Researchers have created a new process to produce materials that can sift through similar, molecular brethren and latch onto chemicals that differ from each other in only their mirrored images. If it proves effective in large-scale experiments, the stable, relatively simple catalyst could impact the $100 billion pharmaceutical industry by helping sort biologically potent chemicals from related, yet less useful or even toxic, compatriots. Jay Switzer and colleagues at the University
If Mohini Sain has his way, cars of the future may be fitted with tough, durable and completely biodegradable bumpers made of hemp.
Sain, a professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry and Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, creates biocomposites from processed plant fibres. His latest research, published in the August issue of Materials Research Innovations and the July issue of Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, describes a way to create a
A highly durable and moreover self-lubricating material has seen the light of day at a thin film laboratory at Linköping University.
It is an alloy of boron suboxide and yttrium, BOY, and was grown by the physicist Denis Music. The discovery is put forward in his doctoral dissertation.
The element boron and its compounds have many interesting properties, but they have been difficult to exploit industrially because production involves extreme process conditions. To produce a crystal
A ceramic material reinforced with carbon nanotubes has been made by materials scientists at UC Davis. The new material is far tougher than conventional ceramics, conducts electricity and can both conduct heat and act as a thermal barrier, depending on the orientation of the nanotubes.
Ceramic materials are very hard and resistant to heat and chemical attack, making them useful for applications such as coating turbine blades, said Amiya Mukherjee, professor of chemical engineering and mater
Ames Laboratory researchers identify non-brittle intermetallics
To material scientists the phrase “ductile intermetallic compounds” has long been considered an oxymoron. Although these compounds possess chemical, physical, electrical, magnetic, and mechanical properties that are often superior to ordinary metals, their potential has gone untapped because they are typically quite brittle at room temperature. Until now.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames
A tailored, cage-like silica structure, developed by Penn State researchers, is easier and less expensive to make than previous materials and is tunable in size.
“Previous attempts at synthesizing materials like PSU-1 involved specially designed templates making the process expensive,” says Dr. Sridhar Komarneni, professor of clay mineralogy. “The processes also require stringent conditions for the synthesis to work.” Komarneni, working with Dr. Bharat L. Newalkar, postdoctoral fellow in Pe
Using molecules resembling 60-sided soccer balls, a joint team of researchers from the University of Toronto and Carleton University has created a new material for processing information using light.
Led by U of T electrical and computer engineering professor Ted Sargent and Carleton University chemistry professor Wayne Wang, the team developed a material that combines microscopic spherical particles known as “buckyballs” with polyurethane, the polymer used as a coating on cars and furnitur
It may soon be possible to produce a low cost, high-value, high-strength fiber from a biodegradable and renewable waste product for air filtration, water filtration and agricultural nanotechnology, report polymer scientists at Cornell University. The achievement is the result of using the recently perfected technique of electrospinning to spin nanofibers from cellulose.
“Cellulose is the most abundant renewable resource polymer on earth. It forms the structure of all plants,” says Margaret
Creating unique structures
Researchers have developed a laser-based technique for creating patterns in self-assembled colloidal crystals produced from hydrogel nanoparticles – soft spheres that respond to heat by changing size. The development could make possible the fabrication of waveguides, three-dimensional microlenses and other photonic structures from the unusual crystals.
In related work, the Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have also learned to use weak at
When Benjamin in “The Graduate” was told to go into plastics, computers were in their infancy and silicon technology ruled. Now, conducting organic polymers are infiltrating the electronics sphere and the watchword is once again plastics, according to Penn State researchers.
“For plastic circuits we cannot use the old processing,” says Dr. Qing Wang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering. “Photolithography and silicon technologies require harsh environments and plastics ca
Carbon-fiber reinforced polymer matrix composite materials are strong without being brittle and retain their integrity over a wide temperature range while being impervious to most environments. While the materials’ qualities make them important to the aerospace industry, present processing technology makes carbon fiber too expensive for broader use, such as in the automotive industry.
Chemistry and chemical engineering researchers at Virginia Tech and Clemson University have been worki
As scientists shrink materials down to the nanometer scale, creating nanodots, nanoparticles, nanorods and nanotubes a few tens of atoms across, they’ve found weird and puzzling behaviors that have fired their imaginations and promised many unforeseen applications.
Now University of California, Berkeley, scientists have found another unusual effect that could have both good and bad implications for semiconductor devices once they’ve been shrunk to the nanometer scale.
Th
A research team in Austria has been unravelling the secrets of the charging of plastic foams. Its findings open the way for the development of flat microphones and loudspeakers, as well as “smart” surfaces that could be used as floor coverings, among other things. The interest in the success of the group´s work – which was co-funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) – has resulted in the integration of the project in a European interdisciplinary research network.
During a thunder st
Titania nanotubes are 1500 times better than the next best material for sensing hydrogen and may be one of the first examples of materials properties changing dramatically when crossing the border between real world sizes and nanoscopic dimensions, according to a Penn State materials scientist.
“Historically, we have viewed sensor technology and enhancements from the point of view of surface area,” says Dr. Craig A. Grimes, associate professor of electrical engineering and materials
Technical Insights Electronics and Semiconductors Industry Impact Research Service: Developments and Opportunities in Advanced Electronic Materials
Materials such as polymers, superconducting ceramics, and diamond films are likely to shape the electronics industry in the coming decade. Processing technologies for these improved materials will also gain importance.
“Advanced materials are synthesized at nano levels, creating the possibility of achieving several new structures
Reader heads of compact discs and computer hard discs or position and magnetic field sensors are some of the applications of magneto-resistant materials, which are normally obtained by costly methods. Precisely in order to solve this problem, university teacher María Luisa Fernández-Gubieda Ruiz, of the University of the Basque Country, is carrying out research into developing a simpler and more effective method for the preparation of these materials, based on their undergoing thermal treatment. The
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