Wax on, melt off

Drexel University researchers have made a discovery that could create roads that deice themselves during winter storms. Their secret?—Adding a little paraffin wax to the road's concrete mix.

Improving energy storage with a cue from nature

Materials melt faster when the lines of heat spread through the cold material like the branches of a tree—and the melting rate can be steadily increased by allowing the tree architecture to freely evolve over time, researchers ...

New research could transform high speed optical networks

There is an ever growing demand for high speed internet communication systems. New research has shown optical switching technology built on nanoantenna reflectarrays and tunable materials could transform high speed optical ...

Sunflowers inspire more efficient solar power system

(Phys.org) -- A field of young sunflowers will slowly rotate from east to west during the course of a sunny day, each leaf seeking out as much sunlight as possible as the sun moves across the sky through an adaptation called ...

Cheap beads offer alternative solar-heating storage

A cheap material that can store heat energy collected from the sun during the day that can be released slowly over night has been developed by researchers in the India. The material based on paraffin wax and stearic acid ...

Nature of bonding determines thermal conductivity

Optical data carriers such as DVDs, Blu-rays and CD-RWs store data in layers of so-called "phase change materials". In the future, these materials will enable the development of fast, non-volatile and energy-saving main memories. ...

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