Used to produce three-dimensional objects of almost any type, across a range of industries, including healthcare, aviation and engineering, 3D printed materials have come of age during the last decade. Research published in the journal Materials Today demonstrates a new approach to 3D printing to fuse metallic filaments made from metallic glass into metallic objects. Jan Schroers, Professor of…
Space Energy Technology Restored To Make Power Stations More Efficient
Satellite-powering technology that was abandoned decades ago has been reinvented to potentially work with traditional power stations to help them convert heat to electricity more efficiently, meaning we would need less fossil fuel to burn for power. A new study in Nano Energypresents a prototype energy converter, which uses graphene instead of metal, making it almost…
Turning Sugar Waste into Light — and Job Opportunities
From Britain to Mexico, countries are considering sugar taxes to reduce consumption and curb the global obesity epidemic. In 2014, about 600 million people, roughly double the population of the United States, were obese. Addressing the problem earlier this year, the World Health Organization pointed the finger at high sugar consumption, in particular through sugar-sweetened…
Can Engineered Carbon Nanotubes Help Avert Our Water Crisis?
Carbon nanotube (CNT) membranes have a bright future in addressing the world’s growing need to purify water from the sea, researchers say in a study published in the journal Desalination. “Currently, about 400 million people are using desalinated water and it has been projected that by 2025, 14 percent of the global population will be…
Computing with Slime
A future computer might be a lot slimier than the solid silicon devices we have today. In a study published in the journal Materials Today, European researchers reveal details of logic units built using living slime molds, which might act as the building blocks for computing devices and sensors. Andrew Adamatzky (University of the West…