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Category: materials – Page 380
Scientists Have Invented a Graphene-Based Sieve That Turns Seawater Into Drinking Water
Researchers have achieved a major turning point in the quest for efficient desalination by announcing the invention of a graphene-oxide membrane that sieves salt right out of seawater.
At this stage, the technique is still limited to the lab, but it’s a demonstration of how we could one day quickly and easily turn one of our most abundant resources, seawater, into one of our most scarce — clean drinking water.
The team, led by Rahul Nair from the University of Manchester in the UK, has shown that the sieve can efficiently filter out salts, and now the next step is to test this against existing desalination membranes.
3D printing takes-off
In recent years 3D printing of aerospace components has made great strides with ever larger parts, faster production and synergy with other materials, including composites. AEROSPACE gets an update on the latest progress from Scott Sevcik, Head of Manufacturing Solutions at international 3D printing company Stratasys.
Scott Sevcik, Head of Manufacturing Solutions, Stratasys. (Stratasys)
An Accidental Discovery Shows Artificial Atoms Can Quickly Self-Assemble
Scientists have observed that superlattices can form incredibly during the routine synthesis of nanocrystals. This accidental discovery will mean the ability to form novel materials in a matter of seconds instead of days.
Some of the tiniest crystals in the world can, together, form superlattices, the basic elements of various novel materials. These crystals are also called “artificial atoms,” because they can organize themselves into structures that look a lot like molecules.
Scientists create colour-changing electronic SKIN
Researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing have now developed a new type of electronic skin, with a colour change easily seen at just 0–10 per cent strain.
The material is made from graphene — a form of pure carbon that is 200 times stronger than steel.
Two layers of graphene are included — a highly-resistive strain sensor, alongside a stretchable organic electrochromic device (ECD) that changes colour when a current is applied.
Moon’s interior may hold way more water than we thought
Previously, scientists from Brown detected trace amounts of water in similar volcanic samples — which are composed of loose material or “glass beads” — brought back to Earth from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions. However, the Apollo samples were not collected from the large pyroclastic deposits mapped using the satellite data in the recent study. This brought into question whether the Apollo samples represent a large portion of the moon’s “wet” interior or if they represent only a small water-rich region within an otherwise “dry” mantle.
Related: Moon Express Reveals Bold New Plan to Explore Solar System
“Our work shows that nearly all of the large pyroclastic deposits also contain water, so this seems to be a common characteristic of magmas that come from the deep lunar interior,” Milliken said. “That is, most of the mantle of the moon may be ‘wet.’”.
NASA is working out how to create rocket fuel on Mars
Sending humans to Mars involves deep space missions that could last months, but shipping material there is costly; the price of transporting 1kg on Earth increases by a factor of 100 on a Martian mission. If the ultimate goal is to establish a long-term base on Mars, we’ll need make use of materials found on humanity’s greatest ever voyage.
“For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled
Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.” Carl Sagan.
Mars colonization — Wanderers and Gosh by Erik Wernquist.
https://magpieaesthetic.com/erik-wernquist-beautiful-vision-of-whats-beyond/
Researchers create temperature sensor that runs on almost no power
Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a temperature sensor that runs on tiny amounts of power — just 113 picowatts, around 10 billion times less power than a watt. The sensor was described in a study recently published in Scientific Reports. “We’re building systems that have such low power requirements that they could potentially run for years on just a tiny battery,” Hui Wang, an author of the study, said in a statement.
The team created the device by reducing power in two areas. The first was the current source. To do that, they made use of a phenomenon that many researchers in their field are actually trying to get rid of. Transistors often have a gate with which they can stop the flow of electrons in a circuit, but transistors keep getting tinier and tinier. The smaller they get, the thinner the gate material becomes and electrons start to leak through it — a problem called “gate leakage.” Here, the leaked electrons are what’s powering the sensor. “Many researchers are trying to get rid of leakage current, but we are exploiting it to build an ultra-low power current source,” said Hui.
The researchers also reduced power in the way the sensor converts temperature to a digital readout. The result is a temperature sensor that uses 628 times less power than the current state-of-the-art sensors.