Researchers Create New Lightweight 18-Carat Gold That Weighs 5 to 10 Times Less
ETH researchers have created an incredibly lightweight 18-carat gold, using a matrix of plastic in place of metallic alloy elements. Lovers of gold watches and…
Polymers
New Solid Polymer-Based Electrolyte Helps Batteries Become Self-Healing, Recyclable
Lithium-ion batteries are notorious for developing internal electrical shorts that can ignite a battery’s liquid electrolytes, leading to explosions and fires. Engineers at the University…
New Biodegradable Adhesive Provides Environmentally Friendly Alternative
Sustainable Adhesives of the Future Won’t Stick Around Plastics of the future should, ideally for the health of the planet and our own bodies, be…
Incredible New Polymer Fibers Are Ultra Light and Super Strong
Researchers at the University of Bayreuth develop unique multifibrillar fibers. Strong and tough yet as light as a feather – materials with this exceptional combination…
Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Valuable Chemicals With Sunlight
Chemists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have discovered a method that could turn plastic waste into valuable chemicals by using sunlight. In lab…
Switchable Optical Nanoantennas Made From a Conducting Polymer
Creating switchable plasmons in plastics: Conductive polymer nanoantennas for dynamic organic plasmonics. Researchers in the Organic Photonics and Nano-optics group at the Laboratory of Organic…
Forget ‘Super’ Glue, Scientists Develop New ‘Hyper’ Glue
Cross-Linking Technology Tightly Binds Where Commercial Glues Cannot With many of the products we use every day held together by adhesives, researchers from UBC’s Okanagan…
“Venus Flytrap” Bio-Sensors Engineered to Snare Pollutants
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have created a suite of new biological sensors by chemically re-engineering pigments to act like tiny Venus flytraps. The sensors…
Pavlov’s Soft Robot: Liquid Crystal Polymer Learns to Move and Grab Objects
Researchers trained material the same way as Pavlov trained dogs. Conditioning is a method made famous by Ivan Pavlov’s experiments with dogs. Pavlov trained a…
Material Synthesized That Can Increase/Decrease Volume by 100x Controlled by Electrical Signal
Reversible electronic solid-gel switching of a conjugated polymer. Researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics have discovered a material that can both increase and reduce…
Superfast Charging High-Capacity Potassium Batteries Based on Organic Polymers
Skoltech researchers in collaboration with scientists from the Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics of RAS and the Ural Federal University have shown that high-capacity…
Turning Waste Plastic Into Filtration Membranes
Discarded PET bottles could find a new life in the chemical industry. In a world that seems to be drowning in plastic bottles, recycling this…
Turning Waste Heat Into Hydrogen Fuel Using Reverse Electrodialysis
Using waste heat helps cut cost of producing hydrogen. Hydrogen as an energy carrier can help us move away from fossil fuels, but only if…
New Clear, Conductive Coating for Improved Protection of Touch Screens and Solar Cells
New material should be relatively easy to produce at an industrial scale, researchers say. MIT researchers have improved on a transparent, conductive coating material, producing…
New ‘Self-Cleaning’ Concrete Is Also Strong, Heat-Insulating and Soundproof
Building materials that clean themselves could save immense time and labor in homes and businesses, as well as reduce disease risk in settings such as…
US Army Synthetic Biology Research Advances Toward New Class of High-Performance Materials
Synthetic biologists working on a U.S. Army project have developed a process that could lead to a new class of synthetic polymers that may create…
Tubulane Inspired Ultrahard Polymers Are Full of Holes, but Stop Bullets Better Than Solid Materials
Theoretical tubulanes inspire ultrahard polymers: Rice University-printed sample is full of holes, but stops bullets better than solid materials. A lightweight material full of holes…
Nutrient Encapsulating Microparticles Could Help Fight Malnutrition
New strategy for encapsulating nutrients makes it easier to fortify foods with iron and vitamin A. About 2 billion people around the world suffer from…