Classes of materials

Ceramics (14)
Coloring material (3)
Composite materials (6)
Crystals (32)
Magnetic materials (1)
Metal alloys (22)
Metals (51)
Plastic (89)
Polymers (224)
Rubber (1)

Synopsis: Materials: Materials generale: Classes of materials:

capable of generating electricity on glass and flexible plastics, today announced that its technology has set a new record for generating electricity

which generates electricity on see-through glass and flexible plastics with colored tints popular to skyscraper glass.

Rogers says the whole system is about as stiff as the plastic used to make food wrappers.

The Refresh water-bag is a composite of modules which can combine to form a 20m-long,

In addition, because many of these materials are derived plastics from fossil fuels, they also increase the impact on climate change.

With the above in mind, a European research project has developed new environmentally friendly materials that can replace oil-based plastic films used in packaging for food

These materials can compete with plastic films and other flexible packaging in terms of performance and cost, but have a much lower environmental impact.

The broomrape or Orobanche does not use chlorophyll, the green pigment critical for photosynthesis in most plants,

'where the plastic with the insecticide-coated netting replaces a brick removed from a wall.

or even plastics. Fischer-Tropsch derived fuels are certified already and can be used by existing vehicles and aircraft without modifications of their engines or of fuel infrastructure.

and scan for infection for exampleâ##synthetic gene circuits are especially useful for detecting things like contaminants pesticides heavy metals and counterfeit drugs.##

and further through metal than they do through air. With this principle in mind Poon designed a power source that generated a special type of near-field wave.

#New polymer makes solar cells more efficient Solar cells made from polymers have the potential to be cheap and lightweight

A polymer is a type of large molecule that forms plastics and other familiar materials. he field is rather immature it s in the infancy stagesays Luping Yu a professor in chemistry at the University of Chicago.

Now a team of researchers led by Yu has identified a new polymer that allows electrical charges to move more easily through the cell boosting electricity production. olymer solar cells have great potential to provide low-cost lightweight

The active regions of such solar cells are composed of a mixture of polymers that give and receive electrons to generate electrical current

The new polymer developed by Yu s group called PID2 improves the efficiency of electrical power generation by 15 percent

when added to a standard polymer-fullerene mixture. ullerene a small carbon molecule is one of the standard materials used in polymer solar cellslu says. asically in polymer solar cells we have a polymer as electron donor

and fullerene as electron acceptor to allow charge separation. n their work the researchers added another polymer into the device resulting in solar cells with two polymers and one fullerene.

when an optimal amount of PID2 was added the highest ever for solar cells made up of two types of polymers with fullerene

The group which includes researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory is now working to push efficiencies toward 10 percent a benchmark necessary for polymer solar cells to be viable for commercial application.

The standard mechanism for improving efficiency with a third polymer is by increasing the absorption of light in the device.

when PID2 was added charges were transported more easily between polymers and throughout the cell. In order for a current to be generated by the solar cell electrons must be transferred from polymer to fullerene within the device.

But the difference between electron energy levels for the standard polymer-fullerene is large enough that electron transfer between them is difficult.

PID2 has energy levels in between the other two and acts as an intermediary in the process. t s like a stepyu says. hen it s too high it s hard to climb up

but if you put in the middle another step then you can easily walk up. he addition of PID2 caused the polymer blend to form fibers

professor at Stanford university. his is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low.

It s quite remarkable because normally you need expensive metals like platinum or iridium to achieve that voltage. n addition to producing hydrogen the new water splitter could be used to make chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide an important industrial chemical according to Dai.

and long durabilitydai says. hen we found out that a nickel-based catalyst is as effective as platinum it came as a complete surprise. tanford graduate student Ming Gong co-lead author of the study made the discovery. ing discovered a nickel-metal

The lowinginfrared light is guided to the edge of the plastic where it is converted to electricity by thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells. ecause the materials do not absorb

and turns the neat trick of converting gaseous carbon dioxide into solid polymer chains that nestle in the pores. obody s ever seen a mechanism like thistour says. ou ve got to have that nucleophile (the sulfur

or nitrogen atoms) to start the polymerization reaction. This would never work on simple activated carbon; the key is that the polymer forms

and provides continuous selectivity for carbon dioxide. ethane ethane and propane molecules that make up natural gas may try to stick to the carbon

but the growing polymer chains simply push them off he says. The researchers treated their carbon source with potassium hydroxide at 600 degrees Celsius to produce the powders with either sulfur

After heating it to 600 degrees C for the one-step synthesis from inexpensive industrial polymers the final carbon material has a surface area of 2500 square meters per gram

which is exposed to different types of pollution from agrochemical residues to metals from leather tanneries.

Today steel pipes will soon be replaced with tomorrow air pipes, and we will forget what life was like

#New 3d printed materials lighter than water and as strong as steel A Nanoscribe 3d printer can print models of the Empire state building in a space the width of a human hair using precision lasers.

believe such 3d printers may help craft a new generation of materials lighter than water and strong as steel.

Today, the sturdiest materials tend to be the densest (like metals and the least dense materials tend to be the weakest (like foams.

and hardens a droplet of liquid plastic on a slide. A computer moves the plate under the laser,

and to further strengthen the polymer, they coated it with a thin film of alumina (aluminum oxide).

it would floatand as strong as some steel alloys. See video of their experimentation at the bottom.

etched into the shape needed to make an electrode, onto pieces of polymer. The polymers they used are transparent,

and one polyethylene terephthalate (PET) can be bent, whereas the other polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is stretchable. The resulting films conduct electricity better than any other sample of graphene produced in the past.

Until recently high-quality graphene has been hard to make on a large scale. To produce their graphene,

Hong and his colleagues used a technique that is well known in the semiconductor industry chemical vapour deposition.

And when stamped onto the polymer, they can be bent or stretched by as much as 11%without losing their conductivity.

but is used in everything from stainless steel to rechargeable batteries. Rare-earth elements are concentrated much less at around 0. 1,

and his students fabricated filaments from silicone-based rubber, and rigged a spool to automatically reel out the wire onto a conveyor belt.

During the first stage, pigments such as chlorophyll absorb light, which excites electrons that flow through the thylakoid membranes of the chloroplast.

When the target molecule binds to a polymer wrapped around the nanotube, it alters the tube fluorescence. e could someday use these carbon nanotubes to make sensors that detect in real time, at the single-particle level,

Brandl had synthesized previously polymers that could be cleaved apart by exposure to UV LIGHT. But he and Bertrand came to question their suitability for drug delivery,

because we saw that the particles aggregate once you irradiate them with UV LIGHT. trap for ater-fearingpollutionthe researchers synthesized polymers from polyethylene glycol,

and polylactic acid, a biodegradable plastic used in compostable cups and glassware. Nanoparticles made from these polymers have a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic shell.

Due to molecular-scale forces in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles,

In that case, both the plastic and the oil-based sauce are hydrophobic and interact together.

hormone-disrupting chemicals used to soften plastics, from wastewater; BPA, another endocrine-disrupting synthetic compound widely used in plastic bottles and other resinous consumer goods, from thermal printing paper samples;

and the polymers are biodegradable, minimizing the risks of leaving toxic secondary products to persist in,

from environmental remediation to medical analysis. The polymers are synthesized at room temperature, and don need to be prepared specially to target specific compounds;

This is very straightforward rapid'cooking'of a metal-organic precursor in boiling water. The precursor compound is a solid tin alkoxide a material analogous to cost-efficient and broadly available titanium alkoxides.

nanoparticles comprised of a nontoxic biodegradable polymer matrix and insect derived double-stranded ribonucleic acid or dsrna.

and mechanical strength but made from a metal (in this case molybdenum combined with sulphur). This new class of thin metal/sulphide materials known as transition metal di-chalcogenides (TMDCS) has become an exciting complimentary material to graphene.

However unlike graphene TMDCS can also emit light allowing applications such as photodetectors and light emitting devices to be manufactured.

The light in these terahertz wavelengths can pass through materials that we normally think of as opaque such as skin plastics clothing and cardboard.

The prototype uses two electrical leads made of different metals which conduct electrons at different rates.

which was key to creating the composite two-dimensional semiconductor. Collaborators from the electron microscopy center at the University of Warwick in England found that all the atoms in both materials formed a single honeycomb lattice structure, without any distortions or discontinuities.

and deposited as single-layer crystals in the shape of triangles. After a while, evaporated atoms from the second material then attached to the edges of the triangle to create a seamless semiconducting heterojunction."

On a small scale, it takes about five minutes to grow the crystals, with up to two hours of heating and cooling time."

and it's extremely strong its tensile strength is even stronger than steel Hunt said. Air doesn't damage it.

Fortunately researchers have pinpointed now the breaking mechanism of several monolayer materials hundreds of times stronger than steel with exotic properties that could revolutionize everything from armor to electronics.

The team virtually examined this exotic phase transition in graphene boron nitride molybdenum disulfide and graphane all promising monolayer materials.

and whether they acted as metals semiconductors or insulators under strain. Toggling between or sustaining those conductive properties are particularly important for future applications in microelectronics.

Within the honeycomb-like lattices of monolayers like graphene boron nitride and graphane the atoms rapidly vibrate in place.

In the case of graphene boron nitride and graphane the backbone of the perfect crystalline lattice distorted toward isolated hexagonal rings.

The soft mode distortion ended up breaking graphene boron nitride and molybdenum disulfide. As the monolayers were strained the energetic cost of changing the bond lengths became significantly weaker in other words under enough stress the emergent soft mode encourages the atoms to rearrange themselves into unstable configurations.

"The researchers place the nanowires on the Shrinky Dinks plastic as they would for any other substrate,

"The plastic is clamped before baking so that it only shrinks in one direction, so that the wires pack together

The researchers also can control how densely the wires pack by varying the length of time the plastic is heated.

They also are exploring using lasers to precisely shrink the plastic in specific patterns. Nam first had the idea for using Shrinky Dinks plastic to assemble nanomaterials after seeing a microfluidics device that used channels made of shrinking plastic.

He realized that the high degree of shrinking and the low cost of plastic could have a huge impact on nanowire assembly and processing for applications."

"I'm interested in this concept of synthesizing new materials that are assembled from nanoscale building blocks, "Nam said."

For example, experiments have shown that film made of packed nanowires has properties that differ quite a bit from a crystal thin film."

and Complexity have succeeded in developing a new technology that introduces metal nanoparticles on the surface of polymer nanocapsules made of cucurbit 6 uril.

The researchers have found that using polymer nanocapsules made of cucurbit 6 uril and metal salts can serve as a versatile platform where equal sized metal nanoparticles can be distributed evenly on the surface of the polymer nanocapsules.

Cucurbit 6 uril has properties which strongly and selectively recognize organic and inorganic chemical species. This makes it possible to use it as a protecting agent

The metal nanoparticle-decorated polymer nanocapsules exhibit the following properties in water: high stability for up to 6 months;

The shirts are woven with a hydrophobic silica also known as silicon dioxide. Self Cleaning Clothing With Hydrophobic Nanotechnology as the Kickstarter says might be a vague enough claim to cause some concern

The motors are six-micrometer-long tubes with an outer polymer surface that holds a chemical enzyme carbonic anhydrase designed to speed up the reaction between carbon dioxide and water and form bicarbonate.

#Crystal breeding factory uncovered A breakthrough in understanding the way in which crystals develop will have a major impact for the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industries.

Lancaster University chemists in collaboration with international colleagues have uncovered a'Crystal Nuclei Breeding Factory'which, they say,

"Crystal'seeds'(very small crystals) are added to the process to act as a'template'to ensure more of the same shape

and size of crystals are produced.""""The rule of the garden isf you sow a single seed you should get a single plant.

However with crystals, a single seed causes thousands of new crystals to form, almost as if'breeding'is taking place.

Fluids, used in the process, shear the weakly tethered new crystals from the seed crystal surface allowing the surfaces to be further available for a repeat process

and the new crystals to go on to act as seed crystals themselves.""This is a big step forward,

size and type of crystals to design.""For some drugs, having the correct'handedness'is essential as you need the right key in the lock to make the drugs work.

Current ideas are that molecules of one of the mirror images came together and led to a chance formation of a mirror crystal which, subsequently, induced massive crystallisation of the same image."

"Thanks to this study, we now know how such a single crystal seed could have amplified its effect

and given rise to thousands of new crystals of the same image,"adds Professor Anwar A

#New Polymer Gel Could Create Edible Devices for Ultra-Long Drug Delivery A team of scientists has developed a polymer gel that could allow for the development of long-acting devices that reside in the stomach,

However, these devices, often created with nondegradable elastic polymers, bear an inherent risk of intestinal obstruction as a result of accidental fracture or migration.

Now, researchers at MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have created a polymer gel that overcomes this safety concern

This polymer is ph-responsive: It is stable in the acidic stomach environment but dissolves in the small intestine near-neutral ph,

and folding of devices into easily ingestible capsules meaning this polymer can be used to create safe devices designed for extremely prolonged residence in the stomach. ne of the issues with any device in the GI TRACT is that there the potential for an obstruction,

the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT and a member of the Koch Institute, are the senior authors of a paper in the July 27 issue of Nature Materials that describes the application of this new polymer gel

the researchers were interested in developing a polymer with elastic properties. n elastic device can be folded into something small,

and shape of existing devices with elastic polymers have been limited by safety concerns, as there is a greater risk for fracture

Because of this, the researchers wanted their polymer to also be enteric or have a mechanism that would enable it to pass through the stomach unaltered before disintegrating in the intestines. o lower any possible risk of obstruction,

the researchers synthesized an elastic polymer and combined it in solution with a clinically utilized enteric polymer.

Adding hydrochloric acid and centrifuging the solution resulted in a flexible, yet resilient, polymer gel that exhibits both elastic and enteric properties.

The researchers used the gel polycaprolactone (PCL), a nontoxic, degradable polyester, to construct several device prototypes.

They first created ring-shaped devices by using the gel to link arcs of PCL in a circular mold.

the polymer gel dissolved, allowing for the safe passage of the small PCL pieces without obstruction.

Improving adherencethe combined enteric and elastic properties of this polymer gel could significantly improve the design and adoption of gastric-resident devices.

With further work in adjusting the polymer composition or the design of the system they say that they could tailor devices to release drugs over a specific timeframe of up to weeks or months at a time.

ph-responsive supramolecular polymer gel as an enteric elastomer for use in gastric devices, Nature Materials (2015;

It is stronger than steel yet many times lighter more conductive than copper and more flexible than rubber.

The nanoparticle hydrophilic layer essentially locks in the active ingredient, a hydrophobic chemical called padimate O. Some sunscreen solutions that use larger particles of inorganic compounds, such as titanium dioxide or zinc oxide,

The new TFET is made from two atomically-thin layers of semiconducting molybdenum sulfide crystal on top of a substrate of germanium.

it has the highest strength of any isolated material (200x stronger than steel), is very light and flexible, an efficient conductor of heat and electricity,

and will allow an ever widening variety of manufacturers to consider incorporating the extraordinary qualities of graphene in wide range of materials from batteries to consumer electronics to plastics. s the most sought-after and groundbreaking material,

and chemically grafted nanomembranes loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles, in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science, July 14.

Frey and her colleagues are replacing that cost by making the devices with nanofibers from plastics,

the pesticide and polylactic acid a polymer derived from corn. The materials are derived biodegradable and from renewable resources. he chemical is protected,

and humans. anoporous gold can be imagined as a porous metal sponge with pore sizes that are a thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair,

and humans. anoporous gold can be imagined as a porous metal sponge with pore sizes that are a thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair,

Both synthetic and natural polymers play an essential role in most people lives every day, ranging from familiar synthetic plastics,

such as disposable cutlery, to natural biopolymers like DNA and proteins-fundamental to human life. Using insecticides is one of the few ways farmers currently have to treat their groves for greening, also known as Huanglongbing or HLB.

while they were initially designing photosensitive polymers for drug delivery applications. Once they came up with a polymer that responded to UV LIGHT,

they realized that this did not permeate well through skin and could cause damage to healthy cells. e

How it worksthe nanoparticles are prepared from molecules (synthetic macromolecules commonly called plastics) that have a protective,

hydrophilic (water-loving) shell and a hydrophobic (water-fearing) spherical core. he polymers are synthetized to ensure that

polymers are released into the water. While the polymer released (polyethylene glycol) is recognized as safe and used in various food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics products,

it would be ideal if no material was released or if it could be used by parts of the ecosystem to further minimize environmental impact.

and is well below limits for metals put in place by the Environmental protection agency and World health organization. Dankovich nonprofit company page Drinking Paper, works together with the nonprofit WATERISLIFE, to produce a book of this nanoparticle-embedded paper

To circumvent this problem the team developed a simple method to densely coat the nanoparticles with a nonsticky polymer called PEG,

As a next step, Bertrand said it would be interesting to design a system where no polymer is released,

The micromotors have an outer polymer surface that holds the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which speeds up the reaction between carbon dioxide and water to form bicarbonate.

which in turn is a building block for polylactic acid. According to co-author Professor Bert Sels of hape-selective zeolite catalysis for bioplastics productionthe production process for PLA is expensive because of the intermediary steps."

"First, lactic acid is fed into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic under high temperature and in a vacuum,

The pre-plastic-a low-quality plastic-is broken then down into building blocks for PLA. n other words,

you are first producing an inferior plastic before you end up with a high-quality plastic. And even though PLA is considered a green plastic,

the various intermediary steps in the production process still require metals and produce waste.""The KU Leuven researchers developed a new technique by applying a petrochemical concept to biomass."

"We speed up and guide the chemical process in the reactor with a zeolite as a catalyst,

and without using metals. In addition, the production process is cheaper, because we can skip a step."

LA will never fully replace petroleum-based plastics. For one thing, some objects, such as toilet drain pipes, are meant not to be biodegradable.

The meshes are made from a flexible polymer called POMAC (which is short for this mouthful:"

and bend the polymer meshes.""And when we apply electrical field stimulation, we see that they beat in synchrony."

The little black bundles, framed by stainless steel, were promised to anyone who donated#50 or more.

It is stronger than steel yet many times lighter, more conductive than copper and more flexible than rubber.

or into flexible chains through soft molecular linkers such as surface-grafted DNA or polymers. Here, we show that capillarity-mediated binding between magnetic nanoparticles coated with a liquid lipid shell can be used for the assembly of ultraflexible microfilaments and network structures.

News and information Molecular trick alters rules of attraction for nonmagnetic metals August 5th, 2015two spin liquids square off in an iron-based superconductor:

-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy Molecular trick alters rules of attraction for nonmagnetic metals August 5th, 2015two spin liquids square off in an iron-based superconductor:

4-D printing to advance chemistry, materials sciences and defense capabilities June 18th, 2015discoveries Molecular trick alters rules of attraction for nonmagnetic metals August 5th,

2015materials/Metamaterials Molecular trick alters rules of attraction for nonmagnetic metals August 5th, 2015yolks and shells improve rechargeable batteries:

2015announcements Molecular trick alters rules of attraction for nonmagnetic metals August 5th, 2015two spin liquids square off in an iron-based superconductor:

2015interviews/Book reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers Molecular trick alters rules of attraction for nonmagnetic metals August 5th,

"The waste material is free compared compared to all the metals and expensive organic chemicals needed in other processes-in my opinion this is a far easier way to go."

Crystal structures on the sea sapphire's back appear differently depending on the angle of reflection September 2nd, 2015using DNA origami to build nanodevices of the future September 1st,

and photoluminescence to optically probe the molecular structure of the phthalocyanine crystals.""Marrying these two techniques together is new;

and the boundaries in the crystals influence the movement of excitons. It's these boundaries that form a"barrier for exciton diffusion,

and materials science professor Randy Headrick to successfully form films with jumbo-sized crystal grains and"small angle boundaries."

A spin wave is caused by a perturbation of the local magnetisation direction in a magnetic material.

2015spintronics just got faster July 20th, 2015fundamental observation of spin-controlled electrical conduction in metals: Ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy yields direct insight into the building block of modern magnetic memories July 6th, 2015chip Technology Building the electron superhighway:

X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to discover the tiny structural details of biomolecules. All these methods,

2015imaging Oxford instruments Asylum Research Announces the Cypher ES Polymer Edition, an Atomic Force Microscope Optimized for Polymer Research September 26th, 2015twisting neutrons:

Orbital angular momentum of neutron waves can be controlled September 25th, 2015ucla physicists determine 3-D positions of individual atoms for the first time:

2015oxford Instruments Asylum Research Announces the Cypher ES Polymer Edition, an Atomic Force Microscope Optimized for Polymer Research September 26th, 2015twisting neutrons:

Orbital angular momentum of neutron waves can be controlled September 25th, 2015liquid crystals show potential for detection of neurodegenerative disease September 24th, 201 0

#Desalination with nanoporous graphene membrane Less than 1 percent of Earth's water is drinkable. Removing salt and other minerals from our biggest available source of water--seawater--may help satisfy a growing global population thirsty for fresh water for drinking, farming, transportation, heating, cooling and industry.

Today reverse-osmosis filters are typically polymers. A filter is thin and resides on a support.

A porous graphene membrane could be more permeable than a polymer membrane, so separated water would drive faster through the membrane under the same conditions, the scientists reasoned."

The researchers transferred the graphene membrane to a silicon nitride support with a micrometer-sized hole.

The silicon nitride chip held the graphene membrane in place while water flowed through it from one chamber to the other.

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