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VIDEO: When repeating patterns overlap and are rotated, they create these mesmerizing arrangements called moiré patterns. Here hexagonal grids are rotated in either direction. view more
Credit: CC-0 The University of Tokyo/Rohan Mehra
Material behaviors depend on many things including not just the composition of the material but also the arrangement of its molecular parts. For the first time, researchers have found a way to coax carbon nanotubes into creating moiré patterns. Such structures could be useful in materials research, in particular in the field of superconducting materials.
Professor Hiroyuki Isobe from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tokyo, and his team create nanoscopic material structures, primarily from carbon. Their aim is to explore new ways to create carbon nanostructures and to find useful applications for them. The most recent breakthrough from their lab is a new form of carbon nanotube with a very specific arrangemen
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IMAGE: Evgeny Kolesnikov, an assistant at the Department of Functional Nanosystems and High-Temperature Materials, NUST MISIS view more
Credit: Sergey Gnuskov/NUST MISIS
The scientists of the National University of Science and Technology MISIS (NUST MISIS) being a part of an international team of researches managed to increase the capacity and extend the service life of lithium-ion batteries. According to the researchers, they have synthesized a new nanomaterial that can replace low-efficiency graphite used in lithium-ion batteries today. The results of the research are published in the
Journal of Alloys and Compounds.
Lithium-ion batteries are widely used for household appliances from smartphones to electric vehicles. The charge-discharge cycle in such battery is provided by the movement of lithium ions between two electrodes from a negatively charged anode to a positively charged cathode.
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VIDEO: Sandia National Laboratories geoscientist Hongkyu Yoon and his team 3D-print rocks with reproducible faults and then squeeze them until they crack. Listening to the sound of the rocks breaking provides. view more
Credit: Video by Rebecca Gustaf/Sandia National Laboratories. All video footage was taken prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Geoscientists at Sandia National Laboratories used 3D-printed rocks and an advanced, large-scale computer model of past earthquakes to understand and prevent earthquakes triggered by energy exploration.
Injecting water underground after unconventional oil and gas extraction, commonly known as fracking, geothermal energy stimulation and carbon dioxide sequestration all can trigger earthquakes. Of course, energy companies do their due diligence to check for faults breaks in the earth s upper crust that are prone to earthquakes but sometimes earthquakes, even swarms of earthquakes, strike unexpectedl
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Bone is not just a fixed material - it s a dynamic set of structures that can adapt their mass and strength based on the loads they must support.
Developing that sort of adaptive material has long been the dream of scientists. Now for the first time, scientists at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago have developed a gel material that strengthens when exposed to vibration.
Not only were scientists able to make the material 66 times stronger through vibrations, they were also able to strengthen only the areas exposed to movement. That sort of specificity could lead to new adhesives and better ways of integrating implants within the body.
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Hydrogen is an incredibly powerful fuel, and the ingredients are everywhere in plain old water. Researchers would love to be able to use it widely as a clean and sustainable energy source.
One catch, however, is that a considerable amount of energy is required to split water and make hydrogen. Thus scientists have been working on fabricating materials for photoelectrodes that can use solar energy to split water, creating a solar fuel that can be stored for later use.
Scientists with the University of Chicago, the University of Madison-Wisconsin and Brookhaven National Laboratory published a new breakthrough in making such photoelectrodes. Their research, reported in