Volcanic minerals may help drones absorb radar, but tests haven't confirmed the claim.
In a new MIT study – in partnership with Purdue, Northwestern, and Duke universities – chemists have discovered that inserting weaker bonds into polystyrene actually makes the material more resistant to damage.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: MIT, Duke University, Purdue University, Rubber, Plastics, Polymer, Rubber, Northwestern University
A research team at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden has come up with a new bio-derived material made from yeast. It can be used with 3D-printing technology to produce a construction material which can be modified specifically for the architectural and interior design field.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: Chalmers University, Yeast, Biodegradable,…
The four-day showcase, which kicked off Thursday, brought together 30 international fragrance brands.
Demolition of old structures at the end of their service life results in large amounts of waste and carbon emissions, not to mention the labor involved and the cost of producing new materials. According to official statistics, construction and demolition waste accounts for more than one third of all waste generated in Europe.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: TU…
A nanoscale fabric coating repels stains and microbes using only tap water.
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Chalmers Researchers Made an Architectural Material From Baker’s Yeast — and It’s Meant to Disappear
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg have developed a fully bio-based architectural material made from baker’s…
The post Chalmers Researchers Made an Architectural Material From Baker’s Yeast — and It’s Meant to Disappear appeared first on urdesignmag.
Neanderthals used tar extracted from birch tree bark as a glue to haft their tools, according to previous research. It now appears this dark, sticky substance may have had multiple applications.
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Category: Archaeology, Science
Tags: Neanderthal, Traditional medicine, Materials
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A new study shows that a low-cost sodium-ion battery currently used in cars and large-scale energy storage systems in China matches most performance parameters and production quality found in Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries. Since sodium is much more abundant and widely available than lithium, using it for batteries could cut raw material costs for manufacturers and […]
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A year after the Italian artist's death and on the centenary of his birth, Gallerie d’Italia in Milan gears up to open an exhibit titled "Arnaldo Pomodoro. Una Vita."
Cement has been a vital building block (pun intended) in constructing civilization. However, its manufacturing process has also made it a wrecking ball on the environment, with a carbon footprint that rivals that of the aviation industry. Scientists from the University of British Columbia have devised a method that dramatically cuts cement’s carbon footprint using electricity.
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You know that frustration after you gear up for a snowy day, only to have to take it all off in a heated office? Well, penguins don't. Come sweltering heat or frigid cold, they just chill. Inspired by these clumsy masters of thermal management, scientists have created a material that can passively switch between heating and cooling modes.
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Category: Materials,…
Silk isn't just great as a smooth fabric for luxurious clothing: it's finding a wide range of uses in everything from edible food-preserving wrappers to skin-friendly wearable health monitoring sensors. There's plenty of scope to enhance its characteristics too, and a simple new approach has allowed it to get about as tough as Kevlar.
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Category: Materials,…
A patent filed in 1985 is being dusted off as a source of inspiration for a new 3D-printed triangular-shaped zipper that seamlessly fastens chairs, tents, robots and purses, making them simpler to pack and set up just with a press of a button.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: MIT, Flexible, 3D Printing
With running more popular than ever, production of running shoes has reached a new level. Global footwear manufacturing has increased significantly over the last 15 years, and the industry itself has become a form of advanced engineering. Big companies are competing to build lighter, faster, and more energy-efficient shoes using complex combinations of foams, fabrics, and plastics. While…
Living things degrade, die, and decompose. Even when we turn plant and animal material into furniture or clothes, the process is inevitable. On the other hand, left alone, plastics are practically indestructible. Scientists are rethinking this characteristic with a simple but consequential question: What if plastics were alive?
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Category: Materials, Engineering
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Four key takeaways from a new book about the innovative use of canvas in 16th-century Italy
A startup founded by a material physicist has been working for the past seven years to change the way we cool our food and interior spaces, and it's now taken a big step toward that goal.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: Physics, Cooling, Refrigeration, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, University of Cambridge
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By harnessing tiny bursts of plasma—or “mini lightning bolts”—in glass tubes submerged in water, chemists have discovered a new way to turn natural gas into liquid fuel. Utilizing literal “lighting in a bottle” the team from Northwestern University successfully converted methane directly into methanol in a single step. Methanol is a versatile, high-demand industrial chemical […]
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It doesn't take much to pick up a viral infection in spaces we share with other people – whether it's from tiny droplets in the air containing these particles, or touching doorknobs and countertops in offices and hospitals.
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Category: Engineering
Tags: Materials, Virus, Silicon, Coating, RMIT University
The appearance of blocky black solar panels hasn't changed much at all in the last several years, and in the case of many buildings and roofs, they can really cramp your style.
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Category: Engineering
Tags: Materials, Solar Cell, Fraunhofer
The artist and designer, whose reputation as a furniture creative has risen to new heights, has reimagined Tacchini's Milan showroom with her Material Anthology and her expanded furniture collection inspired by breakfast table butter.
Scientists want to replace the steel rebar in concrete with corn-based plastic.
Researchers are turning toxic, centuries-old ammunition into highly efficient and cheap solar panels.
Around the world, over two billion daily cups of coffee are consumed. That means there are a staggering amount of coffee grounds getting tossed away every day. Researchers now have a plan to turn all that waste into eco-friendly insulation.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: Biochar, Insulation, Coffee, Green+Technology, Recycling
Who could possibly compare to Superman, the Man of Steel? Definitely not a man of plastic! Right? Wrong. Researchers at the University of Sharjah, UAE, have discovered that plastics, in certain shapes, may perform as well as steel bars as reinforcement materials in concrete.
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: Building and Construction, Concrete, Plastic
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A nano-scale pinch of gold dust may be enough to transform a previously-ineffective battery technology into a new industry standard. As the demand for more reliable power systems grows in the renewable energy sector, the race is on to develop batteries that cost less but have a longer lifespan. Precious metals are a key part […]
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A Hungarian firm is adding shredded, hard-to-recycle waste into a light concrete mixture for use in paving roads, building houses, and insulating structures. The firm based in Budapest, called Makropa, utilizes many unrecyclable waste streams that would otherwise be destined for landfills or the incinerator. It says it can entrap between 3,000 and 4,000 tons […]
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One solution to plastic waste might not have any downside.
Some of the world's best skis and snowboards are made from a combination of materials, including wood at the core for its strength, low weight, and shape retention. They're usually bonded together with additional layers using adhesives – but what if we stitched them together instead?
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Category: Materials, Engineering
Tags: Engineering, Wood, TU Graz
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