Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

A new technique for producing self-folding three-dimensional origami structures from photo-curable liquid polymer materials created these tiny samples, held in a hand for size comparison. Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Peking University have found a new use for the ubiquitous PowerPoint slide: Producing self-folding 3D origami structures from photocurable liquid polymers. The technique involves projecting a grayscale pattern of light and dark shapes onto a thin layer of liquid acrylate polymer placed in a plate or between 2 glass slides. A photoinitiator material mixed into the polymer initiates a crosslinking reaction when struck by light from an ordinary LED projector, causing a solid film to form...

The new camera was developed for filming chemistry and physics occurring at extreme speeds. Credit: Image courtesy of Lund University

Lund University, Sweden researchers has developed a camera that can film at a rate equivalent to 5 trillion images per second, or events as short as 0.2 trillionths of a second. This is faster than has previously been possible. The new camera will therefore be able to capture incredibly rapid processes in chemistry, physics, biology and biomedicine, that so far have not been caught on film. The researchers have successfully filmed how photons travels a distance corresponding to the thickness of a paper. In reality, it only takes a picosecond, but on film the process has been slowed down by a trillion times.

Currently, high-speed cameras capture images one by...

Ion Effect and Metal-Coordinated Cross-Linking for Multiscale Design of Nereis Jaw Inspired Mechanomutable Materials

MIT scientists have looked at a sea worm called Nereis virens in order to create a changing material, with the ability to be flexible or rigid at convenience. The jaw of this worm has a texture similar to gelatin, but if the environment varies, the material may adopt the hardness of dentin or human bones. Chemical engineer Francisco Martín-Martínez explains, “the jaw of Nereis virens is composed of a protein that contains large amounts of histidine, an amino acid that interacts with the ions of the environment and makes it more or less flexible depending on the environment in which it finds itself.”

The material is “a hydrogel made from a synthesized protein, similar to th...

Rechargeable nickel–3D zinc batteries: An energy-dense, safer alternative to lithium-ion. Science, 2017; 356 (6336): 415 DOI: 10.1126/science.aak9991

US Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Chemistry Division have developed a safer alternative to fire-prone Li-ion batteries, which were recently banned for some applications on Navy ships and other military platforms. Joseph Parker, Jeffrey Long, and Debra Rolison from NRL’s Advanced Electrochemical Materials group are leading an effort to create an entire family of safer, water-based, zinc batteries. They have demonstrated a breakthrough for nickel-zinc (Ni-Zn) batteries in which a 3D Zn “sponge” replaces the powdered zinc anode traditionally used...