Titanium-Based Prosthesis Alloy Scientists Have Tested Deformation

The co-authors of the development, as well as specialists from the UrFU Department of Heat Treatment and Metal Physics.
Photo Credit: Rodion Narudinov

Scientists from Ural Federal University, Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science of the SB RAS and National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University have tested new titanium-based alloys, which have several advantages over traditional medical ones. Two types of titanium alloys — TNZ (including niobium and zirconium) and multi-element TNZTS (with niobium, zirconium, tantalum and tin) — were subjected to uniaxial pressing and multi-pass rolling. As a result of exposure, ultrafine-grained structures were formed in the alloys, which significantly increased the strength and hardness of the material. The results of the research were published in the Materials Letters Journal. 

Crystal structure of titan (α-phase) that formed after tests trial improved the strength characteristics of the TNZ-alloy, but at the same time reduced its plasticity and Young’s modulus, important characteristics of materials for prostheses. In case of elastic deformations of the bone—implant system, the load on the tissue depends on the ratio of the Young's modulus of the implant material and bone tissue. The lower this ratio, the lower the probability of necrosis and destruction of bone by implant pressure. Mechanical and biocompatibility increase the prospects for the introduction of materials developed by scientists in medicine, aerospace and defense industries.

The metal that does not expand

Metal usually expands when heated
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Technische Universität Wien

Breakthrough in materials research: an alloy of several metals has been developed that shows practically no thermal expansion over an extremely large temperature interval.

Most metals expand when their temperature rises. The Eiffel Tower, for example, is around 10 to 15 centimeters taller in summer than in winter due to its thermal expansion. However, this effect is extremely undesirable for many technical applications. For this reason, the search has long been on for materials that always have the same length regardless of the temperature. Invar, for example, an alloy of iron and nickel, is known for its extremely low thermal expansion. How this property can be explained physically, however, was not entirely clear until now.

Now, a collaboration between theoretical researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) and experimentalists at University of Science and Technology Beijing has led to a decisive breakthrough: using complex computer simulations, it has been possible to understand the invar effect in detail and thus develop a so-called pyrochlore magnet – an alloy that has even better thermal expansion properties than invar. Over an extremely wide temperature range of over 400 Kelvins, its length only changes by around one ten-thousandth of one per cent per Kelvin.

Better digital memories with the help of noble gases

Adding the noble gas xenon when manufacturing digital memories enables a more even material coating even in small cavities.
Photo Credit: Olov Planthaber

The electronics of the future can be made even smaller and more efficient by getting more memory cells to fit in less space. One way to achieve this is by adding the noble gas xenon when manufacturing digital memories. This has been demonstrated by researchers at Linköping University in a study published in Nature Communications. This technology enables a more even material coating even in small cavities.

Twenty-five years ago, a camera memory card could hold 64 megabytes of information. Today, the same physical size memory card can hold 4 terabytes – over 60,000 times more information.

An electronic storage space, such as a memory card, is created by alternating hundreds of thin layers of an electrically conductive and an insulating material. A multitude of very small holes are then etched through the layers. Finally, the holes are filled with a conductive material. This is done by using a technique in which vapors of various substances are used to create thin material layers.

This Multiferroic Can Take the Heat - up to 160℃

Image Credit: Tohoku University

While most multiferroics are limited such that the hottest they can operate at is room temperature, a team of researchers at Tohoku University demonstrated that terbium oxide Tb2(MoO4)3 works as a multiferroic even at 160 ℃.

As one can imagine, a material that loses its functionality from a hot summer's day or simply the heat generated by the device itself has limited practical applications. This is the major Achilles heel of multiferroics - materials that possess close coupling between magnetism and ferroelectricity. This coupling makes multiferroics an attractive area to explore, despite that weakness.

In order to surmount this weakness to unleash the full potential of multiferroics, the research team investigated the candidate material Tb2(MoO4)3. It successfully showed the hallmark traits of multiferroics, and was able to manipulate electric polarization using a magnetic field, even at 160 ℃. This is a huge jump from the previous limit of approximately 20 ℃. Without that major Achilles heel, this remarkable finding means that multiferroics can meaningfully be applied to areas such as spintronics, memory devices that consume less power, and light diodes.

Neutrons reveal lithium flow could boost performance in solid-state battery

Scientists from Duke University and ORNL used neutron scattering to see how lithium ions, represented by the glowing orbs, move through a diffusion gate, represented by the gold triangle, in a solid-state electrolyte.
Image Credit: Phoenix Pleasant/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A team of scientists led by a professor from Duke University discovered a way to help make batteries safer, charge faster and last longer. They relied on neutrons at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to understand at the atomic scale how lithium moves in lithium phosphorus sulfur chloride (Li6PS5Cl), a promising new type of solid-state battery material known as a superionic compound. 

Using neutrons at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), and machine-learned molecular dynamics simulations at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, they found that lithium ions easily diffused in the solid material, as they do in liquid electrolytes, allowing faster, safer charging. The results, published in Nature Physics, could bring the best of both worlds for solid-state electrolytes, or SSEs, enabling next-generation batteries.  

“Our research was about figuring out what is going on inside these materials using the power of neutron scattering and large-scale computer simulations,” said Olivier Delaire, associate professor of mechanical engineering, materials science, chemistry and physics at Duke University. Delaire arrived at ORNL in 2008 as a Clifford G. Shull Fellow and won DOE’s Office of Science Early Career Award in 2014. Today, he leads a research group at Duke dedicated to investigating the atomic structure and dynamics of energy materials.

FAU Engineering Develops New Weapon against Harmful Algal Blooms

Photo Credit: Tom Fisk

As harmful algal blooms (HABs) continue to spread across the globe, urgent research is needed to address this growing threat. Studies in Italy, China, and the Atlantic basin have shown that many water bodies have high nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratios, making phosphorus a key factor that drives these blooms. This highlights the critical need for more effective phosphorus management strategies to curb the rise of HABs and protect our ecosystems.

Recently, there’s been a growing interest in finding useful ways to repurpose troublesome algal biomass, which could be turned into valuable products like bioplastics, biofertilizers, and biofuels. Researchers have already explored using algal biomass to create materials that can help clean up things such as heavy metals, rare earth metals, dyes, and even capture CO2 and harmful volatile organic compounds from the air.

However, few studies have looked into how algal biomass, especially cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, can be used to create materials that remove phosphate from water.

Now, researchers from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, have filled that gap by transforming cyanobacterial biomass, which is typically a hazardous waste, into custom-made adsorbent materials that can pull harmful phosphorus out of water. A d sorbent materials are substances that can attract and hold molecules or particles such as gases, liquids, or dissolved solids on their surface. Unlike a b sorbent materials that soak up substances into their structure, a d sorbents capture molecules on the outside surface, forming a thin layer.

Lavender oil for longer-lasting sodium-sulfur batteries

In the future, linalool, a main component of lavender, could help to make sodium-sulfur batteries more durable and efficient.
Photo Credit: Dan Meyers

Lavender oil could help solve a problem in the energy transition. A team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has created a material from linalool, the main component of lavender oil, and sulfur that could make sodium-sulfur batteries more durable and powerful. Such batteries could store electricity from renewable sources.

It is a crucial question in the energy transition: how can electricity from wind power and photovoltaics be stored when it is not needed? Large batteries are one option. And sulfur batteries, in particular sodium-sulfur batteries offer several advantages over lithium batteries as stationary storage units. The materials from which they are made are much more readily available than lithium and cobalt, two essential components of lithium-ion batteries. The mining of these two metals also often damages the environment and locally causes social and political upheaval. However, sodium-sulfur batteries can store less energy in relation to their weight than lithium batteries and are also not as durable. Lavender oil with its main component linalool could now help to extend the service life of sodium-sulfur-batteries, as a team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces reports in the journal Small.  "It's fascinating to design future batteries with something that grows in our gardens," says Paolo Giusto, group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces.

Scientists Have Given a Second Life to Paper Production Waste

Lignosulphonate is a safe waste from pulp and paper industries.
Photo Credit: Rodion Narudinov

Ural Federal University specialists have developed a new method of obtaining growth stimulators for agriculture plants. Waste from pulp and paper industries, lignosulphonate, became the basis for the production of biologically active stimulants of prolonged action for plant crops. Due to the structural features, the obtained samples can be used not only to improve crop growth, but also to remove some toxic substances from wastewater. The results were published in the Journal of Molecular Liquids. 

The Sulfite method is one of the currently used methods for extracting cellulose (the basis of any paper) from wood. In addition to the target product, large-capacity waste is formed in the form of salts lignosulphonic acids or lignosulphonates. These compounds are not toxic, they are biocompatible, water-soluble and relatively cheap.

Lignosulphonate-based nanoparticles have a porous structure and high mass content of carbon atoms that can be absorbed by the soil. Due to this fact, researchers consider them as “sponges” for dyes that can enter wastewater, and even as sorbents for oil. However, there is currently no efficient and cheap way to produce nanomaterials from this class of waste in industry. 

Rice researchers unlock new insights into tellurene, paving the way for next-gen electronics

Shengxi Huang is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, and corresponding author on a study published in Science Advances.
Photo Credit: courtesy of Shengxi Huang/Rice University

To describe how matter works at infinitesimal scales, researchers designate collective behaviors with single concepts ⎯ like calling a group of birds flying in sync a “flock” or “murmuration.” Known as quasiparticles, the phenomena these concepts refer to could be the key to next-generation technologies.

In a recent study published in Science Advances, a team of researchers led by Shengxi Huang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice, describe how one such type of quasiparticle ⎯ polarons ⎯ behaves in tellurene, a nanomaterial first synthesized in 2017 that is made up of tiny chains of tellurium atoms and has properties useful in sensing, electronic, optical and energy devices.

“Tellurene exhibits dramatic changes in its electronic and optical properties when its thickness is reduced to a few nanometers compared to its bulk form,” said Kunyan Zhang, a Rice doctoral alumna who is a first author on the study. “Specifically, these changes alter how electricity flows and how the material vibrates, which we traced back to the transformation of polarons as tellurene becomes thinner.”

One Step Coating Could Save Lives and Property

Image Credit: Rachel Barton/Texas A&M Engineering Communications

Although extremely flammable, cotton is one of the most commonly used textiles due to its comfort and breathable nature. However, in a single step, researchers from Texas A&M University can reduce the flammability of cotton using a polyelectrolyte complex coating. The coating can be tailored for various textiles, such as clothing or upholstery, and scaled using the common pad-dry coating process, which is suitable for industrial applications. This technology can help to save property and lives on a large scale. 

“Many of the materials in our day-to-day lives are flammable, and offering a solution to protect from fire benignly is difficult,” said Maya D. Montemayor, a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M and the publication’s lead author. “This technology can be optimized to quickly, easily and safely flame retard many flammable materials, offering vast protection in everyday life, saving money and lives of the general population.” 

Current studies developing flame retardant coatings deposited via polyelectrolyte complexation require two or more steps, increasing the time and cost to coat a material effectively. 

This 3D printer can figure out how to print with an unknown material

Researchers developed a 3D printer that can automatically identify the parameters of an unknown material on its own.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the researchers
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED)

While 3D printing has exploded in popularity, many of the plastic materials these printers use to create objects cannot be easily recycled. While new sustainable materials are emerging for use in 3D printing, they remain difficult to adopt because 3D printer settings need to be adjusted for each material, a process generally done by hand.

To print a new material from scratch, one must typically set up to 100 parameters in software that controls how the printer will extrude the material as it fabricates an object. Commonly used materials, like mass-manufactured polymers, have established sets of parameters that were perfected through tedious, trial-and-error processes.

But the properties of renewable and recyclable materials can fluctuate widely based on their composition, so fixed parameter sets are nearly impossible to create. In this case, users must come up with all these parameters by hand.

Researchers tackled this problem by developing a 3D printer that can automatically identify the parameters of an unknown material on its own.

Airy cellulose from a 3D printer

Complexity and lightness: Empa researchers have developed a 3D printing process for biodegradable cellulose aerogel.
Photo Credit: Empa

Ultra-light, thermally insulating and biodegradable: Cellulose-based aerogels are versatile. Empa researchers have succeeded in 3D printing the natural material into complex shapes that could one day serve as precision insulation in microelectronics or as personalized medical implants.

At first glance, biodegradable materials, inks for 3D printing and aerogels don't seem to have much in common. All three have great potential for the future, however: "green" materials do not pollute the environment, 3D printing can produce complex structures without waste, and ultra-light aerogels are excellent heat insulators. Empa researchers have now succeeded in combining all these advantages in a single material. And their cellulose-based, 3D-printable aerogel can do even more.

The miracle material was created under the leadership of Deeptanshu Sivaraman, Wim Malfait and Shanyu Zhao from Empa's Building Energy Materials and Components laboratory, in collaboration with the Cellulose & Wood Materials and Advanced Analytical Technologies laboratories as well as the Center for X-ray Analytics. Together with other researchers, Zhao and Malfait had already developed a process for printing silica aerogels in 2020. No trivial task: Silica aerogels are foam-like materials, highly open porous and brittle. Before the Empa development, shaping them into complex forms had been pretty much impossible. "It was the logical next step to apply our printing technology to mechanically more robust bio-based aerogels," says Zhao.

The researchers chose the most common biopolymer on Earth as their starting material: cellulose. Various nanoparticles can be obtained from this plant-based material using simple processing steps. Doctoral student Deeptanshu Sivaraman used two types of such nanoparticles – cellulose nanocrystals and cellulose nanofibers – to produce the "ink" for printing the bio-aerogel.

‘Frankenstein design’ enables 3D printed neutron collimator

Images of the 3D printed “Frankenstein design” collimator show the “scars” where the individual parts are joined, which are clearly visible at right.
Photo Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The time-tested strategy of divide and conquer took on a new, high-tech meaning during neutron experiments by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They discovered that the problems they faced while attempting to 3D print a one-piece collimator could be solved by instead developing a “Frankenstein design” involving multiple body parts – and some rather obvious scars.

Collimators are important components used in neutron scattering. Similar to X-rays, neutrons are used to study energy and matter at the atomic scale. Neutron collimators can be thought of as funnels that help guide neutrons toward a detector after they interact with experimental sample materials. These funnels primarily serve to reduce the number of stray neutrons that interfere with data collection, for example, neutrons that scatter off sample holders, or from other apparatuses used in the experiment such as high-pressure cells. 

During this process, most of the unwanted neutrons, those scattering from features other than the sample, enter channels inside the collimators at odd angles and are absorbed by channel walls, also referred to as blades. The blades act like the gutters on a bowling lane, which capture bowling balls that are not headed toward the pins.

New Material Can Be Used as a Membrane in Nuclear Reactors

The development can be used to accumulate deuterium and tritium for reuse.
Photo Credit: Rodion Narudinov

The new proton conductor developed by Ural scientists can be used as a separation membrane for hydrogen isotopes. This will make it possible to extract deuterium and tritium from the gas mixture and then use them for their intended purpose - either to recycle or to use. The scientists' development can be used in nuclear power plants (NPPs) to improve the efficiency of chemical separation. The scientists have published detailed information about the new conductor and its benefits in Ceramics International.

"Our material can be used as a functional material in nuclear energy. The fact is that during the operation of a nuclear reactor, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, tritium, is released, which needs to be properly utilized. Our material can act as a membrane capable of electrochemically pumping the tritium out of the supplied gas mixture. This makes it possible to use the tritium as a fuel for fusion reactors, depending on the task", explains George Starostin, Junior Researcher at the Hydrogen Energy Research Laboratory of UrFU.

A separation membrane has been created to separate individual components and, in the case of proton-conducting membranes, to separate hydrogen isotopes. According to the scientists, a membrane made of the created material will make it possible to optimize the separation process and obtain pure isotopes that can be used in thermonuclear reactions.

Magnetic Avalanche Triggered by Quantum Effects

Christopher Simon holds a crystal of lithium holmium yttrium fluoride.
Photo Credit: Lance Hayashida/Caltech

Iron screws and other so-called ferromagnetic materials are made up of atoms with electrons that act like little magnets. Normally, the orientations of the magnets are aligned within one region of the material but are not aligned from one region to the next. Think of groups of tourists in Times Square pointing to different billboards all around them. But when a magnetic field is applied, the orientations of the magnets, or spins, in the different regions line up and the material becomes fully magnetized. This would be like the packs of tourists all turning to point at the same sign.

The process of spins lining up, however, does not happen all at once. Rather, when the magnetic field is applied, different regions, or so-called domains, influence others nearby, and the changes spread across the material in a clumpy fashion. Scientists often compare this effect to an avalanche of snow, where one small lump of snow starts falling, pushing on other nearby lumps, until the entire mountainside of snow is tumbling down in the same direction.

Unleashing Disordered Rocksalt Oxides as Cathodes for Rechargeable Magnesium Batteries

Schematics of the battery and present cathode material. The present material contains many metal elements as cations thanks to the effect of the high configurational entropy.
Illustration Credit: ©Tohoku University

Researchers at Tohoku University have made a groundbreaking advancement in battery technology, developing a novel cathode material for rechargeable magnesium batteries (RMBs) that enables efficient charging and discharging even at low temperatures. This innovative material, leveraging an enhanced rock-salt structure, promises to usher in a new era of energy storage solutions that are more affordable, safer, and higher in capacity.

Details of the findings were published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. 

The study showcases a considerable improvement in magnesium (Mg) diffusion within a rock-salt structure, a critical advancement since the denseness of atoms in this configuration had previously impeded Mg migration. By introducing a strategic mixture of seven different metallic elements, the research team created a crystal structure abundant in stable cation vacancies, facilitating easier Mg insertion and extraction.

This represents the first utilization of rocksalt oxide as a cathode material for RMBs. The high-entropy strategy employed by the researchers allowed the cation defects to activate the rocksalt oxide cathode.

New Method Developed to Isolate HIV Particles

The image shows PNF-coated magnetic microbeads that bind HIV particles to their surface.
Image Credit: Torsten John

Researchers at Leipzig University and Ulm University have developed a new method to isolate HIV from samples more easily, potentially making it easier to detect infection with the virus. They focus on peptide nanofibrils (PNFs) on magnetic microparticles, a promising tool and hybrid material for targeted binding and separation of viral particles. They have published their new findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

“The presented method makes it possible to efficiently capture, isolate and concentrate virus particles, which may improve the sensitivity of existing diagnostic tools and analytical tests,” says Professor Bernd Abel of the Institute of Technical Chemistry at Leipzig University. The nanofibrils used – small, needle-like structures – are based on the EF-C peptide, which was first described in 2013 by Professor Jan Münch from Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center. EF-C is a peptide consisting of twelve amino acids that forms nanoscale fibrils almost instantaneously when dissolved in polar solvents. These can also be applied to magnetic particles. “Using the EF-C peptide as an example, our work shows how peptide fibrils on magnetic particles can have a completely new functionality – the more or less selective binding of viruses. Originally, fibrils of this kind were more likely to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases,” adds Dr Torsten John, co-first author of the study and former doctoral researcher under Professor Abel at Leipzig University. He is now a junior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany.

New Nanoceramics Could Help Improve Smartphone and TV Displays

Nanoceramics are strong because they are made under high pressure.
Photo Credit: Anna Marinovich

Scientists from the Ural Federal University, together with colleagues from India and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have developed a nanoceramic that glows in three main colors - red, green, and blue. The new material is extremely strong because it is created under high pressure. Scientists believe that the characteristics of the new nanoceramics - luminescence, strength, and transparency - will be useful for creating screens with improved brightness and detail for smartphones, televisions, and other devices. The scientists published detailed information about the new nanoceramics and their properties in the journal Applied Materials Today. 

"We obtained optically transparent nanoceramics capable of luminescing in red, green, and blue colors. This was made possible by adding carbon particles that act as carbon nanodots. During the synthesis process, the carbon components are encapsulated between the ceramic particles, creating defects on their surface. We believe that these defects create several energy levels in the carbon nanodots, allowing the material to glow in different colors in the visible spectrum", explains Arseny Kiryakov, the co-author of the work, Associate Professor of the UrFU Department of Physical Techniques and Devices for Quality Control.

Elusive 3D printed nanoparticles could lead to new shapeshifting materials

Optical images of truncated tetrahedrons forming two large hexagonal grains at an anti-phase boundary (left), and transforming into a quasi-diamond phase that initiated at the anti-phase boundary (right). Scale bars are 25 um.
Image Credit: David Doan & John Kulikowski

Stanford materials engineers have 3D printed tens of thousands of hard-to-manufacture nanoparticles long predicted to yield promising new materials that change form in an instant.

In nanomaterials, shape is destiny. That is, the geometry of the particle in the material defines the physical characteristics of the resulting material.

“A crystal made of nano-ball bearings will arrange themselves differently than a crystal made of nano-dice and these arrangements will produce very different physical properties,” said Wendy Gu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, introducing her latest paper which appears in the journal Nature Communications. “We’ve used a 3D nanoprinting technique to produce one of the most promising shapes known – Archimedean truncated tetrahedrons. They are micron-scale tetrahedrons with the tips lopped off.”

In the paper, Gu and her co-authors describe how they nanoprinted tens of thousands of these challenging nanoparticles, stirred them into a solution, and then watched as they self-assembled into various promising crystal structures. More critically, these materials can shift between states in minutes simply by rearranging the particles into new geometric patterns.

This ability to change “phases,” as materials engineers refer to the shapeshifting quality, is similar to the atomic rearrangement that turns iron into tempered steel, or in materials that allow computers to store terabytes of valuable data in digital form.

“If we can learn to control these phase shifts in materials made of these Archimedean truncated tetrahedrons it could lead in many promising engineering directions,” she said.

Novel electrochemical sensor detects dangerous bacteria

By using a customized surface to bait the targeted pathogens, they separate by themselves from a mixture of many different bacteria. This makes it easy to detect them electrochemically.
Illustration Credit: Sebastian Balser, Andreas Terfort Research Group, Goethe University Frankfurt

Researchers at Goethe University Frankfurt and Kiel University have developed a novel sensor for the detection of bacteria. It is based on a chip with an innovative surface coating. This ensures that only very specific microorganisms adhere to the sensor – such as certain pathogens. The larger the number of organisms, the stronger the electric signal generated by the chip. In this way, the sensor is able not only to detect dangerous bacteria with a high level of sensitivity but also to determine their concentration. 

Each year, bacterial infections claim several million lives worldwide. That is why detecting harmful microorganisms is crucial – not only in the diagnosis of diseases but also, for example, in food production. However, the methods available so far are often time-consuming, require expensive equipment or can only be used by specialists. Moreover, they are often unable to distinguish between active bacteria and their decay products. 

By contrast, the newly developed method detects only intact bacteria. It makes use of the fact that microorganisms only ever attack certain body cells, which they recognize from the latter's specific sugar molecule structure. This matrix, known as the glycocalyx, differs depending on the type of cell. It serves, so to speak, as an identifier for the body cells. This means that to capture a specific bacterium, we need only to know the recognizable structure in the glycocalyx of its preferred host cell and then use this as “bait".