Phys.org September 12, 2022 Many of the current ice-shedding materials have low durability limiting their applicability. Researchers at the University of Houston used the concept of “fracture-controlled surface” to affect the interfacial crack nucleation and growth on the surfaces through coordinated mechanical and chemical heterogeneity in the material structure. Measurements indicated low ice adhesion, high mechanical durability, and three orders of magnitude greater than other state-of-the-art ice-shedding materials. They pre-specified the crack nucleation coordinates at the interface and guided the crack growth in an interfacial plane, with no kinking in other directions to maximize the energy that goes towards crack […]
Category Archives: Advanced materials
A plastic film that can kill viruses using room lights
Phys.org September 9, 2022 Researchers in the UK have developed a thin, 30 μm, flexible, robust low-density polyethylene (LDPE) film loaded with 30 wt% P25 TiO2 and subsequently rendered highly active photocatalytically by exposing it to UVA (352 nm, 1.5 mW cm−2) for 144 h. The film was tested for anti-viral activity using two strains of influenza A virus, a highly stable picornavirus called EMCV and SARS-CoV-2, exposing it to either UVA radiation or with light from a cool white light fluorescent lamp. The film was effective at killing all the viruses—even in a room lit with just white fluorescent […]
Novel smart material enables high-performance and reliable light control of droplets
Nanowerk August 24, 2022 Light control of droplets enables remote and contactless control with remarkable spatial and temporal accuracy. However, their performance, and reliability are challenging. Researchers in China have developed a new smart material with photo-induced charge regeneration capability, enabling light control of droplets with superior performance and reliability. The smart material contains three core components: micro-size liquid metal particles with superior photothermal and thermally conductive properties; polyvinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene copolymer with excellent ferroelectric and mechanical behaviors; and micro-pyramidal structures and low-surface-energy coatings of fluorinated SiO2 nanoparticles for enhancing the superamphiphobicity. The photo-induced charged surfaces (PICSs) possess a superior […]
Researchers discover a material that can learn like the brain
Nanowerk August 22, 2022 MOS junctions can provide a variety of functionalities, from memory to computing. The technology, however, faces constraints in terms of further miniaturization and compatibility with post–von Neumann computing architectures. Manipulation of structural—rather than electronic—states could provide a path to ultrascaled low-power functional devices, but the electrical control of such states is challenging. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, South Korea) report electronically accessible long-lived structural states in vanadium dioxide that can provide a scheme for data storage and processing. The states can be arbitrarily manipulated on short timescales and tracked beyond 10,000 s after excitation, exhibiting features […]
Protective coating material self-heals in 30 minutes when exposed to sunlight
Phys.org August 8, 2022 Previous studies using photothermal dyes were mainly based on inorganic materials that are difficult to apply industrially as the coating material should be transparent. In addition, inorganic materials require a large amount of light energy to produce a photothermal effect. Researchers in South Korea developed a new material by adding a dynamic chemical bond that can repeat the decomposition and recombination of the polymer structure and mixed it with a transparent photothermal dye that can absorb near-infrared light which accounts for less than 10% of midday sunlight. This circumvents excessive increase of the vehicle surface temperature. […]
Bioinspired protein creates stretchable 2D layered materials
Science Daily July 25, 2022 Protein based composites, such as nacre and bone, show astounding evolutionary capabilities, including tunable physical properties. These composites become insensitive to flaws as soon as the structural size reaches a critical length. A team of researchers in the US (Pennsylvania State University, Brown University) studied the assembly of atomistically thin inorganic sheets with genetically engineered polymeric proteins to achieve mechanically compliant and ultra-tough materials. Although bare inorganic nanosheets are brittle, they designed flexible composites with proteins, which are insensitive to flaws due to critical structural length scale (∼2 nm). These proteins, inspired by squid ring […]
New glass-ceramic emits light when under mechanical stress
Phys.org July 26, 2022 Mechanoluminescence (ML) materials emit light in response to mechanical stimulation. However, most of today’s ML materials are polycrystalline ceramics or ceramic particle composites, which puts constraints on their bulk processability, material homogeneity and optical transparency. Researchers in Germany created a glass-ceramic material with mechanoluminescence properties by developing an exceptionally fast and stable crystallization process that allows the tiny chromium-doped zinc gallate (ZGO) crystals to precipitate homogeneously inside the glass after it has been shaped. They demonstrated it by using the ball-drop methos to show that the mechanoluminescence response was reproducible and rechargeable and that it exhibited […]
Supramolecular adhesive with usable temperature range of 400 degrees Celsius
Phys.org July 18, 2022 An international team of researchers in (China, Germany) has synthesized a new type of temperature-resistant crown-ether-protein (CEP) adhesive by harnessing synergistic host–guest molecular interactions between engineered crown ether and protein building blocks. The resulting adhesive demonstrated ultrahigh shearing adhesion strength of ≈22 MPa over a wide temperature range from −196 to 200 °C, superior to other established supramolecular or polymeric adhesives. The temperature-induced phase transition and internal bound water stabilized the system and led to superb adhesion under extreme conditions. The work offers a promising molecular engineering strategy to fabricate robust supramolecular adhesives for applications under extreme […]
Novel gel proves itself to be a highly tunable color filter
Phys.org June 27, 2022 A team of researchers in the US (NIST, University of Delaware) has developed a gel, they call “SeedGel’ which has the capability as a temperature-sensitive light filter. When white light is shone at the gel, depending on the gel’s temperature, only a specific wavelength will pass through it. A temperature change of less than a tenth of a degree Celsius can be enough to alter the permitted wavelength, which can be any color in the visible range as well as parts of the ultraviolet and infrared. The gel is made of water and liquid solvents with […]
New member added to carbon material family, a two-dimensional monolayer polymeric fullerene
Phys.org June 15, 2022 It is a challenge to prepare large-sized single-crystal 2D carbon materials with moderate bandgaps to complement zero-bandgap graphene. Researchers in Chia prepared a single-crystal 2D carbon material, namely monolayer quasi-hexagonal-phase fullerene (C60) via an interlayer bonding cleavage strategy. In this monolayer polymeric C60, cluster cages of C60 are covalently bonded with each other in a plane, forming a regular topology that is distinct from that in conventional 2D materials. It exhibited high crystallinity and good thermodynamic stability, and the electronic band structure measurement revealed a transport bandgap of about 1.6 electronvolts. An asymmetric lattice structure endows monolayer […]