Metals

Load-bearing structures in cars and airplanes could be manufactured from the metal foam.

Manufacturers in almost every industry are looking to design lighter parts. Here are five lightweighting strategies.

Tech Briefs in 2019 celebrated historic NASA anniversaries, new ways to power electronics, and innovative hacks of our “smartest” technologies.

Salty air the Dutch city of Harlingen causes exposed metal parts to corrode.

Made with “Jenga chemistry,” the material could help in understanding how high-temperature superconductors work.

This technology provides simultaneous ohmic contacts and the process to make them.

Products include an aerosol scattering sensor; metal foam; and a new coated drug capsule.

When combined with saltwater, rust can be a source of electricity.

What's the best aluminum for extrusion? A Tech Briefs reader asks our expert.

A team in Germany has a quicker, cleaner approach to welding metal to plastic: The HPCI® Joining Gun.

Undercooled metal technology was developed that features liquid metal (in this case, Field's metal, an alloy of bismuth, indium, and tin) trapped below its melting point in polished,...

In recent decades, NSF-funded researchers have discovered quite a bit, including many of the fundamental particles of matter.

3D printers that build small parts layer by layer from melted plastic can take up to an hour to produce a pocket-sized piece. This process is far too slow for the mass-production of...

An advanced manufacturing process was developed to produce nano-structured rods and tubes directly from high-performance aluminum alloy powder in a single step. Using a Solid Phase Processing...

Permeable concrete, quick disconnects, and more

Transparent electrodes are a critical component of solar cells and electronic displays. To collect electricity in a solar cell or inject electricity for a display, you need a conductive contact, like...

Different instruments are needed to study the interaction of contact surfaces at different length scales. Tribometers measure the coefficient of friction but they...

Your new industrial electronic product has been designed and the board components specified. It has been prototyped, either on a development board to check...

Semi-Liquid Metal Anode for Next-Generation Batteries

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed a semi-liquid lithium metal-based anode. Lithium batteries made using this new...

Recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) materials with superlative properties have the potential to advance semiconductors but creating 2D devices with both good electrical contacts and...

Unlike water, liquid refrigerants and other fluids that have a low surface tension spread quickly into a sheet when they come into contact with a surface. For many industrial...

While different approaches have been used to create artificial muscles — including hydraulic systems, servomotors, shape-memory metals, and polymers that respond to stimuli — they all have limitations such...

Adding fluoride to water has been common practice in a number of countries including the U.S. In low concentrations (below 1.5 mg/L), fluoride can help prevent tooth decay and...