Engineering publications brought to you by Mark Allen

Materials

An international team of researchers has developed a technique that uses liquid metal to create an elastic material that is impervious to both gases and liquids

Elastic material is impervious to gases and liquids

Comment: Promoting natural capital can help biodiversity and the climate

Industry giants target flue gases for sustainable chemicals

TIBI scientists have developed a cryofreezing method to create an aerogel substrate layer that is flexible, breathable, ultralight, and moisture/air-permeable; these qualities are due to its highly uniform and interconnected pores and their potential for three-dimensional capillary action. Inset: scanning electron microscope image of the patch’s porous surface. The substrate’s enhanced capabilities also enable the ability to screen-print integrated multifunctional sensors directly onto the substrate surface

TIBI E-skin patch provides advanced healthcare monitoring

The pre-heat ladle at the MPI's Normanton Plant

Steel sludge could be tapped for low carbon hydrogen

A flexible textile supercapacitor patch, created by Drexel University researchers, can power a microcontroller and wirelessly transmit temperature data for nearly two hours without a recharge

Flexible supercapacitor patch adds power to textile wearables

The team’s new sensor makes use of PEDOT-Cl-coated cotton sandwiched between electrodes

New material solves pressure problem in wearable sensors

Images of uncoated (top left, right) and coated (bottom left, right) nylon-6,6 fabrics after nine washing cycles taken by a scanning electron microscope

Coating cuts amount of microplastic fibres entering waterways

Bath aerogel spinout eyes aerospace market

The material contains a layer that can take on two conformations: solid copper that retains most infrared heat, which helps keep the building warm; or a watery solution that emits infrared, which can help cool the building

Building material offers low-energy solution to maintaining temperature

Twistrons, made from spun CNTs, convert mechanical movement into electricity. Scanning electron microscope images show how UT Dallas researchers made a new kind of twistron by intertwining three individual strands of spun carbon nanotube fibres to make a single yarn, similar to the way conventional yarns used in textiles are constructed. A previous version of a harvester (right) was made by coiling the CNT fibres. The scale bars indicate 100 micrometres

Carbon nanotube ‘twistrons’ harvest mechanical energy to generate electricity

Tokamak Energy to put materials through rigours of fusion conditions