Category Technology/Electronics

Rutgers University engineers created unique elastomeric rotary actuators based on pneumatically driven peristaltic motion. Using silicone-based wheels, these motors enable a new class of soft locomotion — not found in nature — that can withstand impact, traverse irregular terrain and operate in water. For soft robotics, this innovation represents progress toward providing torque without bending actuators. Credit: Xiangyu Gong

Rutgers engineers, in a breakthrough, create a soft motor that could power versatile soft robots. A small, squishy vehicle equipped with soft wheels rolls over rough terrain and runs under water...

Scientists find how Charge-Carrying Particles move in Perovskite

Perovskites can be used in solar batteries of future. New results will help scientists to search for a required perovskite structure by taking into account its fundamental features, rather than at random. Perovskite is a material with an almost ideal structure. The majority of high-temperature superconductors are perovskite-based due to their non-ideal structure. The material can also be used to produce flexible solar batteries without rare-earth metals, which would help to reduce costs and enable large-scale manufacture.

“This material exhibits many interesting and intriguing properties, most notably giant magnetoresistance...

Electrocatalytic water splitting is about to get less costly, thanks to research at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Credit: Image courtesy of KTH The Royal Institute of Technology

A hydrogen-fuel economy could finally become a reality with the recent discovery of a cheap, stable and efficient means of getting hydrogen from water. Scientists at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have unlocked one major barrier to exploiting this renewable energy source. Because the best-performing catalysts for electrochemical oxidation, or “water splitting,” are expensive precious metals, the team led by KTH Professor Licheng Sun is one of many worldwide searching for cheaper alternatives. Sun had earlier developed molecular catalysts for water oxidation (Nature Chem...