Materials Science News

This 3D model of a polymer desalination membrane shows water avoiding dense spots in the membrane and slowing flow; red above the membrane shows water under higher pressure and with higher concentrations of salt; the gold, granular, sponge-like structure in the middle shows denser and less-dense areas within the salt-stopping membrane; silver channels show how water flows through; and the blue at the bottom shows water under lower pressure and with lower concentrations of salt. Image credit: Ganapathysubramanian Research Group / Iowa State University / Gregory Foss, Texas Advanced Computing Center.

Researchers Make Progress Toward High-Performing Water Desalination Membranes

Jan 1, 2021 by News Staff

Biological membranes can achieve remarkably high permeabilities while maintaining ideal selectivities by relying on homogeneous internal structures in...

McCulloch et al. created ‘rivers’ of regular diamond and lonsdaleite, named after the crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, the first woman elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society. Lonsdaleite has a different crystal structure to regular diamond, and is predicted to be 58% harder. Image credit: McCulloch et al., doi: 10.1002/smll.202004695.

Researchers Create Two Types of Diamond at Room Temperature

Nov 19, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Australia and the United States has created two types of diamond — regular diamond and a diamond-like phase called lonsdaleite,...

Fabrication processes and sensing performance of the multifunctional wearable electronics: (A) schematic illustration of the fabrication processes of the multifunctional wearable electronics; (B) motion tracking performance with the multifunctional device worn on the wrist; (C) indoor and outdoor body temperatures acquired using the wearable electronics mounted on the forehead (top) and comparison of measured indoor body temperatures when the wearable electronics is mounted at different locations (bottom); (D) acoustic data acquired using the wearable electronics mounted on the neck; (E) ECG data acquired using the wearable electronics when the participant is at rest (top), and after exercising for 13 s (middle) and 34 s (bottom). Image credit: Chuanqian Shi, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Researchers Develop Highly Stretchable, Self-Healable, and Recyclable Wearable Electronics

Nov 6, 2020 by News Staff

Wearable electronics can be integrated with the human body for monitoring physical activities and health conditions, for human-computer interfaces, and...

Copper represents an effective catalyst in reducing carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons or oxygenates, but it is often plagued by a low product selectivity and limited long-term stability. Choi et al report that copper nanowires with rich surface steps exhibit a remarkably high Faradaic efficiency for ethylene that can be maintained for over 200 hours. Image credit: Choi et al, doi: 10.1038/s41929-020-00504-x.

Scientists Find Efficient Way to Convert Carbon Dioxide into Ethylene

Sep 17, 2020 by News Staff

A team of U.S. researchers has developed copper nanowires with rich surface steps to catalyze a chemical reaction that reduces carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions...

Piotrowska et al developed tripeptide crystals which feature aqueous pores that expand and contract in response to humidity changes and use evaporation to create an effective mechanical actuator. Image credit: Tony Wang.

Scientists Create Shape-Changing Peptide Crystals

Sep 15, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom has created nanoporous tripeptide crystals that directly convert evaporation energy...

Crystal structure and magnetism in rare-earth langasite: (a) the distorted Kagome lattice of the rare-earth ions in R3Ga5SiO14; about 1.5% of the rare-earth sites (orange) are occupied by the holmium ions; the unit cell is shown by thin solid lines; (b) experimental and theoretical magnetization curves of HoxLa3−xGa5SiO14 (x = 0.043) in external magnetic fields parallel to three crystallographic axes and at T = 5 K. Symbols - experiment, solid lines - model accounting for a ground Ho3+ quasidoublet and a Van-Vleck contribution of excited crystal-field states. The inset shows the local magnetic moments of Ho-ions in the saturation regime. Image credit: Weymann et al, doi: 10.1038/s41535-020-00263-9.

New Type of Magnetoelectric Effect Discovered

Sep 15, 2020 by News Staff

Even small changes in the direction of the magnetic field can switch the electrical properties of a paramagnetic rare-earth material — the holmium-doped...

The skin-like sensing prototype device, made with stretchable electronics. Image credit: RMIT University.

Newly-Developed Electronic Artificial Skin Can Sense Touch, Pain and Heat

Sep 8, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers at RMIT University has developed electronic artificial skin that mimics the human body’s near-instant feedback response and can...

Miskin et al built microsopic robots that consist of a simple circuit made from silicon photovoltaics and four electrochemical actuators; when laser light is shined on the photovoltaics, the robots walk. Image credit: Miskin et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2626-9.

Researchers Create Laser-Activated Walking Microrobots

Aug 27, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania has developed a new class of microscopic robots that incorporate semiconductor...

Conceptual illustrations of drawing on-skin electronics on paper using a 9B sketching pencil. Image credit: Xu et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2008422117.

Researchers Use Pencil to Draw Bioelectronic Devices on Human Skin

Jul 26, 2020 by News Staff

Scientists from the University of Missouri, the University of Illinois and Yale University have demonstrated that a combination of pencils and paper could...

Cai et al demonstrate the catalytic activity of Ag and Au clusters physically deposited onto titanium dioxide (TiO2) powders with the MACS in the catalytic ozonation of nitrophenol; compared to traditional catalysts reported in the literature, the catalysts produced by the MACS exhibit at least comparable activities and show excellent reusability without evident degradation after five cycles: (a) photograph and (b) schematic diagram of the MACS system; (c) photograph of the Ag cluster on TiO2 powder catalyst produced (1 g), showing the color change from white to brown. Image credit: Cai et al, doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c05955.

Scientists Develop Environmentally Friendly Method for Removing Chemicals from Water

Jul 2, 2020 by News Staff

The newly-invented method, named the matrix assembly cluster source (MACS), involves no solvent and is a step change in the approach to water treatment...

The world’s smallest molecular motor consists of a single acetylene rotor anchored to a chiral atomic cluster provided by a palladium-gallium surface that acts as a stator. Image credit: Empa.

Researchers Develop World’s Smallest Molecular Motor

Jun 24, 2020 by News Staff

A molecular motor developed by a team of researchers from Switzerland consists of just 16 atoms. The world’s smallest molecular motor consists of a single...

Metasurface laser produces super-chiral light with orbital angular momentum up to 100. Image credit: University of the Witwatersrand.

Newly-Developed Metasurface-Enhanced Laser Emits Super-Chiral Light

Apr 28, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand, Harvard University and the National University of Singapore has come up with a new metasurface-enhanced...

With wall thicknesses of about 160 nm, a closed-cell, plate-based nanolattice structure is the first experimental verification that such arrangements reach the theorized limits of strength and stiffness in porous materials. Image credit: Cameron Crook & Jens Bauer, University of California, Irvine.

Newly-Developed Carbon Nanolattices are Stronger than Diamonds

Apr 14, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has created carbon nanolattices — constructed from closed-cell plate-architectures — that are stronger...

The synthetic bioplastic developed by Kainulainen et al. Image credit: University of Oulu.

Novel Synthetic Bioplastic Protects against UV Radiation

Feb 20, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers in Sweden has developed a new bioplastic that, unlike traditional carbon-based plastics or other bioplastics, provides protection...

An artist’s impression of the dissolving of the electronic ‘traffic jam:’ the red atoms are different in their quantum nature and allow transport of electrons in their surroundings. Image credit: Berend Zwartsenberg.

Physicists Pioneer New Way to Turn Metal into Insulator

Feb 14, 2020 by News Staff

A team of physicists led by the University of British Columbia has demonstrated a novel way to precisely control electrical currents by leveraging the...

Fabrication of the liquid-entrenched smooth surface: (a) schematic showing the two-step spray-coating process to form the LESS coating; the molecularly grafted polymer layer creates chemical affinity to the lubricant; (b) optical images showing the individual coating processes on glass; the lubricant used was silicone oil, and the blue testing liquid was dyed water. Image credit: Wang et al, doi: 10.1038/s41893-019-0421-0.

Innovative Toilet Coating Could Reduce Cleaning Water Consumption by 90%

Dec 2, 2019 by News Staff

A team of materials scientists and engineers from the Pennsylvania State University and Cranfield University has designed and fabricated a new toilet coating...

Thin films of glassy alumina (Al2O3) subjected to mechanical stress. Image credit: Tampere University.

New Glass Bends Instead of Breaking

Nov 20, 2019 by News Staff

A new glass material, developed by Tampere University researcher Erkka Frankberg and colleagues, appears to possess metal-like ductility at room temperature. Thin...

Tiny holes punched into a high-temperature superconducting material revealed that Cooper pairs can also conduct electricity the way metals do. Image credit: Brown University.

Scientists Uncover New State of Matter in Superconductor

Nov 15, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of physicists and materials scientists from the United States and China has discovered a new state of matter they’ve named ‘Cooper...

In a battery, ions flow from the cathode to the anode, resulting in a positive energy charge for the unit. Image credit: Chao-Yang Wang Lab, Penn State.

Researchers Develop Fast-Charging Self-Heating Lithium-Ion Battery

Nov 6, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the Pennsylvania State University has demonstrated that they can charge an electrical vehicle in 10 minutes for a 200 to 300 mile...