Archive for the ‘materials’ category: Page 227
Jul 20, 2018
Beets and carrots could lead to stronger and greener buildings
Posted by Bill Kemp in categories: food, materials
According to engineers, root vegetables aren’t only good for the body. Their fibres could also help make concrete mixtures stronger and more eco-friendly.
Construction projects have a significant impact on our environment. To combat this, stakeholders in the academic and industrial sectors have been looking for ways to make the industry more environment friendly. The EU-funded project B-SMART will be contributing to these efforts by focusing on concrete and the more culpable of its ingredients: cement.
Led by Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, the project will be investigating how nanoplatelets extracted from the fibres of root vegetables can make concrete mixtures more robust and more environment friendly. So far, initial tests have shown that adding nanoplatelets from sugar beet or carrot to these mixtures greatly enhances the mechanical properties of concrete.
Jul 18, 2018
Researchers develop new solar sailing technology for NASA
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: materials, space travel
Spacecraft outfitted with sails and propelled by the sun are no longer the stuff of science fiction or theoretical space missions. Now, a Rochester Institute of Technology researcher is taking solar sailing to the next level with advanced photonic materials.
Metamaterials—a new class of manmade structures with unconventional properties—could represent the next technological leap forward for solar sails, according to Grover Swartzlander, professor in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. He proposes replacing reflective metallic sails with diffractive metafilm sails. The new materials could be used to steer reflected or transmitted photons for near-Earth, interplanetary and interstellar space travel.
“Diffractive films may also be designed to replace heavy and failure-prone mechanical systems with lighter electro-optic controls having no moving parts,” he said.
Jul 16, 2018
Ionic materials could achieve 50% higher energy density while costing less than $100 per kwh
Posted by Bill Kemp in categories: energy, materials
Ionic Materials received an investment from Hyundai Cradle. Ionic Materials has a polymer electrolyte that can make higher performing and safer solid-state batteries. Prototype batteries with Ionic Materials’ solid plastic electrolyte can enable higher energy densities at low cost.
Properties of Ionic Materials polymer
Up to 1.3 mS/cm at room temperature Lithium transference number of 0.7 High voltage capability (5 volts) Can accommodate high loadings in the cathode High elastic modulus Low cost precursors Stable against Lithium Conducts multiple ions.
Jul 14, 2018
Room temperature superconductivity evidence with graphene in contact with alkanes
Posted by Bill Kemp in category: materials
There are claims of synthesis of a room temperature superconductor. However, these claims have not been officially accepted by scientific communities. Currently, the highest transition temperature (Tc) recognized in scientific articles is 135 K at 1 atm of Hg-Ba-Ca-Cu-O system which is a copper oxide superconductor. We packed graphite flakes into a ring-shaped polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) tube and further injected heptane or octane. Then we generated circulating current in this ring tube by electromagnetic induction and showed that this circulating current continues to flow continuously at room temperature for 50 days. This experiment suggests that bringing alkane into contact with graphite may result in a material with zero resistance at room temperature.
Jul 9, 2018
Engineers develop origami electronics from cheap, foldable paper
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in categories: electronics, materials
UC Berkeley engineers have given new meaning to the term “working paper.” Using inexpensive materials, they have fabricated foldable electronic switches and sensors directly onto paper, along with prototype generators, supercapacitors and other electronic devices for a range of applications.
Research to develop paper electronics has accelerated in the last 10 years. Besides its availability and low cost, paper offers an intriguing potential: simply folding it could switch circuits on and off or otherwise change their activity—a kind of electronic origami.
But most efforts to fabricate electrodes onto paper with sufficient conductivity for practical use have employed expensive metals such as gold or silver as the conducting material, swamping the potential savings of paper as a substrate.
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Jul 3, 2018
We know ocean plastic is a problem. We can’t fix it until we answer these 5 questions
Posted by Bill Kemp in category: materials
Jun 29, 2018
Tokomak Energy UK high temperature superconductors and better magnet path to commercial nuclear fusion
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: materials, nuclear energy
Tokamak Energy of the UK has built the ST40 prototype fusion reactor and they aim to reach 100 million degrees celsius by the end of 2018. They have already reached 15 million degrees.
Jun 27, 2018
Niki Bayat invented materials that can heal eyes
Posted by Marcos Than Esponda in category: materials
By sealing up traumatic injuries or delivering crucial medications.
She invented materials that can heal eyes by sealing up traumatic injuries.