Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: engineering

Dirty water boosts prospects for clean hydrogen

Wastewater can replace clean water as a source for hydrogen, eliminating a major drawback to hydrogen fuel and reducing water treatment costs of hydrogen production by up to 47%, according to new research from Princeton Engineering.

The findings, reported Sept. 24 in the journal Water Research, are a step toward making hydrogen a practical pathway to decarbonize industries that are difficult to electrify, such as steel and fertilizer production.

Z. Jason Ren, the senior study author, said that current electrolytic hydrogen production requires a large amount of clean water, increasing costs and straining local water supplies. His research team wanted to find out whether treated water processed by wastewater plants could be substituted.

Sensor-integrated food wrapper can facilitate real-time, non-destructive detection of nutritional components

Food quality and safety are crucial. However, conventional food-monitoring methods, including ribotyping and polymerase chain reaction, tend to be destructive and lengthy. These shortcomings limit their potential for broad applications. In this regard, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing, with real-time, non-destructive, and high sensitivity capabilities, is a highly promising alternative.

In a new breakthrough, a team of researchers, led by Associate Professor Ji-Hwan Ha from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanbat National University, Republic of Korea, has developed a two-in-one nanostructured SERS sensor integrated into a stretchable and antimicrobial wrapper (NSSAW) that not only monitors food directly on the surface but also actively preserves it.

Their novel findings are published in the journal Small.

Programmable metamaterial can morph into more configurations than there are atoms in the universe

The Wave Engineering for eXtreme and Intelligent maTErials (We-Xite) lab, led by engineering assistant professor Osama R. Bilal, has developed a reconfigurable metamaterial that can control sound waves—bending them, dampening them, or focusing them—while encoding real-time tuning with almost infinite possible shapes.

Their work is now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Metamaterials are artificial materials that can achieve extraordinary properties not easily found in nature,” explains Ph.D. candidate Melanie Keogh ‘22 (ENG), the first author of the study. In this case, the research team wanted to develop a material that could control sound waves, while being adjustable in both frequency and function, with potential applications ranging from medical imaging to soundproofing.

Nanoflowers rejuvenate old and damaged human cells by replacing their mitochondria

Biomedical researchers at Texas A&M University may have discovered a way to stop or even reverse the decline of cellular energy production—a finding that could have revolutionary effects across medicine.

Dr. Akhilesh K. Gaharwar and Ph.D. student John Soukar, along with their fellow researchers from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, have developed a new method to give damaged cells new mitochondria, returning energy output to its previous levels and dramatically increasing cell health.

Mitochondrial decline is linked to aging, heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Enhancing the body’s natural ability to replace worn-out mitochondria could fight all of them.

New light, strong material developed, withstands 932°F temperature

Researchers have developed very light and extremely strong material that can withstand extreme heat. The material could be useful for aerospace and other high-performance industries.

Developed by researchers from University of Toronto Engineering, the material can withstand temperatures up to 932°F (500° C).

The new composite material is made of various metallic alloys and nanoscale precipitates, and has a structure that mimics that of reinforced concrete, but on a microscopic scale.

ClickFix attack uses fake Windows Update screen to push malware

ClickFix attack variants have been observed where threat actors trick users with a realistic-looking Windows Update animation in a full-screen browser page and hide the malicious code inside images.

ClickFix is a social-engineering attack where users are convinced to paste and execute in Windows Command Prompt code or commands that lead to running malware on the system.

The attack has been widely adopted by cybercriminals across all tiers due to its high effectiveness and has continually evolved, with increasingly advanced and deceptive lures.

CRISPR/Cas9-Driven Engineering of AcMNPV Using Dual gRNA for Optimized Recombinant Protein Production

The CRISPR/Cas9 system is a powerful genome-editing tool that is applied in baculovirus engineering. In this study, we present the first report of the AcMNPV genome deletions for bioproduction purposes, using a dual single-guide RNA (sgRNA) CRISPR/Cas9 approach. We used this method to remove nonessential genes for the budded virus and boost recombinant protein yields when applied as BEVS. We show that the co-delivery of two distinct ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes, each assembled with a sgRNA and Cas9, into Sf9 insect cells efficiently generated deletions of fragments containing tandem genes in the genome. To evaluate the potential of this method, we assessed the expression of two model proteins, eGFP and HRPc, in insect cells and larvae. The gene deletions had diverse effects on protein expression: some significantly enhanced it while others reduced production.

Lab-grown diamond coatings shown to prevent mineral scale in industrial pipes

In industrial pipes, mineral deposits build up the way limescale collects inside a kettle ⎯ only on a far larger and more expensive scale. Mineral scaling is a major issue in water and energy systems, where it slows flow, strains equipment and drives up costs.

A new study by Rice University engineers shows that lab-grown diamond coatings could resolve the issue, providing an alternative to chemical additives and mechanical cleaning, both of which offer only temporary relief and carry environmental or operational downsides.

“Because of these limitations, there is growing interest in materials that can naturally resist scale formation without constant intervention,” said Xiang Zhang, assistant research professor of materials science and nanoengineering and a first author on the study alongside Rice postdoctoral researcher Yifan Zhu. “Our work addresses this urgent need by identifying a coating material that can ‘stay clean’ on its own.”

Metasurfaces etched into 2D crystals boost nonlinear optical effects at nanoscale

In January, a team led by Jim Schuck, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering, developed a method for creating entangled photon pairs, a critical component of emerging quantum technologies, using a crystalline device just 3.4 micrometers thick.

Now, in a paper published in Nature Photonics in October, Columbia Engineers have shrunk nonlinear platforms with high efficiency down to just 160 nanometers by introducing metasurfaces: artificial geometries etched into ultrathin crystals that imbue them with new optical properties.

“We’ve established a successful recipe to pattern ultrathin crystals at the nanoscale to enhance nonlinearity while maintaining their sub-wavelength-thickness,” said corresponding author Chiara Trovatello is currently an assistant professor at Politecnico di Milano and was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at Columbia working with Schuck.

/* */