the Advanced light source at the Famous Berkely Labs and also UK's Diamond light source in OXford.

I feel this method reduces the explotation of minerals and chemicals from the natural resources which are used for making the magnets originally.Bacteria which generated by the nature and destroys by the nature being used for creating such things is a tremondous achievement in technology. Metal-reducing bacteria live in environments deficient in oxygen and react with oxidised metals to produce natural magnets in the ground beneath our feet.

Well the more the bacteria they have the more the reasearch that can be done. so the research team has developed a way of harnessing pure strains of these bacteria – which gives enough supply and reproduce quickly – to produce large quantities of nanomagnets at an ambient temperature.This compares favourably to the extreme temperatures – as high as 1000 degrees Celsius – needed to create nanomagnets using current methods.

Well who says bacteria is a bad thing, now scientists proved that there is some thing which can be " Good out of Bad ".