Category Technology/Electronics

Patterned membranes created by 3D printing. Credit: Hickner Group/Penn State

A new type of 3D printing by Penn State will make it possible for the first time to rapidly prototype and test polymer membranes that are patterned for improved performance. Ion exchange membranes are used in many types of energy apps eg fuel cells and certain batteries, as well as in water purification, desalination, removal of heavy metals and food processing. Most ion exchange membranes are thin, flat sheets similar to the plastic wrap in your kitchen drawer. However, recent work has shown that by creating 3D patterns on top of the 2D membrane surface, interesting hydrodynamic properties emerge that can improve ion transport or mitigate fouling, a serious problem in many membrane applications.

Currently, making...

VAMPs are shown actuated and cut open in cross section. The cross section shows the inner chambers that collapse when vacuum is applied. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

To make robots more cooperative and have them perform tasks in close proximity to humans, they must be softer and safer. A new actuator generates movements similar to those of skeletal muscles using vacuum power to automate soft, rubber beams. Like real muscles, the actuators are soft, shock absorbing, and pose no danger to their environment or humans working collaboratively alongside them or the potential future robots equipped with them.

“Functionally, our actuator models the human bicep muscle,” said Whitesides, Director of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology at Harvard University...

This wire frame prototype of a toy aircraft was printed in just 10 minutes, including testing for correct fit, and modified during printing to create the cockpit. The file was updated in the process, and could be used to print a finished model. Credit: Cornell University

Cornell researchers have come up with an interactive prototyping system that prints what you are designing as you design it; the designer can pause anywhere to test, measure and, make changes that will be added to the physical model still in the printer. The system uses an improved version of an innovative “WirePrint” printer developed in a collaboration between Guimbretière’s lab and the Hasso Platner Institute in Potsdam, Germany.

In conventional 3D printing, a nozzle scans across a stage depositing drops of plastic, ri...

Daniel G. Nocera. Credit: Courtesy of Daniel G. Nocera

Harvard Chemist Daniel Nocera et al have engineered a bacterium that has made it capable of taking in carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and excreting several types of alcohol fuels, along with biomass that can be burned and used as an energy source. Nocera achieved a level of notoriety 5 years ago, when he and his team announced that they had created an artificial leaf that could be used to generate hydrogen for use as a fuel—that idea did not lead to hydrogen fuel cells displacing gasoline in automobiles, as he had hoped, so this go round, he has set his sights or providing a fuel source for those more in need—parts of India where there is still no electricity.

The new bacterium, named Ralston eutropha was first caused (via genetic eng...