Chemical engineers at Purdue University have made a discovery that may help to improve a promising low-polluting energy technology that combusts natural gas more cleanly than conventional methods.

The finding revolves around the fact that catalysts and other materials vital to industry have complex crystalline structures with numerous sides, or facets. Different facets sometimes provide higher performance than others, so industry tries to prepare catalytic materials that contai

Star Trek-like technology being developed at The University of Arizona might soon screen airplane passengers for explosives as they walk through a portal similar to a metal detector while hand-held units scan their baggage.

The new device is about 1,000 times more sensitive than the equipment currently used in airports to discern explosives. Rather than analyzing a swab from a person’s briefcase, the new technology could detect the traces of explosives left in air that passes

A wood-fueled electricity generating plant may be in your future.

In fact, the future is ’now’ in some Scandinavian countries, said Dr. Darwin Foster, Texas Cooperative Extension forestry program leader. “In Sweden, they’re already bundling up what we’re leaving in the forest after a timber harvest and using it as bio-fuel,” Foster said. “Bio-fuel” is all-inclusive term that includes any renewable resource used to generate energy. As with ethanol distilled fr

Student-made device sends obstacle warnings to mechanical bug’s brain

Can a robot learn to navigate like a cockroach? To help researchers find out if a mechanical device can mimic the pesky insect’s behavior, a Johns Hopkins engineering student has built a flexible, sensor-laden antenna. Like a cockroach’s own wriggly appendage, the artificial antenna sends signals to a wheeled robot’s electronic brain, enabling the machine to scurry along walls, turn corners and

Replacing lead-based solder

Electrically conductive adhesive (ECA) materials offer the electronics industry an alternative to the tin-lead solder now used for connecting display driver chips, memory chips and other devices to circuit boards. But before these materials find broad application in high-end electronic equipment, researchers will have to overcome technical challenges that include low current density.

Using self-assembled monolayers – essentially molecular

A team of first-year engineering students at Elizabethtown College have created a proximity sensor system that will help a disabled woman better maneuver her power wheelchair.

The Audible Warning Sonic Sensor System, which is mounted to and powered by Melissa Sneath’s wheelchair, produces a warning sound when she is approaching an object or wall. The sound changes as she gets closer to the object, allowing her to correct her course and avoid a collision.

“As a result of h

An engineering professor at the University of California, San Diego has described in the March issue of JOM (the Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society) the unique properties of a new type of metallic laminate that can serve as armor and as a replacement for beryllium, a strong but toxic metal commonly used in demanding aerospace applications.

“The new material we developed is environmentally safe, and while its stiffness equals that of steel, it’s only half as

Students from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering are partnering with Carnegie Mellon University’s “Red Team” in an effort to win a $2 million prize from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). All they have to do is complete the toughest ground course ever devised for a self-guided robotic vehicle.

The contest, called the DARPA Grand Challenge, is a race between fully self-guided ground vehicles to be conducted in the Southwestern United States on Oct. 8,

The engineers who built the massive external fuel tank that will power the shuttle Discovery into orbit this spring used sophisticated X-ray detectors developed by UF researchers to reduce the chance of a defect in the foam insulation covering the tank. The detectors, first invented as a new technology to find land mines, can identify tiny gaps, or air-filled voids, in the insulating foam without causing any damage. It is believed that such a gap – possibly located between the foam and the ta

Two centuries ago, it took Lewis and Clark three years to cross half of North America. It’s taking Michigan Technological University’s Russell Alger and his teammates only a little longer to blaze a trail to the South Pole.

Of course, Antarctica poses special challenges. Ninety-eight percent of the continent is buried under thousands of feet of ice. And it doesn’t help that the trail builders can only work for a few weeks during the summer and have to start over again every year f

A new type of laminate performed spectacularly in depth-of-penetration ballistics tests, but its greatest potential may derive from its ability to be tailored to meet specific engineering requirements

An engineering professor at the University of California, San Diego has described in the March issue of JOM (the Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society) the unique properties of a new type of metallic laminate that can serve as armor and as a replacement for berylliu

Russian scientists are successfully developing smokeless gunpowder for automobile airbags, under ISTC Project #1882. This powder combusts almost instantaneously at the most important moment, but the airbag will fill with a gas that is harmless to the passenger, not like known compositions today.

The Russian scientists, from the Institute of Chemical Physics RAS, propose to make car safety airbags even safer. Their theoretical and practical investigations have established of which c

EUREKA project E! 2797 FACTORY MSETC (Mobile Self-Erecting Tower Crane) has successfully combined the technologies of mobile and self-erecting cranes to create a single crane that can do the work of five. The new crane features an anti-sway device which makes it safer as well as more efficient.

The Belgian lead partner, Arcomet NV, has developed self-erecting tower cranes for the building industry for many years. “These cranes were mounted and remained in a fixed position on

A new integrated facility designed to give scientists unprecedented insights into the chemical and biological reactions which can transform renewable plant and waste materials into useful sources of energy was dedicated yesterday at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Called the Biomass Surface Characterization Laboratory (BSCL), the $2.85 million facility features an array of electron and optical microscopes, and other advanced res

Resembling neatly stacked rows of driftwood abandoned by receding tides, particles left by a confined, evaporating droplet can create beautiful and complex patterns. The natural, pattern-forming process could find use in fields such as nanotechnology and optoelectronics.

“A lot of work in nanotechnology has been directed toward the bottom-up imposition of patterns onto materials,” said Steve Granick, a professor of materials science, chemistry and physics at the University of Ill

The next Research-TV broadcast will take place on Friday 04 March 09:15 – 09:30 GMT and will feature one topical technology story.

Research-TV produces VNRs tailor made for TV news, radio, online and written coverage. Each story highlights groundbreaking research and/or new discoveries.

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EU Research Infrastructures
Materials Science and Nanotechnology – The Big Picture

The study of materials science starts small – in the nanometre