Lifeboat Foundation

The material will reduce structural material costs by approximately 40 times.

The University of Hong Kong.

In terms of steam methane reforming, the material is used in the construction of reformers, heat exchangers, and other components of the process as it is particularly well-suited to withstand high temperatures and corrosive environments.

Continue reading “New stainless steel boosts green hydrogen production from seawater” »

The unfrozen water-filled channels that crisscross multicrystal ice help feed ice growth, which can lead to fractures in materials such as asphalt and cement.

We have developed an automated and high-throughput, three-dimensional, vision-controlled inkjet deposition process that enables the high-resolution, contactless printing of a range of materials with varying elastic moduli to create complex structures and robots.

This is almost like endowing a printer with a set of eyes and a brain, where the eyes observe what is being printed, and then the brain of the machine directs it as to what should be printed next.

Moritz Hocher.

Traditional systems use nozzles to deposit tiny drops of resin, smoothed over with a scraper or roller and then curved with UV light. However, this smoothing limits the materials that could be used since slow-curing resins could be squished or smeared.

Continue reading “This new 3D printer has eyes, a brain, and prints perfectly” »

The apparatus can be easily replicated by other laboratories accelerating the entry of metamaterials in the real world.

Eurekalert.

Metamaterials are products made from everyday materials such as polymers, ceramics, and metals. When mixed in the right proportions and constructed precisely at microscales, these materials can assume extraordinary properties.

Continue reading “MIT researchers use ultrasonic laser pulses to probe metamaterials” »

New materials developed at the University of Surrey could pave the way for a new generation of flexible X-ray detectors, with potential applications ranging from cancer treatment to better airport scanners.

Traditionally, X-ray detectors are made of heavy, rigid material such as silicon or germanium. New, flexible detectors are cheaper and can be shaped around the objects that need to be scanned, improving accuracy when screening patients and reducing risk when imaging tumors and administering radiotherapy.

Dr. Prabodhi Nanayakkara, who led the research at the University of Surrey, said, “This new material is flexible, low-cost, and sensitive. But what’s exciting is that this material is tissue equivalent. This paves the way for live dosimetry, which just isn’t possible with current technology.”

“This work brings us a step closer to realizing the full potential of physical reservoirs to create computers that not only require significantly less energy, but also adapt their computational properties to perform optimally across various tasks, just like our brains,” said Dr. Oscar Lee.

A recent study published in Nature Materials examines a breakthrough approach in physical reservoir computing, also known as a neuromorphic or brain-inspired method and involves using a material’s physical properties to adhere to a myriad of machine learning duties. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers and holds the potential to help physical reservoir computing serve as a framework towards making machine learning more energy efficient.

Artist rendition of connected chiral (twisted) magnets used as a computing avenue for brain-inspired, physical reservoir computing. (Credit: Dr. Oscar Lee)

Continue reading “Next-Gen Computing: Chiral Magnets Reshape the Landscape of Reservoir Computing” »

The collaborative study seeks to revolutionize reservoir computing by mirroring the adaptability of the human brain.

Dr. Oscar Lee.

The team utilized chiral (twisted) magnets as a computational medium, employing an external magnetic field and temperature variations to adapt the material’s physical properties for diverse machine-learning tasks.

Continue reading “Twisted magnets can save energy in brain inspired computing” »

This work explores the potential for additive manufacturing to be used to fabricate ultraviolet light-blocking or photocatalytic materials with in situ resource utilization, using a titania foam as a model system. Direct foam writing was used to deposit titania-based foam lines in microgravity using parabolic flight. The wet foam was based on titania primary particles and a titania precursor (Ti (IV) bis(ammonium lactato) dihydroxide). Lines were also printed in Earth gravity and their resulting properties were compared with regard to average cross-sectional area, height, and width. The cross-sectional height was found to be higher when printing at low speeds in microgravity compared to Earth gravity, but lower when printing at high speeds in microgravity compared to Earth gravity. It was also observed that volumetric flow rate was generally higher when writing in Earth gravity compared to microgravity. Additionally, heterogeneous photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue was studied to characterize the foams for water purification and was found to generally increase as the foam heat treatment temperature increased. Optical and scanning electron microscopies were used to observe foam morphology. X-ray diffraction spectroscopy was used to study the change in crystallinity with respect to temperature. Contact angle of water was found to increase on the surface of the foam as ultraviolet light exposure time increased. Additionally, the foam blocked more ultraviolet light over time when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Finally, bubble coarsening measurements were taken to observe bubble radius growth over time.