Magnetocaloric effect for more efficient hydrogen liquefaction. Hydrogen will play a key role in the transformation towards a carbon-neutral society. By comparison with current usage, it is estimated that global hydrogen requirements will increase fivefold by 2050 to 550 million tons. During liquefaction, approximately a third of the energy content of hydrogen is lost, which makes the process largely uneconomical. In the Horizon Europe project HyLICAL with a budget of about five million euros, a team including HZDR, TU Darmstadt…
Material scientists develop nano-structured and reusable substrate for ultra-sensitive detection of low-concentration analytes. Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (or Spectroscopy), known as SERS, is an advanced analysis method that extends the range of Raman applications to trace analysis such as part per million level detection of a pollutant in water or different liquids. SERS has a high potential to be used in the fields of biochemistry, forensics, food safety, threat detection, and medical diagnostics. But before the method can be applied at…
Graphene is the strongest of all materials. On top of that, it is exceptionally good at conducting heat and electrical currents, making it one of the most special and versatile materials we know. For all these reasons, the discovery of graphene was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Yet, many properties of the material and its cousins are still poorly understood – for the simple reason that the atoms they are made up of are very difficult to…
Proper electronic structure of near-infrared absorbing functional dyes discovered. A big step toward the development of dyes with long-wavelength near-infrared absorption! Near-infrared light, whose wavelength is longer than visible light, is invisible and can pass through many substances. Organic materials that efficiently absorb near-infrared light are essential for technological innovations that utilize near-infrared light, such as the dyes in the infrared blocking filters of smartphone cameras and security inks. These and many more technical applications make developing new dyes that…
Project idea seeks partners. With the project “Material and long-term properties in recycled materials”, Fraunhofer LBF is looking for additional partners to jointly develop fundamental insights into the effect of material composition. Focus is on the feedstocks and the variables influencing compounding (e. g. proportion and condition of virgin material, re-additivation) on the resulting application properties. This is supported by a toolbox with customized analysis methods that visualize fundamental dependencies between molecular parameters and properties. In this way, the project…
Researchers at North Carolina State University have demonstrated a caterpillar-like soft robot that can move forward, backward and dip under narrow spaces. The caterpillar-bot’s movement is driven by a novel pattern of silver nanowires that use heat to control the way the robot bends, allowing users to steer the robot in either direction. “A caterpillar’s movement is controlled by local curvature of its body – its body curves differently when it pulls itself forward than it does when it pushes…
… going green in the field of soft robotics. Artificial muscles are a progressing technology that could one day enable robots to function like living organisms. Such muscles open up new possibilities for how robots can shape the world around us; from assistive wearable devices that can redefine our physical abilities at old age, to rescue robots that can navigate rubble in search of the missing. But just because artificial muscles can have a strong societal impact during use, doesn’t…
KIT researchers characterized chemical processes at the electrodes of lithium-ion batteries. In our daily lives, lithium-ion batteries have become indispensable. They function only because of a passivation layer that forms during their initial cycle. As researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) found out via simulations, this solid electrolyte interphase develops not directly at the electrode but aggregates in the solution. The scientists report on their study in the Advanced Energy Materials journal (DOI: 10.1002/aenm.202203966). Their findings allow the optimization of the performance…
Disorder leads to ferromagnetic topological insulator. Magnetic topological insulators are an exotic class of materials that conduct electrons without any resistance at all and so are regarded as a promising breakthrough in materials science. Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat in Würzburg and Dresden have achieved a significant milestone in the pursuit of energy-efficient quantum technologies by designing the ferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi6Te10 from the manganese bismuth telluride family. The amazing thing about this quantum material is that its…
An international team led by the UNIGE has developed a quantum material in which the fabric of space inhabited by electrons can be curved on-demand. The development of new information and communication technologies poses new challenges to scientists and industry. Designing new quantum materials – whose exceptional properties stem from quantum physics – is the most promising way to meet these challenges. An international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and including researchers from the universities of Salerno,…
– a step towards industrial production. Eva Unger’s team investigated at BESSY II how precursor inks influence the quality of perovskite thin films. The best cells were scaled up to minimodule size. Metal halide perovskites are considered to be a particularly low-cost and promising class of materials for next-generation solar modules. Perovskite solar cells can be produced with coating processes using liquid inks made from precursor materials and various solvents. After coating, the solvents evaporate and the perovskites crystallise to…
Manchester scientists have created a new material, dubbed ‘StarCrete’ which is made from extra-terrestrial dust, potato starch, and a pinch of salt and could be used to build homes on Mars. Building infrastructure in space is currently prohibitively expensive and difficult to achieve. Future space construction will need to rely on simple materials that are easily available to astronauts, StarCrete offers one possible solution. The scientists behind the invention used simulated Martian soil mixed with potato starch and a pinch…
SMART researchers develop the world’s first microneedle-based drug delivery technique for plants It is the first time that polymeric silk microneedles have been used to deliver agrochemicals to a wide variety of plants Silk microneedles are a powerful tool which is utilised in medical applications for humans, and now they can be used for efficient drug delivery to plants that will be useful for plant science research and precision agriculture The novel technique is minimally invasive and is a sustainable…
Highly dynamic bistable soft actuators allow for varied locomotion. Most animals can quickly transition from walking to jumping to crawling to swimming if needed without reconfiguring or making major adjustments. Most robots cannot. But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created soft robots that can seamlessly shift from walking to swimming, for example, or crawling to rolling. “We were inspired by nature to develop a robot that can perform different tasks and adapt to its environment without adding actuators or…
Innovative battery researchers have cracked the code to creating real-time 3D images of the promising but temperamental lithium metal battery as it cycles. A team from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have succeeded in observing how the lithium metal in the cell behaves as it charges and discharges. The new method may contribute to batteries with higher capacity and increased safety in our future cars and devices. “We’ve opened a new window in order to understand – and in the…
In the latest advance in nano- and micro-architected materials, engineers at Caltech have developed a new material made from numerous interconnected microscale knots. The knots make the material far tougher than identically structured but unknotted materials: they absorb more energy and are able to deform more while still being able to return to their original shape undamaged. These new knotted materials may find applications in biomedicine as well as in aerospace applications due to their durability, possible biocompatibility, and extreme…
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