Feature Channels: Materials Science

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Ho Nyung Lee, a condensed matter physicist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a Fellow of the Materials Research Society.

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PNNL battery researcher Jie Xiao collaborates with academic and industry partners to address scientific challenges in manufacturing lithium-based batteries.

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A multi-institutional team, including Argonne, has discovered surprising spin properties in thin films of an iron-containing magnetic material. These properties could be applicable as basic units in information storage applications.

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Brenden Ortiz, a Wigner Distinguished Staff Fellow at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is helping design the next generation of quantum materials.

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The Institute for the Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP) is helping to address the plastic waste accumulation problem by developing the science needed to turn used plastic into valuable materials.

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Recordings of media briefings will be posted by 10 a.m. Eastern Time on each day. Watch recorded media briefings at: www.acs.org/ACSSpring2023briefings.

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Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim and his research team at the Functional Composite Materials Research Center within the KIST Jeonbuk Institute of Advanced Composite Materials announced that they have applied carbon nanotubes to aramid fibers to develop a new kind of composite fiber.

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A new report published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory assessed how advanced manufacturing and materials, such as 3D printing and novel component coatings, could offer solutions to modernize the existing fleet and design new approaches to hydropower.

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Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a competitive, eco-friendly alternative to rigid foam boards made without harmful blowing agents.

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Chemist Jeff Foster, an Alvin M. Weinberg Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is looking for ways to control sequencing in polymers that could result in designer molecules to benefit a variety of industries, including medicine and energy.

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The road to a net-zero future must be paved with greener concrete, and Rice University scientists know how to make it.

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Solid oxide fuel cells, or SOFC, are a type of electrochemical device that generates electricity using hydrogen as fuel, with the only 'waste' product being water.

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The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim Byung-suk) developed a smart sensor that detects signs of ground or structure collapses and a real-time remote monitoring system.

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Chemical engineers have extended the ancient art of origami to produce intricate shapes made of glass or other hard materials. Their method, which can be combined with 3D printing, could have applications ranging from sculpture to catalysis. They will present their results at ACS Spring 2023.

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Empa researcher Amy Knorpp wants to bring systematics into the young research field of high-entropy oxides. The latter are crystals whose specialty is not order, but disorder. By using these crystals, Amy Knorpp aims to develop new, more robust and more efficient catalysts and thus make an important contribution to the shift away from fossil fuels towards CO2-neutral solutions. Her research is supported by an "Empa Young Scientist Fellowship".

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Dr. Hyoungchul Kim's research team at the Energy Materials Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon), announced that they have successfully synthesized a solid electrolyte with superionic conductivity and high elastic deformability in a one-pot process at room temperature and normal pressure.

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Studying the electronic structure of actinide elements can help advance the future of nuclear materials. A new study of several plutonium hybrid materials found that the bonds between these elements were predominantly ionic but also involved covalent bonding associated with the 5f electron shell. This research contributes to the collective goal of resolving the f-electron challenge, the goal of the Department of Energy Office of Science’s Heavy Element Chemistry program.

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A joint research team from KIST and GIST has developed a technology using carbon fiber paper as the anode material for lithium metal batteries, which exhibits excellent cycling stability for 300 cycles, has a high energy density of 428 Wh/kg, and simplifies the electrode manufacturing process, thus accelerating the commercialization of durable and lightweight lithium metal batteries for electric vehicles.

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A research team led by Dr. Sang-woo Song, Dr. Chan-kyu Kim, Dr. Kang-myung Seo at the Department of Joining Technology of the Korea Institute of Materials Science(KIMS), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, has developed a foundational technology for controlling the volume of molten metal in the process of 3D printing metal using welding techniques.

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Black women and others with curly or kinky hair encounter a confusing array of haircare options. Now, scientists are identifying hair properties that could help users pick the perfect product and achieve consistent results. They will present their results at ACS Spring 2023.

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A team led by Dr. Ha Yoon-Cheol, a Principal Researcher of Next Generation Battery Research Center at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and Dr. Cheol-Min Park, a Professor of School of Materials Science and Engineering at Kumoh National Institute of Technology (KIT), has developed a low-cost production technology for silicon disulfide (SiS2) for solid-state electrolytes (argyrodite-type) that has potential to accelerate the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs).

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Swanson School of Engineering researchers develop self-sensing metamaterial concrete for smart infrastructure systems

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In a breakthrough for industrial manufacturing, scientists using the resources at Argonne were able to consistently produce 17-4 PH steel, one of the world’s toughest materials, using X-rays and the additive manufacturing process.

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The University of Texas at El Paso has joined a project led by NASA to leverage 3D-printing processes with the aim of manufacturing rechargeable batteries using lunar and Martian regolith.

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Following months of promising test results, battery researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are recommending that the solid-state battery industry focus on a technique known as isostatic pressing as it looks to commercialize next-generation batteries.

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Two young Empa scientists each receive an Empa Entrepreneur Fellowship to develop innovative products based on their research. Abdessalem Aribia is developing environmentally friendly and safe batteries, while Subas Scheibler is working on nanoparticles for cancer therapy.

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A team of MIT researchers has come up with a kind of tiny, biodegradable tag that can be applied directly to the seeds themselves, and that provides a unique randomly created code that cannot be duplicated.

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A model system created by stacking a pair of monolayer semiconductors is giving physicists a simpler way to study confounding quantum behavior, from heavy fermions to exotic quantum phase transitions.

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A new leaf has turned in scientists' hunt for developing cutting-edge materials used in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV's, touchscreens, and more.

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Breaking news in the world of construction and mining; Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim Byung-suk) has developed the world’s first shear thickening fluid (STF) based stemming solution. This is the first time that a STF has been developed into a blasting construction material or product for stemming, promising to revolutionize construction blasting with groundbreaking levels of efficiency and safety.

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KIST has developed a soft robot with a Janus structure that can move naturally in the desired direction according to the surrounding environment, and a smart sensor for detecting methanol contamination in water, which is economical and can be reused many times.

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Thin oxide films play an important role in electronics and energy storage. Researchers in PNNL’s film growth laboratory create, explore, and improve new thin oxide films.

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Alice Perrin, Alvin M. Weinberg Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, focuses on microstructural changes in nanocrystalline iron and tungsten alloys, which could result in new strategies for material design that resists the detrimental effects of radiation.

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Companies from across the United States have partnered with the experts at Argonne to advance their battery reuse and recycling projects, thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

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Additive manufacturing of food involves designing, pre-processing, manufacturing, and post-processing, and each step is an opportunity to create innovative foods. In Physics of Fluids, researchers identify factors that affect the print quality and shape complexity of the food created. For example, changing the printing patterns and ingredients of the initial mix or paste can affect the food’s matrix and microstructures and therefore its texture. Accounting for these features can increase food quality, improve control, and speed up printing.

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Air conditioners require a lot of energy and can leak greenhouse gases. Today, scientists report an eco-friendly alternative — a plant-based cooling film with many textures and iridescent colors that could someday keep buildings and cars cool. They will present their results at ACS Spring 2023.

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The Stanford University postdoctoral researcher, a collaborator with the Q-NEXT quantum research center led by Argonne, develops high-tech materials to deliver photon packages of quantum information.

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University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers, along with staff at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have developed a breakthrough process for making spintronic devices that has the potential to create semiconductors chips with unmatched energy efficiency and storage for use in computers, smartphones, and many other electronics.

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The apparel industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions. The annual amount of fiber production reached 113 million tons in 2021* and the demand is increasing every year.

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Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) are being used to develop a third generation of optimized shortwave infrared photodetectors that will improve pixel size, weight, power consumption, performance and cost over photodetectors made from traditional materials.

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Two researchers in the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering are winners of prestigious National Science Foundation early-career awards that celebrate emerging leaders in their fields.