Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Clean Beams

Consumers may never hear of Advanced Electron Beams, but the technology the company has developed could fundamentally change the way everyday products are made in processes that could save millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

Check out the following story I wrote about the Wilmington, MA startup for Technology Review; Clean Tech's Hot New Tool

AEB replaces the heat and/or chemicals that are typically used to drive industrial reactions with electron beams.

For example, car manufacturers today use massive ovens to bake paint onto car bodies.  If you zap the paint pigment with a cloud of electrons instead, you can get the paint to stick to the body panels with no heat in a process that uses 90 percent less energy.  AEB isn't the first to make electron beams by a long shot, but if all works out, their smaller, cheaper beams may be the first to make it main stream.


Image Credit; Advanced Electron Beams


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