Modern warfare
We are surface technicians, not soldiers, but nevertheless the two wars, one in Ukraine and one in the Middle East, affect us all. As surface technicians, we coat military vehicles, naval vessels and airplanes. Some of these coatings are highly technical and are designed to absorb radar waves. As surface technicians, we treat the inner surfaces of weapon barrels to make them harder. Warfare is increasingly electronic, so circuit boards are at the heart of many weapons today. But beyond that, as technologists, we are witnessing the technological change in warfare that will impact our industry. And as European citizens, the de facto blockade of the Red Sea, and therefore the Suez Canal, is affecting international trade flows. Yemen is a country that is perhaps closer to total collapse than any other country in the world due to a lack of water - but the Houthis don't seem to care - waging war is the only skill they have mastered.
Apart from the terrible suffering currently taking place in Gaza, there is little to say about the coastal strip from a technical point of view. "Urban warfare" prevails there, which is not so different from the Second World War. What is unique there is the approximately 500 kilometers of tunnels that have been built by Hamas over the last decade or more. The fact that this has cost enormous sums of money - in an area that is supposed to be very poor - and where the money came from is not something I want to discuss here. But beyond Gaza, in Israel, there are most remarkable developments in military technology.
Most of us are familiar with the Israeli "Iron Dome", a highly complex radar system coupled with missile launchers (Fig.1)These missiles have a short range and are designed to destroy incoming rockets and missiles, whether they are relatively slow-flying drones (about 170 km/h) or high-speed missiles. As far as we know, this Iron Dome is currently the only one of its kind in the world. The USA is said to have a partially similar system. The "success rate" of the Iron Dome is said to be almost 90%. But, but, but... Three things need to be said about the iron dome. Firstly, even if only 10% of incoming attacks are successful, this can cause serious damage. Second, there is a risk that the iron dome will be overwhelmed if hundreds of incoming weapons are launched at the same time. Thirdly, and perhaps most seriously, the cost of the Iron Dome is enormous. It can shoot down an Iranian-made drone. But this drone can cost 25,000 euros, while the projectile that destroys it can cost 100,000 euros or more. How long can a country maintain such a price differential? And this brings us to perhaps the most dramatic development in military technology since the development of the atomic bomb.
Israel and the UK, and almost certainly the US and China - and perhaps Russia too? - are developing high-performance lasers that can take out any incoming missile or drone within a few seconds. The Israeli system is called "Iron Beam" and is being developed by the Israeli company Rafael in cooperation with the US company Lockheed Martin. Most of the details of Iron Beam are classified, but it is believed that laser energies of around 100 kW have been tested, and 300 kW lasers are under development. It is claimed that even at a distance of 7 km, the laser energy can be focused to an area 2-3 cm in diameter.
At present, this technology is land-based and stationary, but there are plans to install it on Israeli naval corvettes. This new technology has one major advantage - and one significant disadvantage. A laser shot could cost as little as 3 euros - a huge saving compared to an anti-missile missile, which might cost 100,000 euros. The disadvantage is that the technology hardly works in rain or fog. Could the technology be further developed to use a different wavelength that penetrates clouds and fog more easily? New, highly reflective coatings are also being
reflective coatings that could provide protection from incident laser beams are also being tested.
A high-energy laser codenamed "DragonFire" is currently being developed in England and has already been successfully tested several times. It is currently assumed that it uses a 50 kW laser. Both "Iron Beam" and "DragonFire" consume very large amounts of energy within a few seconds, and a separate development is investigating the use of large flywheels to store this energy. The British "DragonFire" recently conducted a test in the Hebrides where it destroyed an aerial target (Fig. 2). We can be sure that similar technologies will be developed by other countries.
Fig. 2: An aerial target is destroyed by a high power laser beam with "Dragon Fire"
For thousands of years, military technology has been a contest between offense and defense. New laser technology currently favors defense and poses a problem for fighter and bomber aircraft, helicopters and drones. I am not making any predictions, but it is clear that we are witnessing radical changes in warfare.
Artificial intelligence
A short commentary in the January issue of Galvanotechnik by Professor Ernst Peter Fischer prompted me to write about artificial intelligence. It is not clear to me from Fischer's commentary whether the professor considers AI to be a significant development or not. I have no doubt that it is. Hardly a day goes by without news related to AI. The Swedish financial company Klarna recently announced that 700 of its employees are to be replaced by an AI-based system. In the legal profession, AI is now being used extensively to draft new contracts, while in our hospitals, AI is being used to interpret x-rays and other radiographs, allowing radiographers to significantly increase the number of images they process each day - in other words, increasing their productivity. And in Chemisty World, Electrochemistry magazine reports how Microsoft's "Azure Quantum Elements" has accelerated the discovery of new solid-state electrolytes for batteries. In less than nine months, the scientists were able to identify and test a new solid-state electrolyte. They did this after using AI to analyze 32 million materials - in just one week! [1]. Professor Fischer writes that AI has never been used to assess the taste and quality of beer. But is that really the case? [2] AI is already being used in the wine industry. Tastee AI from Winespace is an innovative tool that can extract information from textual tasting notes and convert it into a digital format that enables analysis. This advancement not only digitizes traditional tasting and evaluation practices, but also contributes to the understanding of the many different wines.
AI is being used to detect fraud in the wine industry. It can identify with almost 100% accuracy the vineyard from which a particular wine originated [3]. Another article in the US business magazine Forbes describes the use of AI to determine wine quality and characteristics. [4]. Although this may be news to Professor Fischer, there are many reports on the use of AI in the brewing industry as well [2].
But what about our industry? I have no doubt that AI will be used in the "front office" to handle phone calls and emails, and perhaps for automated ordering of chemicals or to generate quotes and send prices to customers. But in actual production? Perhaps AI will be integrated into automated processes.
Professor Fischer is undoubtedly right when he says that some jobs will be lost as a result of AI. But in many European countries there is already a shortage of labor, and our populations are getting older. For us in the West, AI will be a blessing.
Sources:
[1] Chemiewelt January 23, 2024, p. 24-25
[2] www.beerandbrewer.com May 10, 2023. "Modus Brewing releases AI-developed beer"
[4] Forbes Magazine 21 Dec 2023 - "The AI Sommelier: AI has revolutionized the wine industry."
The first car without a rear window
The Polestar 4 is the first series-produced car without a rear window. The conventional rear-view mirror is replaced by a high-resolution screen that displays a live feed from a camera mounted on the roof of the vehicle. The designers claim that using the camera and omitting the window is better for drivers, as many coupe SUVs have poor visibility through the rear window. Drivers are promised a far wider field of vision by replacing the rear-view mirror with a video feed, which is particularly useful at night when the headlights of a following vehicle are dazzling. From an aesthetic point of view, the elimination of the rear window means that the point at which the roofline drops away can be moved behind the heads of the rear passengers. "The view to the rear is quite restricted in many cars," says Jonathan Goodman from Polestar. And with a large passenger in the back seat or with luggage, you have no visibility at all. Small vans don't have rear-view mirrors, although the technology could perhaps be introduced in some models. Many larger trucks now have reversing cameras, which are displayed on screens in the dashboard.
The rear-view mirror in the Polestar 4 remains in its traditional position. The screen element can be deactivated so that it becomes a normal mirror through which the driver can see into the rear of the vehicle to check on children, for example.
Other vehicles, including some electric BMWs, have cameras that feed into the rear-view mirror, but this vehicle is said to be the first to completely remove the rear glass. By eliminating the rear window (Fig. 3), the designers are able to achieve greater headroom and more space in the rear. A step forward? Or another thing that could go wrong?
Fig. 3: The new Polestar 4 has no rear window
A new anode material?
The electrolysis of brine to produce chlorine is the basis for a large part of the global chemical industry and, at 150 terawatt hours per year, accounts for around 4 % of global energy consumption. Until around 1970, the anodes for this process were made of graphite. Then a new generation of titanium anodes appeared, which are coated with precious metals or their oxides, in particular with ruthenium and often also with titanium oxide.
These anodes are now used in all chlorine production plants, and also in our industry in several processes, including pre-treatment.
Now comes news from China of a possible alternative. Dr. Yadong Li and colleagues at Tsinhua University have reported that an inexpensive organic compound, quinazoline-2,4-dione, can be used as an anode material for this process. Moreover, the overvoltage when using it is lower than that of precious metal-coated anodes, leading to a potential energy saving of 2-5%. At present, this new anode material lacks longer-term stability and it is not clear whether this can be achieved. The chlor-alkali industry is also trying to reduce energy consumption by using an alternative cathode reaction - oxygen reduction instead of hydrogen evolution. So far, both approaches (and both could be combined) are still speculative.
Source: Yang, J., et al. Nature vol. 617, (2023), p. 519 DOI 10.1038/s41586-023-05886-z
Flexible solar cells
Solar cell technology is by no means mature. Silicon-based cells compete with perovskite-based cells, and in some solar cells one of these layers is placed on top of the other. Many millions of such cells are installed in Germany alone. However, not all locations are suitable for the installation of rigid, flat solar cells, and it has long been recognized that there is a need for flexible solar cells that can be mounted on curved or otherwise irregular surfaces. Flexible silicon solar cells should also be less expensive than their rigid counterparts. A new technique for producing such cells with an efficiency of 24% was recently demonstrated in China. Crystalline silicon, a semiconductor with an indirect band gap, was long considered unsuitable for flexible solar cells, as it was claimed that it would break. This has now been proven to be untrue. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology SIMIT started with a 160 µm thick silicon wafer. Using various alkalis, this was then thinned to a range of different thicknesses. At 60 µm, it became as flexible as a sheet of paper. However, the shiny surface reflected approx. 30 % of the incident light. With diluted alkalis, a series of micro-pyramids could be formed on the surface, which reduced the reflection. However, this slightly increased cracking. It was decided to find a compromise between these two effects, and with the help of high-speed videos it was found that cracking always started at the outer edges of the wafer. By using dilute acids only at the edges of the wafer, overall flexibility was achieved and a conversion efficiency of 24% was maintained, even after several stress tests. Figure 4 shows a sample of a flexible silicon cell material that will hopefully soon be commercially available.
Fig. 4: A roll of flexible silicon solar cells
Sources:
Chemistry World (2023), No. 7, p. 40
Liu W. et al Nature (2023), vol. 617, p. 717, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05921-z
The biocomputer - a horror story?
American researchers have combined laboratory-grown human brain tissue with computer hardware to create a functioning biocomputer. According to the scientists, the brain cells used in the experiment were able to recognize speech and solve simple mathematical problems. The team produced brain-like tissue in the form of a so-called "brain organoid". The Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University explains that an organoid is a collection of individualized, complex cells that can be grown from stem cells in the laboratory. Under the right laboratory conditions, organoids can be made to look and even function much like real human tissue and organs. In this process, the stem cells can "follow their own genetic instructions to organize themselves," according to the Stem Cell Institute.
So far, scientists have succeeded in creating organoids that look like or resemble some organs. These organs include the brain, kidney, lung, stomach and liver. Such laboratory-produced organoids are usually used to study the functioning of organs without the need for experiments on real organs. In the biocomputer experiment, the team found that the stem cells were able to form neurons similar to those of the human brain. Neurons are electrically charged cells that transmit signals to the brain and other parts of the body. Feng Guo led the experiment. He is a bioengineer and Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington. His team recently published their research results in Nature Electronics.
The researchers connected the brain organoid to a series of conventional electronic computing circuits. They call this system Brainoware. The system was used to establish communication between the organoid and the electronic circuits. An artificial intelligence (AI) tool was used to read the neuronal activity of the organoid. The scientists want to "build a bridge between AI and organoids". Guo believes that the combination of organoids and computer circuits could provide additional speed and energy to improve the performance of AI computer systems.
The study points out that adding human brain power could help machines do the things they can't do as well as humans. For example, the researchers found that humans generally have a faster learning ability and use less energy thinking than computers. In one part of the experiment, the team tested the speech recognition ability of the Brainoware system. The team trained the system with 240 recordings of eight different voices. According to the researchers, the organoid generated different neural signals in response to the different voices. The accuracy of the system reached 78%. "This is the first demonstration of using brain organoids for data processing," Guo told MIT Technology Review. He added: "It's exciting to see the possibilities of organoids for biocomputing in the future."
According to Guo, these results have convinced his team that a brain-computer system can improve computing performance, especially for some AI tasks. However, he noted that the best
accuracy rates of the Brainoware system are still below the accuracy rates of conventional AI networks. Guo said that this is one of the points his team wants to improve.
Sources:
"Brain organoid reservoir computing for artificial intelligence", Cai H. et al. Nature Electronics vol. 6. ss, (2023), pp. 1032-1039
"Biocomputer combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware. A system that integrates brain cells
into a hybrid machine can recognize voices." Lilly Tozer. Nature Vol. 624,(2023), p. 481
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03975-7
Protecting our oceans
Whether in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea or the English Channel, there are so many objects at risk today - wind turbines, underwater pipelines and power cables as well as telecommunications cables. And we still don't know who damaged the North Stream pipelines. We need to protect these valuable assets and BAE Systems has recently unveiled a new class of high-speed autonomous armed drone boats designed to protect offshore waters. The P38 "Aggressor" can travel at 60 knots (111 km/h) and is equipped with heavy machine guns and anti-ship nets. The 14-metre-long "Agressor" can patrol continuously for 24 hours and detect potential threats with its sensors. The 6-ton drone boat can reach a speed of 20 knots with its three Mercury engines and travel up to 650 kilometers. It can also be placed in a vertical mount on an oil platform and released in seconds by pulling a pin, similar to lifeboats on oil rigs.
The boat is also equipped with a system that shoots a net at a ship, which wraps around the propeller and brings the ship to an abrupt halt within 60 meters. The solid fiberglass base structure with a beam at the top makes it possible to carry a considerable amount of surveillance equipment and other sensitive equipment weighing up to 1.5 tons on board. The "Aggressor" carries a German Heckler u. Koch 0.5 caliber machine gun. The first sales are to Persian Gulf states. We are seeing more and more automated ships and smaller boats - such "sea drones" are also being used in Ukraine to attack Russian naval vessels.
