Category Technology/Electronics

This image shows an all-climate battery that rapidly self-heats battery materials and electrochemical interfaces in cold environments. Credit: Chao-Yang Wang, Penn State

A Li ion battery that self heats if <32F temp has multiple applications, but may have the most impact on relieving winter ‘range anxiety’ for electric vehicle owners. “It is a long standing problem that batteries do not perform well at subzero temperatures,” said Prof. Chao-Yang Wang. “This may not be an issue for phones and laptops, but is a huge barrier for electric vehicles, drones, outdoor robots and space applications.”

Conventional batteries at below freezing temperatures suffer severe power loss, which leads to slow charging in cold weather, restricted regenerative breaking and reduction of vehicle cruise range by a...

Instead of reacting together on the surface of the catalyst (the palladium cluster), the hydrogen atoms dissociate into their components — protons and electrons. The protons enter the surrounding solution of water and methanol, while the electrons flow through the palladium itself into oxygen molecules. Credit: American Chemical Society

It paves the way to design improved catalysts to produce H2O2 to use in place of harmful chlorine, regardless of the scale of the production facility. From the polyurethane that makes our car seats to the paper made from bleached wood pulp, chlorine can be found in a variety of large-scale manufacturing processes...

Salt crystals which can be turned into polyimide. Credit: Image courtesy of Vienna University of Technology, TU Vienna

Using a new synthesis procedure developed at TU Wien, it is now possible to produce the extremely resistant material polyimide in the form of angular particles for the first time. Polyimides withstand extreme heat and chemically aggressive solvents, while being considerably less dense than metals. That is why they are very popular in industry, for example as an insulation layer on PCBs or in aerospace applications. However, it is precisely their high stability, which makes polyimides very difficult to process. Neither melting nor etching can be used to bring them into the correct shape.

“Small plastic particles are usually obtained as spherical objects,” says Miriam Unter...

Schematic representation of printer and ultrasonic manipulation rig. (a) Switchable laser module is attached to the print head carriage, and traces out the shape of the printed part. The laser can be deliberately defocused to cure large regions slowly by increasing the height of the laser module. (b) Focused laser beam cures resin within the cavity of the ultrasonic manipulation device. P = PMMA, W = Water, PZT = lead zirconate titanate transducers, R = spot-a low Viscosity photocurable resin. Cross sections of the bundles of fibres lying within traps are shown, and are separated by half a wavelength.

An engineering team has developed a new type of 3D printing that can print composite materials, which are used in many high performance products eg tennis rackets, golf clubs and airplane...