Science
Overview: Science
Tiny fibers create unseen plastic pollution
18/02/2019
While the polyester leisure suit was a 1970s mistake, polyester and other synthetic fibers like nylon are still around and are a major contributor to the microplastics load in the environment, according to a Penn State materials scientist, who suggests switching to biosynthetic fibers to solve this problem.Engineered metasurfaces reflect waves in unusual directions
18/02/2019
Researchers at Aalto University have developed new metasurfaces for the arbitrary manipulation of reflected waves, essentially breaking classical reflection law to engineer it at will.Researchers discover anti-laser masquerading as perfect absorber
15/02/2019
Researchers at Duke University have discovered that a perfect absorber of electromagnetic waves they described in a 2017 paper can easily be tweaked into a sort of 'time-reversed laser' known as a coherent perfect absorber (CPA).Large-scale window material developed for PM2.5 capture and light tuning
15/02/2019
A research team from University of Science and Technology of China develops a simple and economical process to fabricate large-scale flexible smart windows.Molecular Lego blocks
14/02/2019
Organic semiconductors are lightweight, flexible and easy to manufacture. But they often fail to meet expectations regarding efficiency and stability. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are now deploying data mining approaches to identify promising organic compounds for the electronics of the future.Better red than dread: Barrier keeps batteries safe
14/02/2019
A layer of red phosphorus in rechargeable lithium metal batteries can signal when damaging dendrites threaten to create a short circuit. The strategy, which does not require a third electrode, could help bring more powerful lithium metal batteries to market.Improved plastics recycling thanks to spectral imaging
06/02/2019
Plastics recycling is complicated by the need to recycle similar plastics together. The presence of flame retardants in plastics also needs to be identified, and a NIR hyperspectral imaging method to do so is reported ...Mechanical engineers develop process to 3D print piezoelectric materials
22/01/2019
New printing technique and materials could be used to develop intelligent materials and self-adaptive infrastructures and transducers.Multimaterial 3D printing used to develop fast response stiffness-tunable soft actuator
22/01/2019
Researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have designed and fabricated a fast-response, stiffness tunable (FRST) soft actuator which is able to complete a softening-stiffening cycle within 32 seconds.Smart microrobots that can adapt to their surroundings
21/01/2019
Scientists at EPFL and ETH Zurich have developed tiny elastic robots that can change shape depending on their surroundings. Modeled after bacteria and fully biocompatible, these robots optimize their movements so as to get to hard-to-reach areas of the human body. They stand to revolutionize targeted drug delivery.