MIT chemical engineers have created a new material that is stronger than steel and as light as plastic and can be easily manufactured in large quantities.
Metallizing diamond opens new application opportunities [Full subscriber]
Long known as the hardest of all-natural materials, diamonds are also exceptional thermal conductors and electrical insulators. Now, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore have discovered a way to tweak tiny needles of diamond in a controlled way to transform their electronic properties, dialling them from insulating, through semiconducting, all the way to highly conductive, or metallic. This can be induced dynamically and reversed at will, with no degradation of the diamond material.
Combination of cellulose and silk protein – a superior alternative to plastic [Registered]
Silk and cellulose are biopolymers that show strong potential as future sustainable materials. They also have complementary properties, suitable for combination in composite materials where cellulose would form the reinforcing component and silk the tough matrix. A major challenge concerns balancing structure and functional properties in the assembly process. Now Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland researchers have succeeded in overcoming this challenge.
New eco-friendly material from wood could reduce energy use in buildings [Full subscriber]
Swedish researchers have developed a building material made of transparent wood that can store and release heat. The material can bear heavy loads and could replace some of the glass traditionally used in homes and buildings, helping to reduce energy consumption.
Researchers create super wood that is stronger than titanium alloys [Registered]
Synthetic structural materials with exceptional mechanical performance suffer from either large weight and adverse environmental impact (for example, steels and alloys) or complex manufacturing processes and thus high cost (for example, polymer-based and biomimetic composites). The mechanical performance of natural wood (its strength and toughness) is unsatisfactory for many advanced engineering structures and applications. Engineers from the University of Maryland have developed a process that makes the treated wood 12 times stronger than natural wood and 10 times tougher. The researchers also believe it’s comparable — if not stronger than — many titanium alloys, and it’s a significantly cheaper resource.
Mussels inspire creation of strong and flexible polymers [Registered]
A network of loosely-linked polymers mimicking a mussel’s adhesive qualities offers a way to make materials that are both strong and flexible, elements that have been widely sought but hard to produce. The conventional approach of reinforcing polymers includes the use of fillers and results in a trade-off between stiffness and stretchiness.
New material that contracts when heated holds great industrial potential [Registered]
Machines and devices used in modern industry are required to withstand harsh conditions. When the environmental temperature changes, the volume of the materials used to make these devices usually changes slightly, typically by less than 0.01%. Although this may seem like a trivial change, over time this thermal expansion can seriously degrade the performance of industrial systems and equipment.
Researchers invent world’s first “porous liquid” [Registered]
Porous solids such as zeolites and metal–organic frameworks are useful in molecular separation and in catalysis, but their solid nature can impose limitations. For example, liquid solvents, rather than porous solids, are the most mature technology for post-combustion capture of carbon dioxide because liquid circulation systems are more easily retrofitted to existing plants. Solid porous adsorbents offer major benefits, such as lower energy penalties in adsorption–desorption cycles4, but they are difficult to implement in conventional flow processes. Materials that combine the properties of fluidity and permanent porosity could therefore offer technological advantages, but permanent porosity is not associated with conventional liquids.
Monthly Snapshot
Raw sugar for March delivery settled at 19.82 cents/pound on January 18 after reaching a two-and-a-half-week high earlier in the session at 20.25 cents. The white sugar contract expiring in […]
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