HEADLINES ARCHIVE
Ocean Cleanup System Faces First Open-Water Test
The scalable array of floating barriers moves plastics toward the center of the structure, enabling a central platform to extract and store the debris until it is transported to land for recycling.
Partners to Develop Graphene Aerospace Apps
The work will develop graphene-reinforced aluminum matrix composites, an area in which BIAM has advanced the state of research.
Ultra-High-Efficiency Solar Energy Cell Created
The design is founded on antenna array principles whereby a wedge prism serves as a continuous phased array coupler to a waveguide.
Vapor-Grown MOFs Could Yield More Powerful Electronics
Just as a smartphone doesn’t like being dropped in water, so electronic devices don’t like the liquid solvent that’s used to grow MOF crystals.
Polymer Breakthrough Could Improve Water Purification
A porous form of cyclodextrin displays uptake of pollutants through adsorption at rates up to 200 times greater than carbon filters.
MOF Could Scrub CO2 From Coal Gas
The new MOF exhibits a working capacity two orders of magnitude higher than the commercial zeolite-13x, making it suitable for industrial use.
Nanoparticle-Free Ink Enables Ballpoint-Drawn Circuits
The ink-drawn circuit endured various deformations, such as bending, stretching and twisting without affecting performance.
Correlated Metals Could Enable Less-Expensive Displays
In correlated metals electronics move like a liquid, which researchers say produces high optical transparency and high conductivity.
Fibers Could Make Materials Stronger and Greener
Researchers have developed a method for spinning polyethylene fibers from natural fats, such as oils from olives and peanuts.
Freeze-Casting Fabricates Advanced Porous Materials
Applications for materials made with this technique may include medical implants such as bone/orthopedic implants.
Bitumen Additive Could Help De-Ice Roads
Mixing salt potassium formate with styrene-butadiene-styrene and adding it to bitumen delays ice formation in lab studies for up to two months.
Stretchable Sensor Made from Chewing Gum, Carbon Nanotubes
To make their sensor suppler, a team member chewed a piece of gum, washed it with ethanol and let it sit overnight.
Bio-Based Building Materials: Low Carbon and Energy-Efficient
Bio-based construction materials can achieve a 50% reduction in embodied energy and CO2 emissions at the component level.
Method Cleans Mine Water in Hours, Not Months
Mines can re-use water from settling ponds only a bit at a time—the part skimmed off the top. The rest of the water is useless, and the land those ponds occupy could be used for other purposes.
Metal Particles: Clean Fuel of the Future?
The idea takes advantage of a property of metal powders: when burned, they react with air to form stable, nontoxic solid-oxide products that can be collected for recycling.
"Invisible Wires" Could Boost Solar Cell Efficiency
Nanopillars act as funnels that capture light and guide it to a silicon substrate.
Brick Improves Seismic Wave Absorption in Buildings
Laboratory tests suggest that partition walls incorporating the product can better absorb horizontal movements.
Wood By-Product Used to Create Jet Fuel
Lignin is an abundant renewable carbon sources, with 40 to 50 million tons produced annually worldwide.
Row-bot Eats Microbes, Powers Itself
The Row-bot mimics the way that an aquatic insect moves and feeds on organisms in the water.
Eliminating "Springback" in High-Strength Steel
High-strength steels are used in automotive structural components to help them withstand impacts without adding weight.