Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

New cathode, electrolyte allow high-power battery previously considered impossible. Magnesium batteries have long been considered a potentially safer and less expensive alternative to lithium-ion batteries, but previous versions have been severely limited in the power they delivered.

Researchers from the University of Houston and the Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA) report in Nature Energy that they have developed a new cathode and electrolyte — previously the limiting factors for a high-energy magnesium battery — to ...

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are considered the best hope for next-generation battery technology, thanks to their long-life cycle, high specific power and energy density. However, they have not met the ever-increasing demands of emerging technologies such as electric vehicles. Li-Se battery technology is increasingly considered a real alternative to LIBs because of its high theoretical volume capacity and much higher conductivity.

In the first study of its kind, published by the Nature Communications journal, engineers from Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), in collaboration with the team at University Technology of Sydney det...

Electronic shirts that keep the wearer comfortably warm or cool, as well as medical fabrics that deliver drugs, monitor the condition of a wound and perform other tasks, may one day be manufactured more efficiently thanks to a key advance by Oregon State University researchers.

The breakthrough involves inkjet printing and materials with a crystal structure discovered nearly two centuries ago. The upshot is the ability to apply circuitry, with precision and at low processing temperatures, directly onto cloth — a promising potential solution to the longstanding tradeoff between performance and fabrication costs.

“Much effort has gone into integrating sensors, displays, power sources and logic circuits into various fabrics for the creation of we...

Forget glue, screws, heat or other traditional bonding methods. A Cornell University-led collaboration has developed a 3D printing technique that creates cellular metallic materials by smashing together powder particles at supersonic speed.

This form of technology, known as “cold spray,” results in mechanically robust, porous structures that are 40% stronger than similar materials made with conventional manufacturing processes. The structures’ small size and porosity make them particularly well-suited for building biomedical components, like replacement joints.

The team’s paper, “Solid-State Additive Manufacturing of Porous Ti-6Al-4V by Supe...