New recycling method replenishes lithium in electrodes while keeping existing structure intact - and performance is nearly as good as new ones

05-May-2021

The proliferation of electric cars, smartphones, and portable devices is leading to an estimated 25 percent increase globally in the manufacturing of rechargeable batteries each year. Many raw materials used in the batteries, such as cobalt, may soon be in short supply. The European Commission is ...

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25-Feb-2020

In a study published in Advanced Materials, researchers at Aalto University, the University of Tokyo, Sichuan University, and the University of British Columbia have demonstrated that plant-derived cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) can form an adhesive that fully integrates the concepts of ...

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06-Dec-2019

Researchers in Finland are "training" pieces of plastic to walk under the command of light. The method developed, published December 4 in the journal Matter, is the first time a synthetic actuator "learns" to do new "tricks" based on its past experiences, without computer programming. These ...

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21-Nov-2019

Scientists at Aalto University, Finland, and Nagoya University, Japan, have found a new way to make ultra-clean carbon nanotube transistors with superior semiconducting properties. Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) have found many uses in electronics and new touch screen devices. Carbon ...

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New method expands knowledge of carbon-based materials

18-Nov-2019

Sensors manufactured with carbon-based materials can provide uniquely accurate and real-time information on hereditary diseases or the concentrations of drugs in the body. In addition to medicine, carbonaceous materials are used in batteries, solar cells and water purification. Other elements, ...

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14-Aug-2019

A research team from Aalto University has developed a novel strategy to create virus-based materials for catalysis. The project, which is framed within the Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions, aims to pave the way towards the application of optically active biohybrid materials - a ...

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New metasurfaces can even split energy into more than one

20-Feb-2019

In our daily lives, we can find many examples of manipulation of reflected waves such as mirrors to see our reflections or reflective surfaces for sound that improve auditorium acoustics. When a wave impinges on a reflective surface with a certain angle of incidence and the energy is sent back, ...

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A pathway to recreate possible conditions of the early universe here on earth

18-Jan-2019

For the first time, researchers have documented the long-predicted occurrence of 'walls bound by strings' in superfluid helium-3. The existence of such an object, originally foreseen by cosmology theorists, may help explaining how the universe cooled down after the Big Bang. With the newfound ...

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18-Apr-2018

Nearly a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose predicted that quantum mechanics can force a large number of particles to behave in concert as if they were only a single particle. The phenomenon is called Bose-Einstein condensation, and it took until 1995 to create the first ...

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29-Nov-2017

Wetting is an everyday phenomenon that represents how well liquid spreads on a surface. When water comes into contact with an extremely water-repellent, or 'superhydrophobic' surface, droplets bead up and roll off easily. Aalto University researchers have developed a measurement technique called ...

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