Category Technology/Electronics

New Catalyst Found for Clean Energy Fuel

Cover of the March 2016 Advanced Materials journal. (A.M. El-Sawy et al., “Oxygen Reactions: Controlling the Active Sites of Sulfur-Doped Carbon Nanotube–Graphene Nanolobes for Highly Efficient Oxygen Evolution and Reduction Catalysis,” Advanced Energy Materials, 2016, Vol. 6, no. 5. © Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Reproduced with permission.)

Cover of the March 2016 Advanced Materials journal. (A.M. El-Sawy et al., “Oxygen Reactions: Controlling the Active Sites of Sulfur-Doped Carbon Nanotube–Graphene Nanolobes for Highly Efficient Oxygen Evolution and Reduction Catalysis,” Advanced Energy Materials, 2016, Vol. 6, no. 5. © Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Reproduced with permission.)

A new material could make H capture more commercially viable and provide a key element for a new generation of cheaper, light-weight hydrogen fuel cells. The new metal-free catalyst uses carbon graphene nanotubes infused with sulfur. Producing high-grade hydrogen is an expensive and energy-consuming process...

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Fast, Stretchy Circuits could Yield new Wave of Wearable Electronics

Photo: Stretchable, wearable circuit

Fabricated in interlocking segments like a 3-D puzzle, the new integrated circuits could be used in wearable electronics that adhere to the skin like temporary tattoos. Because the circuits increase wireless speed, these systems could allow health care staff to monitor patients remotely, without the use of cables and cords. IMAGE COURTESY OF YEI HWAN JUNG AND JUHWAN LEE

The consumer marketplace is flooded with a lively assortment of smart wearable electronics that do everything from monitor vital signs, fitness or sun exposure to play music, charge other electronics or even purify the air around you—all wirelessly...

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Engineers Discover a new Gatekeeper for Light

A photograph (left) shows the experimental set-up used to confirm the existence of the Bloch wave resonance, which was first predicted theoretically. An illustration (right) shows the interior of the experimental device, called a hollow periodic waveguide, which consists of two corrugated metallic plates separated by a variable distance of about one inch, and the upper plate can slide with respect to the lower. When researchers shot microwaves between the plates through the air, they were able to control which wavelengths of microwaves were allowed through by varying the position of the upper plate. Credit: Lab of Victor Pogrebnyak/University at Buffalo

A photograph (left) shows the experimental set-up used to confirm the existence of the Bloch wave resonance, which was first predicted theoretically. An illustration (right) shows the interior of the experimental device, called a hollow periodic waveguide, which consists of two corrugated metallic plates separated by a variable distance of about one inch, and the upper plate can slide with respect to the lower. When researchers shot microwaves between the plates through the air, they were able to control which wavelengths of microwaves were allowed through by varying the position of the upper plate. Credit: Lab of Victor Pogrebnyak/University at Buffalo

Imagine a device that is selectively transparent to various wavelengths of light at one moment, and opaque to them the next, following a m...

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Making some of the World’s most Durable Materials Corrosion-Resistant

corrosion chain

Borides are hard, heat-resistant materials, often used for coating structures that will have to withstand high temperatures and high-pressure environments. But even the best borides are susceptible to oxidation — the chemical reaction that causes corrosion and rusting.

Borides are among the hardest and most heat-resistant substances on the planet, but their Achilles’ Heel, like so many materials’, is that they oxidize at high temperatures. Oxidation is the chemical reaction commonly known as corrosion or rusting — it can signal the end for a material’s structural integrity...

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