Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: materials – Page 116

Would you rather run into a brick wall or into a mattress? For most people, the choice is not difficult. A brick wall is stiff and does not absorb shocks or vibrations well; a mattress is soft and is a good shock absorber. Sometimes, in designing materials, both of these properties are needed. Materials should be good at absorbing vibrations, but should be stiff enough to not collapse under pressure. A team of researchers from the UvA Institute of Physics has now found a way to design materials that manage to do both these things.

Publishing.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.

Read more | >

The material can self-heal in just 24 hours when warmed to 158°F or in about a week at room temperature.

Stanford professor Zhenan Bao and his team have invented a multi-layer self-healing synthetic electronic skin.

This is according to a report by Fox News published on Friday.

Stanford scientists have invented a multi-layer self-healing synthetic electronic skin that can now self-recognize and align with each other when injured, allowing the skin to continue functioning while healing.

Read more | >

Scientists have developed an advanced technique for 3D printing that is set to revolutionize the manufacturing industry.

The group, led by Dr. Jose Marques-Hueso from the Institute of Sensors, Signals & Systems at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, has created a new method of 3D printing that uses near-infrared (NIR) light to create complex structures containing multiple materials and colors.

They achieved this by modifying a well-established 3D known as stereolithography to push the boundaries of multi-material integration. A conventional 3D printer would normally apply a blue or UV laser to a that is then selectively solidified, layer by layer, to build a desired object. But a major drawback of this approach has been the limitations in intermixing materials.

Read more | >

A team from NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a novel device using gallium nitride nanopillars on silicon that significantly improves the conversion of heat into electricity. This could potentially recover large amounts of wasted heat energy, benefiting industries and power grids.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have fabricated a novel device that could dramatically boost the conversion of heat into electricity. If perfected, the technology could help recoup some of the heat energy that is wasted in the U.S. at a rate of about $100 billion each year.

The new fabrication technique — developed by NIST researcher Kris Bertness and her collaborators — involves depositing hundreds of thousands of microscopic columns of gallium nitride atop a silicon wafer. Layers of silicon are then removed from the underside of the wafer until only a thin sheet of the material remains. The interaction between the pillars and the silicon sheet slows the transport of heat in the silicon, enabling more of the heat to convert to electric current. Bertness and her collaborators at the University of Colorado Boulder recently reported the findings in the journal Advanced Materials.

Read more | >

Year 2022 o.o!!!

From ocean depths to mountain peaks, humans have littered the planet with tiny shards of plastic. We have even absorbed these microplastics into our bodies—with uncertain implications.

Images of plastic pollution have become familiar: a turtle suffocated by a shopping bag, washed up on beaches, or the monstrous “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” of floating detritus.

Millions of tonnes of plastic produced every year, largely from , make their way into the environment and degrade into smaller and .

Read more | >

New York City is sinking under the weight of its massive buildings, leaving it more vulnerable to rising seas, a new study finds.

Most coastal cities are slowly sinking as the earth beneath them settles and groundwater is drained away. In some metropolises, the weight of large, concrete-and-steel skyscrapers may be hastening this slump, but experts rarely, if ever, account for the mass of large buildings in projections of future sinking.

For the new study, scientists tallied the weight of every building in New York, which they put at 842 million tons, and estimated the downward force of these structures across the city. They found that buildings are leaving a bigger imprint in areas rich in clay than in areas where sand or bedrock predominate.

Read more | >