Materials

Artificial Muscles Could Lead to Soft, Wiggly Robots

A team has developed a method to grow artificial muscle tissue that twitches and flexes in multiple coordinated directions. As a demonstration, they grew an artificial, muscle-powered structure that pulls both concentrically and radially.

A Better-Performing Sodium-Ion Cathode

A cathode material put forward by the Dincă Group, a layered organic solid called bis-tetraaminobenzoquinone (TAQ), outperforms traditional lithium-ion cathodes in both energy and power densities in a technology that is truly scalable.

How Much Do You Know About Bonded Dissimilar Metals?

Engineers are constantly looking for metals to solve their design dilemmas. Bonded dissimilar metals offer vastly improved performance while minimizing the design trade-offs of single metals. How much do you know about bonded dissimilar metals? Find out with this quiz.

Using MRIs to Detect Metal-Ion Dissolution in Lithium Battery Cathodes

Researchers have been working on a method to detect and investigate the dissolution of the metal ion in a cathode. Using nuclear MRI, they were able to directly observe the dissolution in real time. Read on to learn more.

Breakthrough in High-Performance Oxide-Ion Conductors Using Rubidium

Oxide-ion conductors enable oxide ions (O2-) to be transported in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which can run on diverse fuels beyond hydrogen, including natural gas,...

Power Line Test Bed Energizes Technologies for Increasing Grid Capacity

As population growth and extreme temperatures strain the United States power grid, utilities and equipment manufacturers are looking for ways to increase the amount of...

Reducing Electronic Waste with Biodegradable and Recyclable Luminescent Polymers

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.

Critical Minerals Recovery from Electronic Waste

A PNNL research team used a simple mixed-salt water-based solution and their knowledge of metal properties to separate valuable minerals in continuously flowing reaction chambers. Read on to learn more.

Engineering Carbon-Based Semiconductors for Next-Gen Electronics

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.

Leveraging the Plasma Pen for Solving Complex Adhesion Challenges

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.

Is Advanced Packaging the Next Large Leap for Mission-Critical Microelectronics?

The U.S. government’s microelectronics needs have evolved significantly over the decades. Now, we have entered the era of Advanced Packaging. This is the next microelectronics evolution to enhance and extend the performance of modern military and commercial systems. Read on to learn more about this.

How Much Do You Know About the Engineering Behind Sports?

In the last decade or so, sports engineering has become very popular across the world. How much do you know about it? Take this quiz to test your knowledge.

Mass 3D Printing in Space for the First Time

Auxilium Biotechnologies has successfully deployed its 3D bioprinter aboard the ISS. The platform is the first of its kind, making history by printing eight implantable medical devices simultaneously in just two hours.

Soft, Bioelectronic Sensor Implant

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and New York’s Columbia University have embedded transistors in a soft, conformable material to create a biocompatible sensor implant that monitors...

MIT Engineers Grow “High-Rise” 3D Chips

The electronics industry is approaching a limit to the number of transistors that can be packed onto the surface of a computer chip. So, chip manufacturers are looking to build up rather than out.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a nanorobotic hand made of DNA that can grab viruses for detection or inhibition developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; a new and improved wearable ultrasound patch for continuous and noninvasive blood pressure monitoring developed at the University of California San Diego; and soft and intelligent sensor materials based on ceramic particles developed at Empa’s Laboratory for High-Performance Ceramics.

AI Discovers Stiff and Tough Microstructures

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.

Cryogenic Oxygen Storage Modules (COSM)

NASA Kennedy Space Center engineers developed a Cryogenic Oxygen Storage Module to store oxygen in solid-state form and deliver it as a gas to an end-use environmental control and/or life support system. Read on to learn more about it.

Cryogenic Flux Capacitor

NASA’s Cryogenic Flux Capacitor capitalizes on the energy storage capacity of liquefied gases. By exploiting a unique attribute of nano-porous materials, aerogel in this case, fluid commodities such as oxygen, hydrogen, methane, etc. can be stored in a molecular surface-adsorbed state. Read on to learn more.

Detecting Additive Manufacturing Defects in Real Time

A research team led by Associate Professor Tao Sun has made new discoveries that can expand additive manufacturing in aerospace and other industries that rely on strong metal parts. Read on to learn more.

New Glass is More Damage Resistant, Greener

Worldwide, glass manufacturing produces at least 86 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. A new type of glass aims to cut this carbon footprint in half. Read on to learn more about the invention: LionGlass, engineered at Penn State.