Feature Channels: Materials Science

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When the pandemic forced us to keep our distance, people quickly found new ways to come together. By improving existing technologies and developing entirely new ones, we learned how to work, socialize, and share ideas without having to leave the solitary comfort of our living spaces. While this gave us the ability to take back parts of the activities we missed, it also allowed us to connect in new and interesting ways.

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A team led by Argonne has developed a new catalyst composed of elements abundant in the Earth. It could make possible the low-cost and energy-efficient production of hydrogen for use in transportation and industrial applications.

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory joins four other national laboratories — Idaho, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley — that have institutes named after nuclear chemist and Nobel Prize winner Glenn T. Seaborg.

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Among the approximately 2,000 known species of termites, some are ecosystem engineers. The mounds built by some genera, for example Amitermes, Macrotermes, Nasutitermes, and Odontotermes, reach up to eight meters high, making them some of the world’s largest biological structures.

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Berkeley Lab scientists have visualized the distortions of chemical bonds in a methane molecule after it absorbs light, loses an electron, and then relaxes. Their study provides insights into how molecules react to light, which can help develop new methods to control chemical reactions.

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Shreyas Balachandran has been chosen to receive the ICMC Cryogenic Materials Award for Excellence, presented annually to an individual under 40 who has demonstrated innovation, impact and international recognition for their work in advancing the knowledge of cryogenic materials.

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Using fiber-reinforced concrete (FAC) to replace rebar in construction projects reduces time, costs and worker safety issues.

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Liz Laudadio, a Walter Massey Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, describes their research aimed at coatings to prevent corrosion of materials in settings like nuclear reactors.

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Wet weather can cause havoc for the construction industry worldwide, leading to lengthy and expensive delays, but a new international study could have some answers - modular builds in a factory setting.

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Sandia National Laboratories grew its Mentor-Protégé program from three companies to five with the addition of Dynamic Structures and Materials, LLC of Franklin, Tennessee, and Compunetics Inc., of Monroeville, Pennsylvania. The program not only helps small businesses develop and grow, but also helps foster long-term relationships that help Sandia achieve its mission.

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A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has developed a first-of-its-kind breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide films that are important for various next generation applications such as quantum computing and microelectronics.

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Batteries play a crucial role in powering many modern devices, such as mobile phones, pacemakers, and electric vehicles. Yet, traditional lithium-ion batteries pose limitations such as safety risks, short life cycles, and long charging times. The pioneer niobium-graphene batteries developed by the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials (CA2DM) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), an innovator in the research of graphene and other 2-dimensional (2D) materials, and CBMM, the global leader in niobium products and technology, will address all these problems. The batteries are being tested at the new CBMM-CA2DM Advanced Battery Laboratory which was launched today by NUS and CBMM and established with a joint investment of USD3.8 million (S$5 million) over three years, supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore.

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The Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) research team developed a material that heals scratches on the sensor of an autonomous vehicle.

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Extreme environments in several critical industries – aerospace, energy, transportation and defense – require sensors to measure and monitor numerous factors under harsh conditions to ensure human safety and integrity of mechanical systems.

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For more than 10 years, Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, has been investigating the unconventional properties of “metamaterials” — an artificial material that exhibits properties not commonly found in nature as defined by Newton’s laws of motion — in his long-term pursuit of designing an ideal metamaterial.

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Researchers from Rice University have created drug-filled microparticles that can be engineered to degrade and release their therapeutic cargo days or weeks after administration. By combining multiple microparticles with different degradation times into a single injection, the researchers could develop a drug formulation that delivers many doses over time.

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Solar cells are a critical component to the transition to renewable energy sources, and enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE), or amount of power captured with a given amount of sunlight, increases the practicality of solar power in a society with high energy demands.

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In a new study just published in Physical Review X, scientists sought to find an explanation for an oddity observed in a material phase that coexists with the superconducting phase of a copper-oxide superconductor.

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BGSU is partnering with public and private organizations to provide the U.S. Department of Defense with eyewear that electronically adjusts its tint from clear to dark in 0.1 seconds, a critical safety feature.

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No one will ever be able to see a purely mathematical construct such as a perfect sphere. But now, scientists using supercomputer simulations and atomic resolution microscopes have imaged the signatures of electron orbitals, which are defined by mathematical equations of quantum mechanics and predict where an atom’s electron is most likely to be.

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John Tranquada, a distinguished physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been named a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He is among 120 new members and 23 international members recognized by NAS “for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

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Researchers will develop prototype modular panels and test for energy savings, resistance to weathering and market feasibility

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An international project led by Kyoto University tested and confirmed the high wood durability of space wood at the International Space Station -- the ISS. The experiment results showed minimal deterioration and good stability of the samples selected for the wooden artificial satellite LignoSat.

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A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory have developed a way to collect terahertz imaging data on materials under extreme magnetic and cryogenic conditions. They accomplished their work with a new scanning probe microscope that was recently developed at Ames Lab. The team used the ultralow temperature terahertz microscope to take measurements on superconductors and topological semimetals that were exposed to high magnetic fields and extremely cold temperatures.

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Tomonori Saito, a distinguished innovator in the field of polymer science and senior R&D staff member at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was honored on May 11 in Columbus, Ohio, at Battelle’s Celebration of Solvers.

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The University of Kentucky, as lead organization, together with partners across Kentucky and Tennessee, has been awarded $1 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines, or NSF Engines, program. This team’s proposal, “Advancing carbon centric circular economy technologies for advanced manufacturing solutions (KY, TN),” is led by a coalition named Generate Advanced Manufacturing Excellence for Change (GAME Change).

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Northwestern University engineers have developed a new sponge that can remove metals — including toxic heavy metals like lead and critical metals like cobalt — from contaminated water, leaving safe, drinkable water behind.

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A team of researchers led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Trevor David Rhone, assistant professor in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy, has identified novel van der Waals (vdW) magnets using cutting-edge tools in artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, the team identified transition metal halide vdW materials with large magnetic moments that are predicted to be chemically stable using semi-supervised learning.

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The National Science Foundation's program to build research capacity across the country has awarded a $20 million grant to support Iowa researchers working to make the state a leader in advanced biomanufacturing. The researchers will use microbes to produce plastics for 3D printing, fibers for flexible and rigid materials and proteins for medical diagnostics and therapeutics.

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Argonne fellow Ashley Bielinski developed a new approach to study atomic layer deposition, an important technique in research and industry.

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Professor Biwu Ma from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and his colleagues have developed a new class of materials that can act as highly efficient scintillators, which emit light after being exposed to other forms of high energy radiations, such as X-rays.

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From a nanoscale grain of platinum, researchers made a first step in developing a tool that enables them to characterize the materials with a new level of detail, ultimately producing the best materials for the hydrogen production and use.

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An Oak Ridge National Laboratory-developed advanced manufacturing technology, AMCM, was recently licensed by Orbital Composites and enables the rapid production of composite-based components, which could accelerate the decarbonization of vehicles, airplanes and drones.

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For decades, scientists sought a way to apply the outstanding analytical capabilities of neutrons to materials under pressures approaching those surrounding the Earth’s core. These extreme pressures can rearrange a material’s atoms, potentially resulting in interesting new properties.

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In a world that is slowly distancing itself from carbon-based energy, there has been a meteoric rise in the use of lithium-ion batteries as a next-generation energy storage solution.

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A Cornell-led collaboration harnessed chemical reactions to make microscale origami machines self-fold – freeing them from the liquids in which they usually function, so they can operate in dry environments and at room temperature.

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In an effort to make textiles more sustainable, a new method allows researchers to break old clothing down chemically and reuse polyester compounds to create fire resistant, anti-bacterial or wrinkle-free coatings that could then be applied to clothes and fabrics.

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An international team of scientists led by a University of Houston physicist and several of his former students has reported a new approach to constructing the thermoelectric modules, using silver nanoparticles to connect the modules’ electrode and metallization layers.

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Sodium-ion batteries have been touted as a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries because they are powered by a more abundant natural resource. However, sodium-ion batteries have hit a significant snag: the cathodes degrade quickly with recharging. A Cornell University-led collaboration succeeded in identifying an elusive mechanism that can trigger this degradation – transient crystal defects – by using a unique form of X-ray imaging that enabled the researchers to capture the fleeting defects while the battery was in operation.

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Magnesium diboride (MgB2), a binary compound, behaves as a superconductor – a substance that offers no resistance to electric current flowing through it – at a moderate temperature of around 39 K (-234°C).

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A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory demonstrated a way to advance the role of quantum computing in materials research with an adaptive algorithm for simulating materials. Quantum computers have potential capabilities far beyond today’s computers, and using an adaptive algorithm allows them to produce solutions quickly and accurately.

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A breakthrough study by researchers from Bar-Ilan University establishes the first physics laboratory benchmark for the manifestation of the theory of interdependent networks, enabling experimental studies to control and to further develop the multiscale phenomena of complex interdependent materials. This research has vast significance in several disciplines, including basic physics, materials science and device applications.

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Ammonia (NH3) is one of the most widely produced chemicals in the world, with a production of over 187 million tons in 2020. About 85% of it is used to produce nitrogenous fertilizers, while the rest is used for refining petroleum, manufacturing a wide range of other chemicals, and creating synthetic fibers such as nylon.