Carbon Nanotubes Toughen a Common Plastic

(PhysOrg.com) -- A research group from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has discovered that adding carbon nanotubes to a widely used commercial plastic can greatly strengthen it. Their work is one example of how ...

A versatile hydrogel network-repairing strategy

Hydrogen bond engineering can convey stretchability, toughness and self-healing properties to materials, although enhancement effects of conventional hydrogen bonds is limiting due to their weak interaction strength. For ...

Mechanical metamaterials: Toughness and design criteria

Mechanical metamaterials are an emerging class of materials primarily governed by their architecture to create lightweight materials with extreme mechanical properties. The functionality of such materials is limited by their ...

Lonely flies, like many humans, eat more and sleep less

COVID-19 lockdowns scrambled sleep schedules and stretched waistlines. One culprit may be social isolation itself. Scientists have found that lone fruit flies quarantined in test tubes sleep too little and eat too much after ...

Hexagonal boron nitride's remarkable toughness unmasked

It's official: Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is the iron man of 2D materials, so resistant to cracking that it defies a century-old theoretical description engineers still use to measure toughness.

Graphene only as strong as weakest link

(Phys.org) —There is no disputing graphene is strong. But new research by Rice University and the Georgia Institute of Technology should prompt manufacturers to look a little deeper as they consider the miracle material ...

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