Smart materials used in ultrasound behave similar to water, Penn chemists report

19-Jun-2017 - A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is gaining new insight into the smart materials used in ultrasound technology. While forming the most thorough model to date of how these materials work, they have found striking similarities with the behavior of water. The research was led ...

Grant focuses on 'hydrogen sponge' for use in fuel-cell vehicles

16-Jun-2017 - Finding practical hydrogen storage technologies for vehicles powered by fuel cells is the focus of a $682,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, awarded to Mike Chung, professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State. Chung's recent research on superabsorbent polymers, which ...

The first nanometrically-sized superelastic alloy

14-Jun-2017 - UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country's researchers have explored superelasticity properties on a nanometric scale based on shearing an alloy's pillars down to nanometric size. The researchers have found that below one micron in diameter the material behaves differently and requires much ...

New form of carbon that's hard as a rock, yet elastic, like rubber

13-Jun-2017 - A team including several Carnegie scientists has developed a form of ultrastrong, lightweight carbon that is also elastic and electrically conductive. A material with such a unique combination of properties could serve a wide variety of applications from aerospace engineering to military ...

Unprecedented view of the diffusion and rotation of fullerene molecules by graphene encapsulation

13-Jun-2017 - Carbon is one of the most versatile elements: it forms the basis for an enormous number of chemical compounds, it has several allotropes of different dimensionality, and it exhibits many different bonding geometries. For this reason, carbon materials have had a special place in materials research ...

Revolutionary new materials for troubled carbon times

Super filters the world can afford

07-Jun-2017 - Around 2800BC, the ancient inhabitants of Ur, Mesopotamia made a discovery that was to change civilization. They learned that if they blended copper and tin into an alloy, the new composite material was stronger, more useful, and more valuable than any man-made substance to date. It gave its name ...

'Miracle material' discovery could end cracked smart devices

06-Jun-2017 - Currently, most parts of a smart phone are made of silicon and other compounds, which are expensive and break easily, but with almost 1.5 billion smart phones purchased worldwide last year, manufacturers are on the lookout for something more durable and less costly. Dr Elton Santos from Queen's ...

Low cost, scalable water-splitting fuels the future hydrogen economy

06-Jun-2017 - The "clean-energy economy" always seems a few steps away but never quite here. Fossil fuels still power transportation, heating and cooling, and manufacturing, but a team of scientists from Penn State and Florida State University have come one step closer to inexpensive, clean hydrogen fuel with ...

Off-the-shelf, power-generating clothes are almost here

24-May-2017 - A lightweight, comfortable jacket that can generate the power to light up a jogger at night may sound futuristic, but materials scientist Trisha Andrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst could make one today. In a new paper this month, she and colleagues outline how they have invented a ...

Wafer-thin Magnetic Materials Developed for Future Quantum Technologies

24-May-2017 - Two-dimensional magnetic structures are regarded as a promising material for new types of data storage, since the magnetic properties of individual molecular building blocks can be investigated and modified. For the first time, researchers have now produced a wafer-thin ferrimagnet, in which ...