Materials & Coatings

Soft Robots That Can Walk on Water

Imagine a tiny robot, no bigger than a leaf, gliding across a pond’s surface like a water strider. One day, devices like this could track pollutants, collect water samples, or scout flooded areas too risky for people. Baoxing Xu, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is pioneering a way to build them. Read on to learn more.

Harvesting Water from Air

Even in arid parts of the world, there is usually moisture in the air. This moisture could provide much-needed water for drinking and irrigation, but extracting water out of air is difficult. A new technology developed by KAUST researchers can consistently extract liters of water out of thin air each day without needing regular manual maintenance. Read on to learn more.

New Electronic “Skin” Could Enable Lightweight Night-Vision Glasses

MIT engineers have developed a technique to grow and peel ultrathin “skins” of electronic material. The method could pave the way for new classes of electronic devices, such as ultrathin wearable sensors, flexible transistors and computing elements, and highly sensitive and compact imaging devices. Read on to learn more.

Energy-Efficient Freshwater Generation System Inspired by Nature

A team of researchers is designing novel systems to capture water vapor in the air and turn it into liquid. University of Waterloo Professor Michael Tam and his Ph.D. students Yi Wang and Weinan Zhao have developed sponges or membranes with a large surface area that continually capture moisture from their surrounding environment. Read on to learn more.

Using Waste to Purify Water

Using waste to purify water may sound counterintuitive. But at TU Wien, this is exactly what has now been achieved: a special nanostructure has been developed to filter a widespread class of harmful dyes from water. Read on to learn more about it.

Artificial Reef Could Protect Marine Life, Reduce Storm Damage

A team at MIT is hoping to fortify coastlines with “architected” reefs — sustainable, offshore structures engineered to mimic the wave-buffering effects of natural reefs while also providing pockets for fish and other marine life. The team’s reef design centers on a cylindrical structure surrounded by four rudder-like slats. Read on to learn more about it.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including Chalmers University of Technology's new sensor that is well suited to humid environments — and actually performs better the more humid it gets; a new fabrication technique that can produce multifunctional “smart synthetic skin” from a research team at Penn State; and RMIT University researchers' flexible nylon-film device that generates electricity from compression and keeps working even after being run over by a car multiple times.

New Protective Layer Boosts Lithium Metal Battery Performance

The coating toughens the surface of the electrolyte fivefold against fracturing from mechanical pressure. It also makes existing imperfections much less vulnerable to lithium burrowing inside, especially during fast recharging. Read on to learn more.

Anode-Free Battery Doubles Electric Vehicle Driving Range

A joint research team led by Professor Soojin Park and Dr. Dong-Yeob Han of the Department of Chemistry at POSTECH, together with Professor Nam-Soon Choi and Dr. Saehun Kim of KAIST, and Professor Tae Kyung Lee and researcher Junsu Son of Gyeongsang National University, has successfully achieved a volumetric energy density of 1270 Wh/L in an anode-free lithium metal battery. This value is nearly twice that of lithium-ion batteries currently used in electric vehicles, which typically deliver around 650 Wh/L. Read on to learn more.

Supercapacitors That Rival Batteries

In a study published in Nature Communications, a team reveals a new kind of carbon-based material that allows supercapacitors to store as much energy as traditional lead-acid batteries, while delivering power far faster than conventional batteries can manage. Read on to learn more.

Breakthrough in Carbon-Based Battery Materials Improves Safety, Durability, and Power

This research demonstrates a new way to make carbon-based battery materials much safer, longer lasting, and more powerful by fundamentally redesigning how fullerene molecules are connected. Read on to learn more.

New Products

See the new products, including Littelfuse's TPSMB Asymmetrical Series TVS Diodes; Siemens' SICHARGE FLEX product family, its next-generation EV distributed charging system; Renesas Electronics Corporation's expansion of its software-defined vehicle solution offerings centered around the fifth generation (Gen 5) R-Car family; and much more.

New Sensing Tech Responsive, Versatile — Even in Liquids

Researchers at Penn State have designed a new type of field-effect transistor that can facilitate responsive and versatile sensing, even in liquid-rich environments like the human body. Read on to learn more.

Programmable Lego-Like Material Emulates Life’s Flexibility

Mechanical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a proof-of-concept method for programming mechanical properties into solid Lego-like building blocks. By controlling the...

Beyond Lithium: The Rise of Calcium-Ion Energy Storage

The innovative approach led to the creation of a full calcium-ion cell that exhibited a reversible specific capacity of 155.9 mAh g–1 at 0.15 A g–1 and maintained over 74.6 percent capacity retention at 1 A g–1 after 1,000 cycles, showcasing the potential of redox COFs to advance CIB technology.

A Shield for the Next Generation: Lithium Batteries Get a Major Upgrade

Researchers found a silver coating that toughens the surface of an electrolyte fivefold against fracturing from mechanical pressure. It also makes existing imperfections much less vulnerable to lithium burrowing inside, especially during fast recharging.

Bubble Bots: Simple Biocompatible Microrobots Autonomously Target Tumors

The potential of microrobots is enormous. These miniature objects can be designed to carry out actions within the body, such as sensing biomarkers, manipulating...

How Much Do You Know About LEDs?

LEDs are pretty much the only lighting game in town these days. How much do you know about them?

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a bio-mimetic, light-powered soft lens that mimics the human eye’s ability to refocus and adjust to varying light conditions; a new material for insulating windows that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide; and more.