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Category: materials – Page 288

Rice University scientists have determined that two-dimensional boron is a natural low-temperature superconductor. In fact, it may be the only 2-D material with such potential.

Rice theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his co-workers published their calculations that show atomically flat boron is metallic and will transmit electrons with no resistance. The work appears this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

The hitch, as with most superconducting materials, is that it loses its resistivity only when very cold, in this case between 10 and 20 kelvins (roughly, minus-430 degrees Fahrenheit). But for making very small superconducting circuits, it might be the only game in town.

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Simulation of DUT-49 atom arrangement when it has not contracted. Image: © F.-X. Coudert/CNRSHigh-tech sponges of infinitely small, nanoporous materials can capture and release gaseous or liquid chemicals in a controlled way. A team of French and German researchers from the Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (CNRS/Chimie ParisTech) and the Institut Charles Gerhardt de Montpellier (CNRS/Université de Montpellier/ENSCM) has developed and described one of these materials, DUT-49, whose behavior is totally counterintuitive.

When pressure is increased for a sample of DUT-49 to absorb more gas, the material contracts suddenly and releases its contents — as if, when inhaling, the lungs contracted and expelled the air that they contained. This work, published in Nature, makes it possible to envisage innovative behavior in materials science.

Capturing toxic molecules in ambient air, storing hydrogen, targeting drug release — the list of applications that could use flexible nanoporous materials is endless. These materials use the large surface area in their pores to capture and store gaseous or liquid molecules: this phenomenon is called adsorption. Their pores can adsorb impressive quantities of products; they keep getting bigger until they reach their flexibility limit.

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Scientists at ETH Zurich and IBM Research Zurich have developed a new technique that enables for the first time the manufacture of complexly structured tiny objects joining together microspheres. The objects have a size of just a few micrometres and are produced in a modular fashion, making it possible to program their design in such a way that each component exhibits different physical properties. After fabrication, it is also very simple to bring the micro-objects into solution. This makes the new technique substantially different from micro 3D printing technology. With most of today’s micro 3D printing technologies, objects can only be manufactured if they consist of a single material, have a uniform structure and are attached to a surface during production.

To prepare the micro-objects, the ETH and IBM researchers use tiny spheres made from a polymer or silica as their building blocks, each with a diameter of approximately one micrometre and different physical properties. The scientists are able to control the particles and arrange them in the geometry and sequence they like.

The structures that are formed occupy an interesting niche in the size scale: they are much larger than your typical chemical or biochemical molecules, but much smaller than typical objects in the macroscopic world. “Depending on the perspective, it’s possible to speak of giant molecules or micro-objects,” says Lucio Isa, Professor for Interfaces, Soft matter and Assembly at ETH Zurich. He headed the research project together with Heiko Wolf, a scientist at IBM Research. “So far, no scientist has succeeded in fully controlling the sequence of individual components when producing artificial molecules on the micro scale,” says Isa.

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Researchers from the University of California has developed magnesium based super strong metal also very light weight. This new material composition of magnesium infused with ceramic silicon nanoparticles. This new technique nanoparticles boost the strength materials. Usage of nanoparticles also provides flexibilty to the materials.

Research main target extremely strong and lightweight metal can be used is space projects

In order to use this extremely strong and lightweight metal for space-exploration projects, the researchers developed a new method in dispersing and stabilizing nanoparticles in molten metals.

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The inventors of liquid metal batteries give their original creation an upgrade using calcium, an abundant and inexpensive element.

With his latest upgrade to liquid metal batteries, there’s no better (and indeed, more apt!) way to describe MIT Professor and materials engineer Donald Sadoway than to say that he just keeps going and going and going…

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Synthetic biology involves creating or re-engineering microbes or other organisms to perform specific tasks, like fighting obesity, monitoring chemical threats or creating biofuels. Essentially, biologists program single-celled organisms like bacteria and yeast much the same way one would program and control a robot.

But 10 years ago, it was extremely challenging to take a DNA sequence designed on a computer and turn it into a polymer that could implement its task in a specific host, say a mouse or human cell. Now, thanks to a multitude of innovations across computing, engineering, biology and other fields, researchers can type out any DNA sequence they want, email it to a synthesis company, and receive their completed DNA construct in a week. You can build entire chromosomes and entire genomes of bacteria in this way.

“Biology is the most powerful substrate for engineering that we know of,” said Christopher Voigt, Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. “It’s more powerful than electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and others. Unlike all the other fields, we can look at what biology is already able to do. When we look at the natural world, we see things like the brain. That’s a complex place computing, electrical engineering and computer science can’t reach. The brain even constructs nanostructures very deliberately, something materials science has not accomplished.”

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A flexible, paper-like ceramic material has been created that promises to provide an inexpensive, fireproof, non-conductive base for a whole range of new and innovative electronic devices (Credit: Eurakite). View gallery (4 images)

Materials to make hard-wearing, bendable non-conducting substrates for wearables and other flexible electronics are essential for the next generation of integrated devices. In this vein, researchers at the University of Twente have reformulated ceramic materials so that they have the flexibility of paper and the lightness of a polymer, but still retain exceptional high-temperature resistance. The new material has been dubbed flexiramics.

High-tech materials such as flexible polymers show promise in this regard, as does boron nitride, and may eventually make the cheaper, but more brittle insulators – such as those made from traditional ceramics – a thing of the past. However, the new ceramic material, named flexiramics, could give these new materials a run for their money as it is not only a tissue-like material that is easy to fold without breaking, it is also reportedly inexpensive and easy to produce.

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An international team of researchers has developed a new type of metal alloy that could make nuclear reactors safer and more stable in the long term. The new material is stronger and lasts longer than steel.

Scientists have developed a new kind of high quality metal alloy that is suitable to use in building nuclear reactors. While it might not be a metal that has been invented entirely from scratch, it’s only recently that we have been able to produce this kind (this quality) of metal. And it could mean great things for nuclear technologies.

Harvesting Nuclear Power

One of the primary problems with nuclear power is that steel typically only lasts around 40 years before it weakens and becomes too defective to use. High-entropy alloys could be the solution to this current problem, as this material is stronger (and safer) than steel.

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