Materials Science News

RSS

New 3D-Printable Hydrogel Changes Shape, Color in Response to Light

Engineers from Rutgers University took cues from the color-changing skin of squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish to develop a 3D-printed smart gel that alters its shape upon exposure to light, turns into an “artificial muscle,” and may pave the way for new military camouflage, flexible displays, and soft robotics.

6 Jan 2021

New Electrochemical Method to Develop Higher Efficiency Organic Solar Cells

A possible solution in the quest for an energy source that does not affect the planet is sunlight.

6 Jan 2021

Element Six Selected as Finalist at the SPIE Prism Award

Industry giants and emerging challengers will be honored at the Prism Awards in a March 2021 virtual ceremony. The Prism Awards recognize industrial innovation in photonics in multiple categories.

From Element Six 6 Jan 2021

A New Method to Visualize Polymer Crystallization in Real Time

In modern times, manufacturers produce highly specialized materials for a wide array of uses, called polymers. Polymers have a variety of purposes owing to their versatile properties, ranging from being used in construction due to their high tensile strength and resistance to manufacturing plastic bags that require more lightweight, flexible materials, such as nylon or polyethene.

6 Jan 2021

Regeneration of Deactivated Catalyst in Industrially Important Methanol-to-Olefins Process

MTO process, which was first commercialized in 2010, is a catalytic process converting methanol, which is typically made from coal, natural gas, biomass, and CO2, over SAPO-34 zeolite catalyst. It's becoming one of the main streams for producing light olefins, including ethylene and propylene, from non-oil resources.

6 Jan 2021

Researchers Use a Novel Catalyst Process to Recycle Plastic Waste

For the first time, researchers have used a novel catalyst process to recycle a type of plastic found in everything from grocery bags and food packaging to toys and electronics into liquid fuels and wax.

6 Jan 2021

Liquid Glass: A New State of Matter Uncovered

While glass is a truly ubiquitous material that we use on a daily basis, it also represents a major scientific conundrum. Contrary to what one might expect, the true nature of glass remains something of a mystery, with scientific inquiry into its chemical and physical properties still underway.

6 Jan 2021

Upgraded Instrumentation System Could Usher a New Era in Materials Characterization

Lehigh University researchers are transforming an aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) into the equivalent of a synchrotron facility (a football-field-size particle accelerator), with greatly improved spatial resolution and versatility.

6 Jan 2021

Machine Learning Could Accelerate the Design of Advanced Materials

If everything moved 40,000 times faster, you could eat a fresh tomato three minutes after planting a seed. You could fly from New York to L.A. in half a second. And you'd have waited in line at airport security for that flight for 30 milliseconds.

6 Jan 2021

Q.E.D. Highlights Torpedo™ G1275 Pumps for Aggressive Pumping Applications

Q.E.D. Environmental Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of innovative environmental products and subsidiary of Graco Inc., announces its Torpedo™ G1275 pumps, a series of large-body pumps designed for aggressive pumping applications. These pumps work by means of a powerful stirring motion in the influent stream to allow slurries and solids to pass through. These pumps are designed for use in applications including landfill liquid management and remediation pumping applications.

From QED Environmental Systems, Inc. 6 Jan 2021

Innovative Zinc-Air Battery Could Revolutionize Energy Storage

New chemistry has created a high-performance and economical zinc-air battery, thus providing an attractive energy-storage solution. Image Credit: Blackboard/shutterstock A research team led by Dr. Wei Sun of MEET B...

5 Jan 2021

Polaronic Distortions Could be Leveraged to Make Low-Cost Solar Cells

For the first time, investigators from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at the Department of Energy (DOE) and Stanford University have applied the laboratory’s X-ray laser to observe and directly quantify the development of polarons.

5 Jan 2021

New Battery Chemistry for Zinc-Air Battery Overcomes Previous Technical Obstacles

High-performance, eco-friendly, safe and at the same time cost-effective: the zinc-air battery is an attractive energy storage technology of the future. Until now, the conventional zinc-air battery has struggled with a high chemical instability, parasitic reactions which rooted in the usage of alkaline electrolytes lead to electrochemical irreversibility.

5 Jan 2021

Physicists Discover a Soft Form of Supersolid

Last year, more than fifty years after initial theoretical proposals, researchers in Pisa, Stuttgart and Innsbruck independently succeeded for the first time in creating so-called supersolids using ultracold quantum gases of highly magnetic lanthanide atoms.

5 Jan 2021