Dyeing easier : New potential for dyeing polyester with chitosan

In the clothing industry it's common to mix natural and synthetic fibers. Take cotton and add polyester to make clothing that's soft, breathable and wrinkle free. Now researchers at the University of Washington ...

Could powering an iPod or cell phone become as easy as plugging it into your tee shirt or jeans, and then recharging the clothing overnight? Scientists in California are reporting an advance in that direction ...

Anne Kai, of Lacey, Wash., owns a small, hand-dyed fabric business with an environmental slant.

Manufacturing fiber-reinforced plastic components for ships, facades of buildings and wind power plants is a technically difficult process. Researchers are now developing a new, environment-friendly process ...

It may not be as catchy a combination as "Miss Scarlet in the parlor with a revolver," but "polyester-rayon wipes in the field followed by saline-surfactant extraction and vortexing" is the most efficient ...

When it comes to quickly setting up temporary buildings, the U.S. military relies on structures familiar to hikers and campers – tents. These facilities, known as large-area shelters, are used for command-and-control centers, ...

(Phys.org) —Chemical researchers D K Abdullah and Ahmad Shamsuri of University Putra Malaysia have found a way to synthesize vanillin from sawdust in an environmentally friendly way. In their paper they've ...

The mystery of how pearls form into the most perfectly spherical large objects in nature may have an unlikely explanation, scientists are proposing in a new study. It appears in ACS' journal Langmuir, named ...

(Phys.org) —In adding steam to benzene, C6H6, to generate hydrogen, the step that determines the reaction's speed is not the benzene's absorption onto the catalyst, but rather the first benzene bond th ...

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have found an effective solution for collecting sunlight for artificial photosynthesis. By combining self-assembling DNA molecules with simple dye molecules, ...

A process known as ethanol steam reforming is creating opportunities for fuel cell researchers, thanks to the recent rise of the bioethanol industry. This technique generates hydrogen gas (H2) directly w ...

Replacing traditional rigid silicon wafers with semiconductors made from flexible polymers would herald an age of advanced, 'wearable' electronics. Switching to these semiconductors, known as organic field-effect ...