Materials – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Nov 1
2018

Graphene Computing & 3D Integrated Circuits

This video is the fourth in a multi-part series discussing computing. In this video, weíll be discussing computing performance and efficiency as well as how the computer industry plans on maximizing them.

[0:25–1:55] Starting off we’ll look at, how computing performance is measured and its rate of increase since the mid-1900s.

[1:55–8:05] Following that we’ll discuss, new classical computing paradigms that will push the computer industry forward past 2020. These paradigm shifts are 3D integrated circuits and the use of new materials such as graphene.

[8:05–10:15] To conclude we’ll summarize and wrap up many of the concepts we’ve discussed over this and the past few videos in this series!

Oct 28
2018

Scientists Say New Material Could Hold up an Actual Space Elevator

This is a breakthrough.

Oct 25
2018

SodaStream deploys an ocean-sweeper to clean up plastic waste in the Caribbean Sea

SodaStream and NGO Plastic Soup are battling plastics in the Caribbean Sea armed with a unique vessel, the “Holy Turtle,” and a coalition of local schoolkids.

Oct 23
2018

People Are Living Inside Landfills As The World Drowns In Its Own Trash

If it floats, is it a ‘lifeboat’?

While the oceans fill up with plastic waste, a horrifying crisis unfolds on land.

Oct 22
2018

Researchers switch material from one state to another with a single flash of light

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have demonstrated a surprisingly simple way of flipping a material from one state into another, and then back again, with single flashes of laser light.

Oct 21
2018

Scientists Create Artificial Wood That Is Water- and Fire-Resistant

The synthetic material is faster to make than natural wood.

Oct 16
2018

Molecular semiconductors could be the future of electronics, and this new technique offers a way to mass produce them

Visions for what we can do with future electronics depend on finding ways to go beyond the capabilities of silicon conductors. The experimental field of molecular electronics is thought to represent a way forward, and recent work at KTH may enable scalable production of the nanoscale electrodes that are needed in order to explore molecules and exploit their behavior as potentially valuable electronic materials.

Oct 12
2018

Researchers quickly harvest 2-D materials, bringing them closer to commercialization

Since the 2003 discovery of the single-atom-thick carbon material known as graphene, there has been significant interest in other types of 2-D materials as well.

Oct 12
2018

A novel topological insulator

For the first time, physicists have built a unique topological insulator in which optical and electronic excitations hybridize and flow together. They report their discovery in Nature.

Topological insulators are materials with very special properties. They conduct electricity or light particles only on their surface or edges, not the interior. This unusual characteristic could provide technical innovations, and topological insulators have been the subject of intense global research for several years.

Physicists of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany, with colleagues from the Technion in Haifa, Israel, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have reported their discovery in the journal Nature. The team has built the first “exciton-polariton topological insulator,” a topological insulator operating with both light and electronic excitations simultaneously.

Oct 4
2018

New fuel cell concept brings biological design to better electricity generation

Fuel cells have long been viewed as a promising power source. These devices, invented in the 1830s, generate electricity directly from chemicals, such as hydrogen and oxygen, and produce only water vapor as emissions. But most fuel cells are too expensive, inefficient, or both.

In a new approach, inspired by biology and published today (Oct. 3, 2018) in the journal Joule, a University of Wisconsin-Madison team has designed a fuel cell using cheaper materials and an organic compound that shuttles electrons and protons.

In a traditional fuel cell, the electrons and protons from hydrogen are transported from one electrode to another, where they combine with oxygen to produce water. This process converts chemical energy into electricity. To generate a meaningful amount of charge in a short enough amount of time, a catalyst is needed to accelerate the reactions.