Materials

Polymers

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Q&A: Materials
Professor Sameh Tawfick and his team at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana have developed a 3D process that grows polymer objects in a controlled manner to achieve a desired shape.
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Briefs: Power
The triple-layer solid electrolyte features a robust middle layer that boosts the battery’s mechanical strength, while its soft outer surface ensures an excellent electrode contact, facilitating an easy movement of lithium ions. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
An innovator at NASA Langley Research Center has developed a novel method for making thin, lightweight radiation shielding that can be sprayed or melted onto common textiles used in clothing such as cotton, nylon, polyester, Nomex, and Kevlar. Read on to learn more about it.
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Articles: Materials
By leveraging plasma pen technology into inline processes, manufacturers can achieve stronger, more reliable bonds, improved wettability, and enhanced performance across various materials. Read on to learn more about what this means.
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Briefs: Materials
A Duke University team's approach takes a metallic nanotube, which always lets current through, and transforms it into a semiconducting form that can be switched on and off. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Researchers have developed a strategy to design luminescent polymers with high light-emitting efficiencies from the start that are both biodegradable and recyclable. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
MIT engineers have shown they can prevent cracks from spreading between composite’s layers, using an approach they developed called “nanostitching,” in which they deposit chemically grown microscopic forests of carbon nanotubes between composite layers. Read on to learn more about it.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A team at MIT has moved beyond traditional trial-and-error methods to create materials with extraordinary performance through computational design. Their new system integrates physical experiments, physics-based simulations, and neural networks to navigate the discrepancies often found between theoretical models and practical results. Read on to learn more.
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Blog: Materials
A team of scientists has created a new shape-changing polymer that could transform how future soft materials are constructed.
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Articles: Energy
A research team led by Professor Dong-Myeong Shin of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong has developed a new generation of lithium metal batteries, representing a significant advancement in the field. Here, an interview with Shin to learn more about the technology.
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Briefs: Materials
Researchers have successfully demonstrated the 4D printing of shape memory polymers in submicron dimensions that are comparable to the wavelength of visible light. Read on to learn more.
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Articles: Physical Sciences
See the products of tomorrow, including a 3D microwave antenna, smart CCTV systems trained to spot blockages in urban waterways, and a full-scale prototype for six telescopes that will enable, in the next decade, the space-based detection of gravitational waves.
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Briefs: Materials
The novel solar concentrators can be applied to textile fibers without the textile becoming brittle and susceptible to cracking or accumulating water vapor in the form of sweat. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Imagine if physicians could capture 3D projections of medical scans, suspending them inside an acrylic cube to create a hand-held reproduction of a patient’s heart, brain, kidneys, or other organs. Then, when the visit is done, a quick blast of heat erases the projection, and the cube is ready for the next scan. A new report by researchers at Dartmouth and Southern Methodist University outlines a technical breakthrough that could enable such scenarios, and others, with widespread utility. Read on to learn more.
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Articles: Design
AlchLight has invented and pioneered a non-coating laser surface processing (LSP) technology that turns regular transparent materials such as glass and polymers superhydrophobic. It's the Aerospace & Defense Finalist. Read on to learn more.
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Articles: Design
Meet Allyson Marianelli, Lead Researcher at Dow, whose RHOBARR™ Barrier Dispersions Platform is a Manufacturing & Materials Finalist.
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INSIDER: Design
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have developed hexagon-shaped robotic components, called modules, that can be snapped together...
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INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Physicists at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory have discovered two new ways to improve organic semiconductors by removing more electrons from the...
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Briefs: Materials
Now, a team from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research has developed a new material concept that could allow efficient blue OLEDs with a strongly simplified structure. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
University of Waterloo Chemical Engineering Researcher Dr. Elisabeth Prince teamed up with researchers from the University of Toronto and Duke University to design the synthetic material made using cellulose nanocrystals, which are derived from wood pulp. The material is engineered to replicate the fibrous nanostructures and properties of human tissues. Read on to learn more.
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Blog: Materials
The chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics that currently dominate the waste stream and turn them into hydrocarbon building blocks for new plastics.
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Blog: Energy
A research team has developed a new generation of lithium metal batteries, representing a significant advancement in the field. Their innovation centers on microcrack-free polymer electrolytes which promise extended lifespan and enhanced safety at elevated temperatures.
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Briefs: Materials
The RTV sealing method may benefit terrestrial applications that may demand cure-in-place internal seals. The method could also innovate manufacturing processes for components by enhancing the speed of assembly while increasing seal integrity. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Researchers have developed a new way to produce and shape large, high-quality mirrors that are much thinner than conventional space-telescope mirrors. The final product is even flexible enough to be rolled up and stored compactly inside a launch vehicle. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
This research could help to reduce the environmental impact of additive manufacturing, which typically relies on nonrecyclable polymers and resins derived from fossil fuels. Read on to learn more.
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Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Researchers have demonstrated miniature soft hydraulic actuators that can be used to control the deformation and motion of soft robots that are less than a millimeter thick.
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Articles: Physical Sciences
A 100 percent solid-state, high-performance polymer electrolyte addresses issues with liquid electrolytes for safer battery cell designs. Read this article to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
Electrodynamic dust shields (EDSs) are a key method to actively clean surfaces by running high voltages (but low currents) through electrodes on the surface. The forces generated by the voltage efficiently remove built-up, electrically charged dust particles. Innovators have developed a new transparent EDS for removing dust from space and lunar solar cells among other transparent surfaces.
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