Swiss drivers wear out countless tires. Instead of incinerating them, they could be reused locally: The asphalt of various countries has long contained rubber from used tires. Empa and its partners from industry are adopting this idea for potential applications in Switzerland. Commuters who nag about traffic stress should look at the ground every now and then. And take comfort in realizing it might be worse, much worse: Asphalt endures blistering heat, cold stress and plenty of pressure from above….
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), narrow strips of single-layer graphene, have interesting physical, electrical, thermal, and optical properties because of the interplay between their crystal and electronic structures. These novel characteristics have pushed them to the forefront in the search for ways to advance next-generation nanotechnologies. While bottom-up fabrication techniques now allow the synthesis of a broad range of graphene nanoribbons that feature well-defined edge geometries, widths, and heteroatom incorporations, the question of whether or not structural disorder is present in these…
Imagine an entire twenty storey concrete building which can store energy like a giant battery. Thanks to unique research from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, such a vision could someday be a reality. Researchers from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering recently published an article outlining a new concept for rechargeable batteries – made of cement. The ever-growing need for sustainable building materials poses great challenges for researchers. Doctor Emma Zhang, formerly of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, joined…
Fraunhofer IWS Dresden spins off lasertech company A researcher team from industry and the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS is spinning off a high-tech company called “Fusion Bionic”. The company aims to bring lotus effects and other functional microstructures from nature to technical surfaces such as air wings and implants using globally cutting-edge solutions for laser interference technology. The team received support from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s AHED project, which specializes in technology transfer. Modern light interference technologies in Dresden…
Japanese team forges path to new uses for terahertz waves … Japanese researchers successfully tested reflectionless, highly refractive index metasurface that may eventually be used in practical applications to send, receive, and manipulate light and radio waves in the terahertz waveband (THz). THz is measured in millionths of a meter, known as micrometers. The metasurface, an artificial two-dimensional flat material, was made of micro-sized cut metal wires of silver paste ink placed on both the front and back of a…
Hydrogels merge two physical forms of the same seaweed material for strength, flexibility. 3D-printable gels with improved and highly controlled properties can be created by merging micro- and nano-sized networks of the same materials harnessed from seaweed, according to new research from North Carolina State University. The findings could have applications in biomedical materials – think of biological scaffolds for growing cells – and soft robotics. Described in the journal Nature Communications, the findings show that these water-based gels –…
Argonne scientists across several disciplines have combined forces to create a new process for testing and predicting the effects of high temperatures on refractory oxides. Cast iron melts at around 1,200 degrees Celsius. Stainless steel melts at around 1,520 degrees Celsius. If you want to shape these materials into everyday objects, like the skillet in your kitchen or the surgical tools used by doctors, it stands to reason that you would need to create furnaces and molds out of something that can withstand even…
As lightweight construction materials, fiber-reinforced polymers have the potential to improve the ecological footprint of ships. If the fibers and plastic matrix are based on renewable raw materials, the ecological footprint can be further reduced. Integrating these materials as structural components is not state of the art and requires new concepts in shipbuilding. These concepts will have to regard strict safety regulations and fire protection requirements applying to passenger ships. The aim of the “GreenLight” project is to develop bio-based…
A research team from the Skoltech Center for Design, Manufacturing and Materials (CDMM) studied the effects of processing additives – aluminum hydroxide and zinc stearate – on the polymerization kinetics of thermosets used in pultrusion. The research was published in the Journal of Composite Materials. Fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) structural elements that have obvious advantages over conventional materials, such as steel, wood, and concrete, are widely used in civil, marine and road construction. FRP structures are manufactured using the pultrusion process,…
Researchers at TU Graz develop green alternatives to fossil raw materials. Bio-based materials are expected to reduce pollution and drive the shift to a more sustainable economy. As a renewable resource, wood offers great potential in the fight against the climate crisis. First, it sequesters large amounts of carbon (1 ton per cubic meter!). Moreover, it is an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil based resources, which cause the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. At the Institute of Bioproducts and Paper…
Using the smallest “construction set” in the world, a research team from the universities of Marburg, Giessen and Paderborn is designing new materials for computer chips, light-emitting diodes and solar cells. They are 50,000 times thinner than a human hair, and just a few atoms thick: two-dimensional materials are the thinnest substances it is possible to make today. They have completely new properties and are regarded as the next major step in modern semiconductor technology. In the future they could…
– that degrades on demand … This could result in battery production moving away from strategic elements like cobalt. The introduction of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has revolutionized technology as a whole, leading to major advances in consumer goods across nearly all sectors. Battery-powered devices have become ubiquitous across the world. While the availability of technology is generally a good thing, the rapid growth has led directly to several key ethical and environmental issues surrounding the use of Li-ion batteries. Current…
Hydrogen in hybrid perovskites: Researchers identify the defect that limits solar-cell performance. Researchers in the materials department in UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering have uncovered a major cause of limitations to efficiency in a new generation of solar cells. Various possible defects in the lattice of what are known as hybrid perovskites had previously been considered as the potential cause of such limitations, but it was assumed that the organic molecules (the components responsible for the “hybrid” moniker) would…
Fraunhofer IKTS acquires the transparent ceramics division and the PERLUCOR brand from the ceramics company CeramTec-ETEC. An R&D center for transparent ceramics will be set up at the IKTS site in Hermsdorf. As of April 1, 2021, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS will take over the transparent ceramics division of the company CeramTec-ETEC, known for its brand name PERLUCOR®. The institute thus significantly expands its existing competencies in the development of transparent ceramics. The technical infrastructure…
Researchers demonstrate that magnetism and superconductivity can coexist in graphene, opening a pathway towards graphene-based topological qubits. In the quantum realm, electrons can group together to behave in interesting ways. Magnetism is one of these behaviors that we see in our day-to-day life, as is the rarer phenomena of superconductivity. Intriguingly, these two behaviors are often antagonists, meaning that the existence of one of them often destroys the other. However, if these two opposite quantum states are forced to coexist…
The ability to turn on and off a physical process with just one photon is a fundamental building block for quantum photonic technologies. Realizing this in a chip-scale architecture is important for scalability, which amplifies a breakthrough by City College of New York researchers led by physicist Vinod Menon. They’ve demonstrated for the first time the use of “Rydberg states” in solid state materials (previously shown in cold atom gases) to enhance nonlinear optical interactions to unprecedented levels in solid…
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