Materials Science News

RSS

Atomic Precision Helps Scientists Tailor Thin MXenes for Space Systems

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are helping show what it means to design a material almost atom-by-atom.

4 Jun 2026

Lead-Free Perovskites Push Solar Cells Toward Safer High-Efficiency Designs

Lead-free perovskite solar cells are emerging as lower-toxicity alternatives to lead-based devices, but they still face major barriers in efficiency, stability, defect control, and scalable fabrication. This review shows how compositional engineering, crystallization control, passivation, and device architecture have enabled tin-based cells to reach 17.13% efficiency, while highlighting the durability trade-offs that still limit commercialization.

1 Jun 2026

Combining AI and Automation to Revolutionize Industrial Catalyst Engineering

Catalysts help make modern life possible. They quietly drive the chemical reactions that produce fuels, fertilizers, plastics and many other industrial products. But developing a new commercial catalyst can take as long as two decades.

29 May 2026

China’s Graphite Export Moves Could Ripple Through Global Industry

This study models how China’s graphite export adjustments could cascade through global trade networks and reshape the graphite global value chain. It finds that deep-processing graphite exports strengthen industrial competitiveness, while countries dependent on imported upstream graphite products remain vulnerable to supply shocks.

28 May 2026

Hosokawa Micron Limited Expands Daresbury Site to Triple cGMP Contract Processing Capacity

Hosokawa Micron Limited has expanded its contract development and manufacturing operations at Daresbury, increasing its cGMP-grade processing capacity from one suite to three.

From Hosokawa Micron Ltd 28 May 2026

Tescan Launches Orage™ 2 Ga+ FIB-SEM for Materials Science, Setting New Standard in Automated TEM Sample Preparation

Tescan announces the launch of Orage™ 2, a next-generation Ga+ FIB-SEM column integrated into the AMBER 2 platform for advanced materials science applications.

From Tescan Group 28 May 2026

New ‘Super Hydrogel’ Pulls Drinking Water From Thin Air for Months at a Time

Researchers have developed a more durable moisture-harvesting hydrogel that resists metal-triggered degradation, allowing it to continuously pull drinkable water from the air for months.

22 May 2026

Grounded Metamaterials Keep Their Shape-Shifting Mechanics Stable

Grounded reconfigurable metamaterials preserved nearly identical displacement fields across rectangular, parallelogram, and random geometries, overcoming a key shape-performance trade-off in mechanical metamaterials. By combining transformation elasticity, grounded body torques, and Willis springs, the system enabled programmable deformation modes, including asymmetric tension without bending and tension-induced buckling.

20 May 2026

Scientists Use Powerful X-Rays to Visualize Hidden Dynamics Inside Opaque Fluids

Using powerful X-rays and computer models, researchers at Argonne and the University of Chicago linked nanoscale particle motion to surprising flow behaviors in soft materials.

14 May 2026

Jenike Granted Patent for Jen-Zero™ Biomass Feeding Technology

Jenike & Johanson, a global leader in bulk solids handling and processing, has been granted a patent for its Jen-Zero™ technology—an engineered solution designed to overcome one of the most persistent challenges in biofuels production: reliably feeding low-density biomass and municipal solid waste (MSW) feedstocks into high-pressure reactors.

14 May 2026

Editorial Highlights