Shape-memory polymers or shape-shifting materials are smart materials that have gained significant attention within materials science and biomedical engineering in recent years to build smart structures and devices. Digital ...
Biological materials from bone to spider-silk and wood are lightweight fibre composites arranged in a complex hierarchical structure, formed by directed self-assembly to demonstrate outstanding mechanical properties.
Double helical covalent polymers—which are spiraling collections of nature's building blocks—are fundamental to life itself, and yet, despite decades of research, scientists have never been able to synthesize them in ...
Biochemistry
May 17, 2021
1
229
Brilliantly colored chameleons, butterflies, opals—and now some 3-D-printed materials—reflect color by using nanoscale structures called photonic crystals.
Materials Science
Jun 10, 2020
0
138
From water bottles and food containers to toys and tubing, many modern materials are made of plastics. And while we produce about 110 million tons per year of synthetic polymers like polyethylene and polypropylene worldwide ...
Polymers
Nov 12, 2018
1
137
Nature packs away carbon in chalk, shells and rocks made by marine organisms that crystallize calcium carbonate. Now, research suggests that the soft, organic scaffolds in which such crystals form guide crystallization by ...
Materials Science
Jan 26, 2015
0
659
This month's headlines on two-dimensional polymers showed noteworthy headway. "2-D Polymer Crystals Confirmed At Last," said Chemical & Engineering News. "Engineers Make the World's First Verified, 2-Dimensional Polymers," ...
Scientists have spent decades trying to build flexible plastic solar cells efficient enough to compete with conventional cells made of silicon. To boost performance, research groups have tried creating new plastic materials ...
Materials Science
Aug 4, 2013
0
0
(Phys.org)—Polytron Technologies confidently says that this could be the very year that smartphone featuring transparent glass are available. Taiwan-based Polytron Technologies says the phones could arrive in late 2013. ...
Bin Ding and his team of researchers at Donghua University, Shanghai, China, have developed a new method of testing for formaldehyde using an electro-spinning netting technique. The process, described in their paper published ...
