A spokesperson for Imperial Metals was unavailable for comment. Karina Brino president of the Mining Association of British columbia, said her industry knew the investigation into the dam's collapse would inevitably mean regulatory
At another TCL plant in Hefei, near Shanghai, steel refrigerator frames are bent into shape before being plucked by a blue Yasakawa robot arm that stacks them in neat rows for further assembly.
Scientists Enlist E coli To Make Planet-Saving Plastic Out Of Practically Nothing The Intertubes have buzzing with news of a new way to make plastic without using petroleum or petrochemicals.
Based on artificial photosynthesis, the process uses sunlight and carbon dioxide to make the building blocks for renewable plastics as well as fuels, paints,
and the biodegradable plastic PHB. Moving forward the team will try to figure out how to combine the two bacteria into one integrated step.
In response to this problem the engineers developed a visibly transparent overlay more technically a silica photonic crystal overlay that increases solar cell efficiency by radiating the heat of cells away from them much like how we naturally radiate heat from our bodies to prevent overheating.
The overlay itself was made from patterned silica, fashioned into a thin, transparent material. This design means that the overlay can be laid on top of an unaltered solar cell this is important
The critical feature of the silica overlay is found in its micron-scale pattern, which is designed to maximise the radiating of heat, in the form of infrared light, out and away from the cell into space.
amples from left to right are the solar absorber structure with the planar silica layer on top, the absorber structure with verlayon top,
In this regard they point toward employing nanoprint lithography a common technique for producing nanometer scale patterns in larger quantities to produce silica overlays.
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.
#The metal that could lead to'indestructable'warships and ultralight cars Researchers have demonstrated a new type of metal
The radical new material, called a metal matrix composite, was developed with the US ARMY. A boat made of such lightweight composites will not sink
despite damage to its structure. The new material also promises to improve automotive fuel economy because it combines light weight with heat resistancealthough syntactic foams have been around for many years,
this is the first development of a lightweight metal matrix syntactic foam.''This new development of very light metal matrix composites can swing the pendulum back in favor of metallic materials,
'said Nikhil Gupta, an NYU School of engineering professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering and the study's co-author.
It was created by Deep Springs Technology and the New york University Polytechnic School of engineering.''The ability of metals to withstand higher temperatures can be a huge advantage for these composites in engine and exhaust components, quite apart from structural parts.'
'The magnesium alloy matrix composite is reinforced with silicon carbide hollow particles and has a density of only 0. 92 grams per cubic centimeter compared to 1. 0 g/cc of water.
Not only does it have a density lower than that of water, it is strong enough to withstand the rigorous conditions faced in the marine environment.
Significant efforts in recent years have focused on developing lightweight polymer matrix composites to replace heavier metal-based components in automobiles and marine vessels.
The technology for the new composite is very close to maturation and could be put into prototypes for testing within three years.
and high buoyancy offered by the new syntactic foams, the researchers explained. The syntactic foam made by DST
and NYU captures the lightness of foams, but adds substantial strength. The secret of this syntactic foam starts with a matrix made of a magnesium alloy,
which is turned then into foam by adding strong, lightweight silicon carbide hollow spheres developed and manufactured by DST.
A single sphere's shell can withstand pressure of over 25,000 pounds per square inch (PSI) before it rupturesne hundred times the maximum pressure in a fire hose.
The hollow particles also offer impact protection to the syntactic foam because each shell acts like an energy absorber during its fracture.
The composite can be customized for density and other properties by adding more or fewer shells into the metal matrix to fit the requirements of the application.
This concept can also be used with other magnesium alloys that are nonflammable. The new composite has potential applications in boat flooring, automobile parts,
and buoyancy modules as well as vehicle armour. h
#The material with the MIDAS touch: New supercooled liquid instantly glows gold when it's touched By Jonathan O'Callaghan for Mailonline Published:
a video captures the moment the material becomes extremely bright after being rubbed by a crystal.
When rubbed by another crystal it suddenly begins to crystallise (shown. Credit: American Chemical Societythe research, reported by the American Chemical Society, was carried out by Kyeongwoon Chung and Dr Jinsang Kim from the University of Michigan.
to scrawl messages such as hear-triggered crystal. he researchers said the molecule may be useful in biosensors,
Water penetrates the steel in the concrete which starts to rust and becomes brittle. Using a type of bacteria that is typically found near active volcanoes,
Metals like lithium can store 10 times as much energy but are unstable and can often catch fire or short circuit.
'While other designs for space elevators have involved complex designs using graphene or carbon nanotubes, the Thoth design reportedly uses inflatable sections
The bullet's energy is transferred simultaneously to the alloy ball, propelling it towards the target.'
In 2014, physicists at the University of Geneva teleported the quantum state of a photon to a crystal over 15 miles (25km) of optical fibre.
Now a team of geologists have developed a new'geospeedometer'that they argue can help resolve this controversy by providing direct measurements of how long the most explosive types of magma existed as melt-rich bodies of crystal-poor magma before they erupted.
The researchers'geospeedometer is sized based on millimeter quartz crystals that grew within the magma bodies that produced these giant eruptions.
Quartz crystals are typically found in magmas that have a high percentage of silica. This type of magma is very viscous
When the crystals form they often capture small blobs of molten magma known as blebs or melt inclusions.
While the crystal is floating in hot magma, diffusion causes them to gradually acquire the polygonal shape of the crystal void that they occupy.
to calculate how long the crystal existed in the magma before the eruption, 'said Pamukcu. In addition, the researchers compared the results obtained with faceting with results obtained using other techniques.
In quartz, the element titanium can vary sharply between different zones or layers within the crystal.
so the shallower the slope of titanium concentrations across these boundaries today, the longer the crystal spent in magmatic conditions.
so the researchers could use these measurements to provide an independent estimate of how long a crystal spent floating around in the melt.
as long as they erupt magmas that contain quartz crystals, 'said Pamukcu.''We are also confident that we can adapt these techniques to work with other minerals,
like the low-silica basalts commonly erupted from Hawaiian volcanoes.''VOLCANO'S GLOBAL DEVASTATION A volcanic eruption of a similar size to Laki eruption that hit Iceland in 1783 could have global impacts according to the new report.
the team first had to solve the problem of surface tension. The Robobee is so small and light it couldn't break the surface tension of the water at first.
But the researchers worked out a way of making it hover over the water at a certain angle,
Conductive Composites has created a method to layer nickel on carbon to form a material that's light
and manufacturing performance advantages of composites and plastics,'the firm says. Using the wallpaper would allow people to easily turn entire rooms into Faraday cages.
By adding composites made of a polymer and reduced graphene oxide, the films are able to detect touch
The secret of its design is a scattering of billions of carbon'nanotubes'-microscopic hollow carbon rods.
and is covered by a scratch resistant hardened glass. the dial has a rechargeable lithium polymer battery,
and the enamel that defends your teeth from decay is protected. Same old circular brushing pattern.
which proved to be tricky in our brass brush test video after the break. So what's the secret sauce behind this new coating?
For those who care about benchmarks, these can apparently resist brass brush weight of up to 2kg
Recent test samples have achieved compressive strengths of 7, 000psi twice the strength of ordinary concrete and have demonstrated resistance to water and chemical erosion.
Plumestop is composed of very fine particles of activated carbon (1-2 m) suspended in water through the use of unique organic polymer dispersion chemistry.
and encapsulates it in a netlike cage made of 3d printed elastomer that forms to the body.
it changes the membrane's surface tension.""That change is very tiny--as small as a few nanometers or less,
substances used to produce automotive coatings, plastics, adhesives, and other commodity materials. At a conference in Goslar in Germany about two years ago, the two researchers realized that their experience
Chiang and his colleagues plan next to use X-ray crystallography to create a three-dimensional image of Notch
The groups created brush-shaped polymers with side chains that resemble bristles. From there they attached DNA to the tips of these bristles
A leading neuroscientist at Florida Atlantic University has developed the"Lewy Body Composite Risk Score"(LBCRS) to quickly
The LBCRS study,"Improving the Clinical Detection of Lewy Body Dementia with the Lewy Body Composite Risk Score,
and transition metal dichalcogenides,"said Awschalom.""It's not just that it's faster and easier.
Such quantum dots are, therefore, also known as"artificial atoms"."At the other end, just a few micrometers away, a bent electrode acts as a curved mirror that reflects electrons
"In the future, this spin-coherent coupling could make it possible to connect quantum dots over large distances, "says Zilberberg,
Suitable for quantum computersfor some time now, quantum dots have been considered as possible candidates for making so-called quantum bits or"qubits,
Until now the quantum dots in such a computer needed to be very close to each other in order to achieve the necessary coupling for performing calculations.
called a solenoid, outside near the tumor. Electricity passed through the solenoid creates a weak radiofrequency field.
The field causes the magnetic tails of the chain to vibrate bursting the liposome spheres,
Through the use of this new ink, more versatile devices on paper or plastic can be made at a rate of 300 per minute, at a very low cost.
designing the first on-chip metamaterial with a refractive index of zero, meaning that the phase of light can travel infinitely fast.
"The metamaterial consists of silicon pillar arrays embedded in a polymer matrix and clad in gold film.
"said Roman Engel-Herbert, assistant professor of materials science and engineering.""But there are some materials, like vanadium oxide, that you can add to existing devices to make them perform even better."
and oxygen, had an unusual property called the metal-to-insulator transition. In the metal state, electrons move freely,
In order to create a sharp metal-to-insulator transition, the ratio of vanadium to oxygen needs to be controlled precisely.
"The metal-to-insulator property of vanadium dioxide can ideally enhance state-of-the-art nonvolatile memories by using the material as an augmentation device,
#Powerful plastic microscope brings better diagnostic care for world's rural poor You can learn a lot about the state of someone's immune system just by examining their blood under the microscope.
a research team from Rice university has developed recently a plastic, miniature digital fluorescence microscope that can quantify white blood cell levels in patients located in rural parts of the world that are removed far from the modern laboratory."
which consisted of one polystyrene lens and two polymethyl methacrylate aspheric lenses, the researchers used a single-point diamond turning lathe.
reflectors, and USB detectors, combined with the all-plastic housing and lenses will allow for future versions of the prototype to be mass-produced d
#Gene on-off switch works like backpack strap A research team based in Houston's Texas Medical center has found that the proteins that turn genes on by forming loops in human chromosomes work like the sliding plastic adjusters on a grade-schooler
#Cyclic healing removes defects in metals while maintaining strength When designing a new material, whether for an airplane, car, bridge, mobile device,
gentle stretching to eliminate preexisting defects in metal crystals. Their results have been published online today (Monday, Oct 19) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Most materials are made of crystals. When materials fail, it is usually the result of defects in the crystal or in the arrangement of multiple crystals in a polycrystalline structure.
While much research has been done on metal fatigue at larger scales, new technologies are just now allowing researchers to see how atomic-scale defects nucleate,
In this study, the researchers used transmission electron microscopy to look inside sub-micrometer-sized specimens of aluminum crystals as they subjected the samples to stressors like repeated, small-amplitude deformation or fatigue loading.
a process that repetitively stretches the crystal, helps to unpin or shakedown rows of atomic defects known as dislocations in the metal and move these dislocations closer to free surfaces in the sample.
Image forces, which act to minimize the energy of the defects, attract the dislocations closer to the free surfaces and force them out of the crystal.
As a result, the crystal"heals,"becoming essentially free of preexisting dislocations, thereby significantly increasing its strength.
because cyclic deformation has an opposite effect in micro-and macro-scale metal crystals. In these larger samples, repeated stretching generally leads to the creation, accumulation and interaction of defects,
under certain controlled conditions, can lead to the removal of defects from crystals of small volume,
#From good to bad with a copper switch At the molecular level, the difference between Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde lies in a metal, copper.
According to a new SISSA study, the mechanism underlying this change is a metal, copper, or rather a particular region of the protein to which the metal binds,
#Super-slick material makes steel better, stronger, cleaner Steel is ubiquitous in our daily lives.
We cook in stainless steel skillets, ride steel subway cars over steel rails to our offices in steel-framed building.
Steel screws hold together broken bones, steel braces straighten crooked teeth, steel scalpels remove tumors.
Most of the goods we consume are delivered by ships and trucks mostly built of steel.
While various grades of steel have been developed over the past 50 years, steel surfaces have remained largely unchanged--and unimproved.
The steel of today is as prone as ever to the corrosive effects of water and salt and abrasive materials such as sand.
Steel surgical tools can still carry microorganisms that cause deadly infections. Now researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of engineering and Applied sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated a way to make steel stronger, safer and more durable.
Their new surface coating, made from rough nanoporous tungsten oxide, is the most durable antifouling and anti-corrosive material to date,
capable of repelling any kind of liquid even after sustaining intense structural abuse. The new material joins the portfolio of other nonstick,
antifouling materials developed in the lab of Joanna Aizenberg, the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials science and core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard university.
Aizenberg's team developed Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces in 2011 and since then has demonstrated a broad range of applications for the super-slick coating, known as SLIPS.
The new SLIPS-enhanced steel is described in Nature Communications.""Our slippery steel is orders of magnitude more durable than any antifouling material that has been developed before,
"said Aizenberg.""So far, these two concepts-mechanical durability and antifouling-were at odds with each other.
We need surfaces to be textured and porous to impart fouling resistance but rough nanostructured coatings are intrinsically weaker than their bulk analogs.
This research shows that careful surface engineering allows the design of a material capable of performing multiple, even conflicting, functions, without performance degradation."
The biggest challenge in the development of this surface was to figure out how to structure steel to ensure its antifouling capability without mechanical degradation.
The team solved this by using an electrochemical technique to grow an ultrathin film of hundreds of thousands of small and rough tungsten-oxide islands directly onto a steel surface."
"Electrochemical deposition is already a widely used technique in steel manufacturing, said Aizenberg.""I don't want to create another line that would cost millions
The team tested the material by scratching it with stainless steel tweezers, screwdrivers, diamond-tipped scribers,
and show anti-biofouling behavior but the tungsten oxide actually made the steel stronger than steel without the coating.
Medical steel devices are one of the material's most promising applications, said Philseok Kim,
Due to the high refractive index (2. 4) of diamond, the photon collection efficiency from the nitrogen vacancy centers in bulk diamond is low."
which is a theoretical model that describes the normal state of most metals at sufficiently low temperatures."
#Single atom alloy platinum-copper catalysts cut costs, boost green technology A new generation of platinum-copper catalysts that require very low concentrations of platinum in the form of individual atoms to cleanly
which"poisons"the desired reactions, for example in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells, which are the leading contenders for small-scale and mobile power generation not based on batteries or combustion engines.
in order to facilitate downstream polymer production. The current industrial catalyst for butadiene hydrogenation uses palladium and silver.
while a relatively cheap metal, is not nearly as catalytically powerful as platinum, noted Professor of Chemistry Charles Sykes, Ph d.,one of the senior authors on the paper."
"The researchers first conducted surface science experiments to study precisely how platinum and copper metals mix."
"We were excited to find that the platinum metal dissolved in copper, just like sugar in hot coffee, all the way down to single atoms.
We call such materials single atom alloys, "said Sykes. The Tufts chemists used a specialized low temperature scanning tunneling microscope to visualize the single platinum atoms and their interaction with hydrogen."
such as platinum-copper single atom alloy nanoparticles supported on an alumina substrate, and then tested them under industrial pressure and temperatures."
We believe this approach is also applicable to other precious metals if added as minority components in copper."
In the early 2000s, Maria's group had pioneered the single-atom approach for metals anchored on oxide supports as the exclusive active sites for the water-gas shift reaction to upgrade hydrogen streams for fuel cell use.
Together we embarked on a new direction involving single atom alloys as catalysts for selective hydrogenation reactions.
"Sykes and Flytzani-Stephanopoulos have used this approach to design a variety of single atom alloy catalysts that have,
and properties of single atom alloy surfaces and then applied this knowledge to develop a working catalyst.
#Controllable protein gates deliver on-demand permeability in artificial nanovesicles Researchers at the University of Basel have succeeded in building protein gates for artificial nano-vesicles that become transparent only under specific conditions.
Until now, permeability in nanovesicles has been achieved using natural proteins that operate as pores in the protective membrane,
and transition metal dichalcogenides,"said Awschalom.""It's not just that it's faster and easier.
"Some researchers have wanted to make transistors out of carbon nanotubes but the problem is that they grow in all sorts of directions,
"UW researchers used chemical vapor deposition to grow graphene nanoribbons on germanium crystals. This technique flows a mixture of methane, hydrogen and argon gases into a tube furnace.
armchair edges,"said Michael Arnold, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at UW-Madison.""The widths can be very,
"Not only are designed our facilities to work with all different sorts of materials from metals to oxides,
"What's even more interesting is that these nanoribbons can be made to grow in certain directions on one side of the germanium crystal,
each face of a crystal (1, 1, 1) will have axes that differ from one (1, 1, 0) to the other (1, 0,
At that point, a reflective metal layer is on the bottom.""In this structure--unlike other photodetectors--light absorption in an ultrathin silicon layer can be much more efficient
the researchers designed lenses no larger than the head of a pin and embedded them within flexible plastic.
Then they seeped a polymer between the silicon nanowire pillars. After the plastic support solidified they etched away the silicon backing, leaving bull's-eye patterned black silicon embedded in supple plastic.
This approach gave their lenses unprecedented crisp focusing capabilities, as well as the flexibility that enables them to capture a large field of view.
the researchers designed lenses no larger than the head of a pin and embedded them within flexible plastic.
Then they seeped a polymer between the silicon nanowire pillars. After the plastic support solidified they etched away the silicon backing, leaving bull's-eye patterned black silicon embedded in supple plastic.
This approach gave their lenses unprecedented crisp focusing capabilities, as well as the flexibility that enables them to capture a large field of view.
However, the quality of Gan crystals does not come up to that of conventional semiconductor materials such as silicon (Si)
For that reason, the establishment of technology for producing high-quality crystals with fewer defects and rearrangement is expected,
The group examined the intensity distribution of THZ generated by radiating ultraviolet femtosecond laser pulses on the surface of Gan crystal through LTEM.
alginates and fibrins,"said Adam Feinberg, an associate professor of Materials science and engineering and Biomedical engineering at Carnegie mellon University.
The spill has turned the Animas River into a mustard-coloured pollution zone with the contaminated leak said to contain heavy metals like arsenic, mercury and lead,
Traditional 3d printing with plastics is done by heating a polymer, then applying it layer by layer to build an object.
#This new high-power diamond laser can cut steel Although lasers based on diamond have been around around for several years,
The ability to slice through steel has always been the benchmark for cutting power. With 380 Watts@1240nm, the new laser has enough oomph to handle the job.
The new diamond lasers make use of something known as Raman conversion to shift light to wavelengths that are long enough to be absorbed efficiently by steel.
Furthermore, the wavelength range of these fibers is restricted to the transparency of silica. The release stories for this laser mention that the infrared wavelengths used here are safer for the eye than either visible or UV radiation.
It sandwiched between two polymer panels to form an airtight seal. The resin remains liquid as long as that seal remains unbroken.
This revision will probably serve as a minor update to the existing hardware without a drastic change in design. 7000 series aluminum seems to be the alloy of choice here potentially the exact same material used in the Apple Watch Sport.
With these quantum dots at their disposal, engineers might be able to start thinking about new, large-scale quantum communications networks.
These quantum dots basically achieve perfect single-photon emission by super-cooling the quantum dots so the emitting atoms do not fluctuate.
or perhaps even find a way to surveil these quantum dots themselves, reading each photon as it absorbed and reemitted.
Previous systems, like Aquasar, still relied on a metal transfer plate between the coolant flow and the CPU itself.
which involved switching out gold metals used in manufacturing Gan devices for metals that were compatible with silicon fabrication,
#Scientists design technology to make PLA production process simpler Polylactic acid (PLA) is already a part of our everyday lives in biodegradable drinking cups
and vegetable wrapping foil but it is considered not yet a full alternative to traditional petroleum-based plastics,
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.
This is why the Stanford researchers placed the aluminum anode, a graphite cathode and an ionic liquid electrolyte inside of a polymer-coated pouch.
What makes aluminum appealing is the low flammability, low cost and high-charge storage capacity. A major challenge with developing aluminum batteries is finding materials that produce sufficient voltage after repeated recharging cycles.
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