An ultrathin film containing 1-nanometer thick clay particles has been created for the first time, an accomplishment that may yield new materials and devices for medicine, electronics and engineering, according to Purdue University and Belgian scientists.
Using a method that captures clay particles on a crystal, Purdue and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven research partners were able to produce, see and manipulate a single layer of clay. It would take 70,000 of these layers to equal the thickn
Anyone who buys a swayed plank of wood has to be, well, warped.
But a Texas forestry sciences researcher may have a straight-forward computer model just around the bend, saving millions for wood manufacturers and consumers.
t
“Wood is an old material that has been used in construction for thousands of years,” said Dr. Zhiyong Cai, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station forest products researcher. “Every place in the world uses wood products, but there still are things we don
The same characteristics that make misfolded proteins known as prions such a pernicious medical threat in neurodegenerative diseases may offer a construction toolkit for manufacturing nanoscale electrical circuits, researchers report this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists working at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the University of Chicago write that they have used the durable, self-assembling fibers formed by prions as
Scientists and engineers trying to share materials property data over the Internet will have an easier time now thanks to a new computer language called MatML–Materials Markup Language–developed by an international group of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), industry, government laboratories, universities, standards organizations and professional societies. MatML provides a standard format for managing and exchanging materials property data on the World Wide
Nanocomposites for space
A microscopy technique originally developed to image the molecular-scale topography of surfaces is now helping engineers choose the right materials for a new generation of lightweight high-strength composites based on carbon nanotubes.
Light, conductive and nearly as strong as steel, carbon nanotubes are being combined with lightweight polymers to produce composite materials with properties attractive for use on future space vehicles. But choosing th
In recent years chemists and materials scientists have enthusiastically searched for ways to make materials with nanoscale pores — channels comparable in size to organic molecules — that could be used, among other things, to separate proteins by size. Recently Cornell University researchers developed a method to “self-assemble” such structures by using organic polymers to guide the formation of ceramic structures.
Now they have advanced another step by incorporating tiny magnetic particle
How do you improve on plastic, a modern material that has already changed the way we do everything from design medical devices to build cars? Embed it with specialized proteins called enzymes, says Shekhar Garde, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
“Such protein-enhanced plastics might someday be able to act as ultra-hygienic surfaces or sensors to detect the presence of various chemicals,” says Garde. These types of materials could have a wide
Intriguing Structural Strategy Aims at Making Designer Plastics Affordable
The future was supposed to be “plastics,” according to advice given in a 1960s movie The Graduate. Many a company thought that future meant the gradual ascendancy of “designer” or specialty plastics, but almost 40 years later the market is still dominated by plastics that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk.
Six researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and one at Helsinki U
University of Minnesota researchers have made the first-ever hardness measurements on individual silicon nanospheres and shown that the nanospheres’ hardness falls between the conventional hardness of sapphire and diamond, which are among the hardest known materials. Being able to measure such nanoparticle properties may eventually help scientists design low-cost superhard materials from these nanoscale building blocks.
Up to four times harder than typical silicon-a principal ingredient o
Reinforced high-strength concrete can crack due to stresses that develop during the hardening process. However, this has been found to be surprisingly less quick than previously thought. Due to Dutch research, extra steps during the hardening process can be omitted. This will result in cheaper concrete.
Maya Sule from Delft University of Technology tested specimens of high strength concrete (concrete with little water) in a temperature stress testing machine (TSTM). Such tests indicate the
Technical Insights’ materials and chemicals research service: Advanced materials technology
Advanced materials look set to revolutionize numerous applications in the 21st century. Scientists and engineers are undertaking extensive research activities in their quest to develop sophisticated new materials that are more durable, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient.
“Advanced materials and chemicals are the enabling building blocks for future devices and systems,
The development of a new generation of membranes based on conducting polymers has been the subject of a recent line of research in the Department of New Materials at CIDETEC, in association with the LEIA Technological Centre.
This involves a field of work wherein the excellent advantages presented by electro-dialysis conventional membranes (continuous separation, low energy consumption, ease of combination with other separation processes, absence of additives) are combined with other, highl
An Ohio State University engineer and his colleagues have discovered something new about a 50-year-old type of fiberglass: it may be more than one and a half times stronger than previously thought.
That conclusion, and the techniques engineers used to reach it, could help expand applications for glass fibers.
Though the glass fiber industry is currently suffering the same economic woes as many other businesses, the time is right to lay the groundwork for future applications, said P
Chains of molecules known as conducting polymers are versatile materials that can work like electronic circuits. Potential uses include flat panel displays, solar panels, sensing devices and transistors, to name just a few. Their invention won three scientists the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
But to make useful devices from conducting polymers requires a degree of chemical wizardry that often proves elusive. University of Illinois at Chicago chemistry professor Luke Hanley has found a new and
New materials will have applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices, electrocatalysis, electroanalysis and sensors
Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have synthesized a large family of semiconducting porous materials that have an unprecedented and diverse chemical composition.
The new materials show several different properties such as photoluminescence, ion exchange, and gas sorption. They also have a large surface area and uniform pore sizes. I
Jefferson Lab’s Free-Electron Laser used to explore the fundamental science of how and why nanotubes form, paying close attention to the atomic and molecular details
Scientists and technologists of all stripes are working intensively to explore the possibilities of an extremely strong and versatile cylinder so tiny that millions — which in bunches look like an ebony snowflake — could fit easily on the tip of a pin. The objects in question are known as carbon nanotubes, first discov
Feedback
