Rolling particles make suspensions more fluid

First measurement of the rolling friction of tiny, micrometre-sized particles

14-Apr-2025 - Lacquers, paint, concrete—and even ketchup or orange juice: Suspensions are widespread in industry and everyday life. By a suspension, materials scientists mean a liquid in which tiny, insoluble solid particles are evenly distributed. If the concentration of particles in such a mixture is very ...

A chemical reactor has been invented that can store energy without loss for months

The energy can then be used for heating in winter

11-May-2022 - Storing energy over the long term is arguably the biggest unsolved problem of the energy transition. A new type of chemical heat storage system has now been invented at TU Wien (Vienna) that can store large amounts of energy in an environmentally friendly way for a virtually unlimited period of ...

New images lead to better prediction of shear thickening

It's relevant to everything from oil & gas to pharma manufacturing to food processing to chemical manufacturing

11-Oct-2021 - For the first time, researchers have been able capture images providing unprecedented details of how particles behave in a liquid suspension when the phenomenon known as shear thickening takes place. The work allows us to directly understand the processes behind shear thickening, which had ...

It all comes down to roughness

How the surface characteristics of microspheres affect rapid increases in the viscosity of suspensions

04-May-2018 - Lucio Isa and his team of researchers have explained how the surface characteristics of microspheres affect rapid increases in the viscosity of suspensions, thus laying the groundwork for applications such as smoothly flowing cement. The internet is full of videos of people having fun running ...

Liquid shock absorbers

10-Nov-2017 - Remarkable liquid materials called colloids stiffen under impact. Researchers funded by the SNSF have studied the effect of powerful impacts such as those produced by firearms or micrometeorites. At first glance, colloids resemble homogeneous liquids such as milk or blood plasma. But in fact ...

LUM GmbH opens own application laboratory in Paris

02-Oct-2014 - The new application lab of LUM GmbH opened in Plaisir, a Western suburb of Paris, on October, 1st 2014. „The opening of the application laboratory is the next logical step in the further development of the French market for LUM products as well as for the optimum customer service in France. It is ...

Synthesize new metal-free electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction

31-Oct-2013 - A Korean research team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), S. Korea, developed a high performance and stable metal-free electrocatalyst for ORR and the research work was published in a science journal, Nanoscale by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Limited availability ...