Material Science

[Republished from our sister publication, Design World] By Lee Teschler, Executive Editor It looks as though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may end up strongly suggesting that Americans cover their faces in public until the coronavirus pandemic plays out. The Washington Post reports the recommendations now being floated would call for…

By David L. Chandler | MIT News Office When searching through theoretical lists of possible new materials for particular applications, such as batteries or other energy-related devices, there are often millions of potential materials that could be considered, and multiple criteria that need to be met and optimized at once. Now, researchers at MIT have…

A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has captured in real time how lithium ions move in lithium titanate (LTO), a fast-charging battery electrode material made of lithium, titanium and oxygen. They discovered that distorted arrangements of lithium and surrounding atoms in…

Magnetite is the oldest magnetic material known to humans, yet researchers are still mystified by certain aspects of its properties. For example, when the temperature is lowered below 125 K, magnetite changes from a metal to an insulator, its atoms shift to a new lattice structure, and its charges form a complicated ordered pattern. This…

A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has captured in real time how lithium ions move in lithium titanate (LTO), a fast-charging battery electrode material made of lithium, titanium, and oxygen. They discovered that distorted arrangements of lithium and surrounding atoms in…

Just over 15 years since a couple of researchers in the U.K. used adhesive tape to isolate single atomic layers of carbon, known as graphene, from a chunk of graphite, their Nobel Prize-winning discovery has fueled a revolution in ultrathin materials R&D. Graphene and other atomically thin “2D” materials exhibit exotic properties that researchers hope…

David L. Chandler | MIT News Office In many industrial processes, such as in bioreactors that produce fuels or pharmaceuticals, foam can get in the way. Frothy bubbles can take up a lot of space, limiting the volume available for making the product and sometimes gumming up pipes and valves or damaging living cells. Companies…

You don’t need a big laser to make laser-induced graphene (LIG). Scientists at Rice University, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT Knoxville) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are using a very small visible beam to burn the foamy form of carbon into microscopic patterns. The labs of Rice chemist James Tour, which discovered the…

An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades — a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure. Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity without any energy loss due to resistance, would…

New from plastic tubing manufacturer NewAge Industries is Clearflo 70 PVC tubing, a phthalate-free product. Clearflo 70 was developed in response to customers’ interest in fluid transfer products that do not contain leachable phthalates such as DEHP (Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate) or BPA (bisphenol A). Some studies indicate that phthalates–chemicals used to make certain plastic materials more…

An innovation that helps speed the design of fishing rods, skis and cell phone electronics soon will help NASA do its work in space. AnalySwift LLC, a Purdue University-affiliated commercial software provider, has received a $125,000 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from NASA. The STTR award will help the company further develop its SwiftComp…

If we think about the major challenges facing engineering in the next few decades, virtually every one comes down to questions about materials. From an environmental perspective we’re facing resource shortages in common materials, such as oil, lithium, and cobalt, as well as rare metals, like platinum, that are essential components of computer hard drives…

A modern airplane’s fuselage is made from multiple sheets of different composite materials, like so many layers in a phyllo-dough pastry. Once these layers are stacked and molded into the shape of a fuselage, the structures are wheeled into warehouse-sized ovens and autoclaves, where the layers fuse together to form a resilient, aerodynamic shell. Now…

Infrared cameras detect people and other objects by the heat they emit. Now, researchers have discovered the uncanny ability of a material to hide a target by masking its telltale heat properties. The effect works for a range of temperatures that one day could include humans and vehicles, presenting a future asset to stealth technologies,…

Imagine a device that can sit outside under blazing sunlight on a clear day and, without using any power, can cool things down by more than 23° F (13° C). It almost sounds like magic, but a new system designed by researchers at MIT and in Chile can do exactly that. The device, which has…

  Scientists have developed a new approach for making metal-metal composites and porous metals with a 3-D interconnected “bicontinuous” structure in thin films at size scales ranging from tens of nanometers to microns. Metallic materials with this sponge-like morphology—characterized by two coexisting phases that form interpenetrating networks continuing over space—could be useful in catalysis, energy…

Polystyrene persists in the environment for millennia, according to some international governmental agencies. This estimate is based on the amount of time required for microbes to break down the plastic. But now researchers have challenged this common assumption with the finding that sunlight can break down polystyrene over a much shorter time scale, from decades…

By: Dr. Michelle R. Stem Three-dimensional visible light photonic control is accomplished via the newly identified property of coherent poly propagation (CPP). This property is exhibited by a special silicate that is a rare form of a gemstone found in nature – opal. Dr. Michelle R. Stem discovered and examined several specimens of this material.…

A new method of discovering materials using data analytics and electron microscopy has found a new class of extremely hard alloys. Such materials could potentially withstand severe impact from projectiles, thereby providing better protection of soldiers in combat. Researchers from Lehigh University describe the method and findings in an article, “Materials Informatics For the Screening…

The mantis shrimp, one of the ocean’s most ornery creatures, can take on attacks from its own species without getting injured. Its strategy could solve a big manufacturing problem: Creating lighter materials that absorb a lot of energy from a sharp impact within a limited amount of space. Think precious cargo. What if there were…

Antennas made of carbon nanotube films are just as efficient as copper for wireless applications, according to researchers at Rice University’s Brown School of Engineering. They’re also tougher, more flexible and can essentially be painted onto devices. The Rice lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Matteo Pasquali tested antennas made of “shear-aligned” nanotube films. The…

In spintronics, the use of organic materials as a “spin transport material” has recently garnered significant attention as they exhibit long spin-relaxation times and long spin-diffusion lengths owing to the weak spin-orbit interaction (SOI) of light elements. Meanwhile, the weak SOI of organic materials become a drawback when they are used as a “spin filter”.…

Since their invention in the late 1700s when French-born British physicist Denis Papin, the inventor of the pressure cooker, proposed the piston principle, pistons have been used to harness the power of fluids to perform work in numerous machines and devices. Conventional pistons are made of a rigid chamber and a piston inside, which can…

“Smart glass,” an energy-efficiency product found in newer windows of cars, buildings and airplanes, slowly changes between transparent and tinted at the flip of a switch. “Slowly” is the operative word; typical smart glass takes several minutes to reach its darkened state, and many cycles between light and dark tend to degrade the tinting quality…