http://inhabitat.

com/newly-developed-
graphene-aerogel-is-the-worlds-lightest-
material/
Scientists Develop Graphene Aerogel –
The World’s Lightest Material
Last year, German scientists created aerographite, which at 0.2 milligrams per cubic
centimeter was dubbed the world’s lightest material. However they have now been eclipsed
by a team from China’s Zhejiang University that has created Graphene Aerogel – a sponge-
like solid material made from freeze-dried carbon and graphene oxide that weighs just .16
milligrams per cubic centimeter. That’s just twice the density of hydrogen.

http://gajitz.com/meta/science/new-materials/

Strong as Steel: Scientists Unveil New ‘Unbreakable’ Glass

Developed by researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science in Japan,

this fresh form of glass is nearly as strong as steel, with potential applications
ranging from electronics to vehicles and architecture. On scales measuring
strength, this new material ranked on par with metals normally used for
industrial applications.
The scientists published their findings in Nature and aim to commercialize their
work in the next five years, bringing it to tablets, computers, smartphones, cars
and buildings. It is still thin, like and see-through like typical glass, just far
more robust. Alumina is the critical ingredient – mixed with silicon dioxide, this
strengthening agent had to be added in a new way to keep it from crystallizing
before the glass could form (which normally happens upon contact with the
container of the glass).

“So the Tokyo team brewed up a method of making glass that required no
container at all: they used gas to push the chemical components into the air,
where they synthesized together. The result? A transparent ultra glass that’s
50% alumina and rivals the Young’s modulus of steel and iron, which
measures rigidity and elasticity in solids.” Unlike traditional ultra-strong glass,
this has a very promising strength-to-weight ratio and even thin layers are
potentially incredibly resilient to damage or destruction.

BioLogic: Shape-Shifting Fabric Senses Sweat & Transforms

Developed by the MIT’s Tangible Media Group, this remarkable clothing uses
microorganisms to sense perspiration and heat, changing shape to let your body
breath on demand. As a bonus, the bacteria employed are fueled by breaking
down proteins your body expels while sweating.
Bacillus Subtilis natto bacteria react to atmospheric moisture, expanding and
contracting in response to humidity and heat. A specially printed biofilm is
overlaid on a spandex suit as shown in the video above.
the special cells sense changes on the body, curling up and thus allowing more
airflow when things heat up. MIT is now printing billions of these and testing
various applications. “In the era where biology is the new interface, we are
imagining a world where actuators and sensors can be grown rather than
manufactured,”

Caffeine Dreams: Recycled Coffee = 3D Printing Filament

As 3D printing grows ever more popular and people use at-home devices like
3D printing pens and mini-fabricators, we’re going to encounter a pretty serious
plastic problem. Plastics already place a heavy toll on the environment, but the
plastic filament used to fabricate stuff at home is rarely recycled. Now, in
comes Wound Up, a 3D printing filament made of recycled coffee grounds.
The product from 3Dom is actually a coffee-filled wire filament. It’s not
completely free of plastic, but its plastic content is significantly lower than
comparable filaments. Wound Up can be used in any printer that accepts PLA,
and it creates objects with a very unique look.
Things printed using Wound Up look almost like they’re carved from wood. Their
rich, deep color is reminiscent of a dark wood while the natural coffee material
gives them a natural-looking grain. The inventors say the products created with
Wound Up are just as sturdy as their plastic counterparts. One of their example
projects is a drinking cup made of coffee grounds.

Even the spool that holds the Wound Up filament is eco-friendly. The Eco-Spool
is made of plant sugars and will decompose much quicker than traditional
plastic spools. This type of recycled and eco-friendly material could be a real
game-changer when it comes to the environmental impact of 3D printing, which
is something we should all be concerned about as the practice edges closer and
closer to being a routine in-home thing.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot: MIT’s 3D Printing Uses Molten Glass

With a few notable exceptions, just about all 3D printing up to this point has
been done with plastic as a base material. A collaboration between MIT’s
Mediated Matter Group, MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and MIT’s
Glass Lab has led to a pretty exciting advancement: 3D printing with molten
glass. The group calls their process G3DP. It involves an upper cartridge acting
as a kiln at up to 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. The lower chamber anneals the
molten glass, allowing it to cool slowly, letting the newly-printed structure
harden. The team figured out that by precisely adjusting the orientation and
thickness of the optically transparent glass, they can closely control the light
transmission, reflection, and refraction qualities of the finished objects.
That may sound a little like mumbo-jumbo, and the video only seems to focus
on the (admittedly very impressive) artistic value of the G3DP method. But in
simpler terms, it means that this method might help us make higher-quality,
less-expensive fiber optics in the near future. It could even be used as a simpler
method of making eyeglass lenses – and the decorative possibilities are still a
pretty big part of the G3DP method’s appeal, of course. Just imagine these
gorgeous bespoke light fixtures all throughout your house!

3D Gardening: Print Living Matter with Fresh Organic Ink

Print Greenemployes a mixtures of soil, water and grass seeds, supplanting

the typical plastics we associate with 3D printing in order to print living, growing
plants into any shape you might imagine.
Developed by a group of students at the University of Maribor in Slovenia, this
3D garden printer “uses a special CNC machine as a printing device. Instead of
canvas it uses Styrodur, covered with black felt, bolstered with sponge.”
The machine layers up its creating, developing thick lines rich with seeds and
nutrients that in turn grow into living prints. It can construct anything you want,
from custom patterns to the shapes of faces as well as letters forming words or
art to make green murals. And this is just the prototype: consider the
possibilities of deploying mobile machines across landscapes, able to print out
large-scale designs around buildings or in nature.

Living Lamp Glows Brighter the More Attention You Give It

Bioluminescence is a pretty cool natural phenomenon that lets living organisms

glow with their own inner light. Tiny bioluminescent plankton called
dinoflagellates make up the inner glow in a cool new toy/virtual pet called Dino
Pet.
Dino Pet gets its name and its shape from the dinoflagellates that inhabit its
plastic shell. The tiny plankton live in salt water and require minimal care to
thrive and bring you a sweet little light show at night.
During the day, your Dino Pet should be set in indirect light. At night, give it a
little shake to stimulate the plankton and make them glow. Every now and then,
you dump some liquid nutrients into the dino’s belly to keep the plankton fed.

The amount of light your Dino Pet puts off depends on how well you care for it.
If you pay attention to it and give it lots of love, it will put on a show for you
every night after a little shake.
The toy/pet/biological lamp from BioPop was developed after the company
began a quest for a sustainable bio-light. They found dinoflagellates, designed
an adorable vessel for them, and made a completely lovable living lamp that’s
available in the US for $59.95.

Yale’s Supercool Metals Make for Super-Tough Phone Cases

When you spend money on a nice new phone, one of the first things you do (if
you’re smart) is get a case to protect it. Yale professor Jan Schroers, a
specialist in materials science and mechanical engineering, is seeing to it that
the next generation of smartphone cases is super tough and durable. Schroers
works with Bulk Metallic Glasses, or BMGs. These ultra-strong but lightweight
alloys are created by cooling molten metal incredibly quickly so that the typical
crystalline structure of solid metal can’t form. BMGs, also known as amorphous
metals, have an atomic structure that is closer to that of glass, but they are far
sturdier.
BMGs have been around since at least 1960, but until now researchers have had
trouble figuring out just how to shape them for consumer use. Professor
Schroers has developed a technique for forming them that involves shaping the
alloys while they are in their supercooled liquid state. He uses this method,
called thermoplastic forming, to create sheets of BMGs. Once the alloys are in
sheet form, they can be shaped by a blow-molding process similar to that used
to mold plastics.
Schroers has his eye on the consumer electronics market for the technology, to
which Yale owns the rights. He has licensed those rights to create a line of ultra-
durable, lightweight phone cases. They will be scratch-resistant and roughly 50
times harder than plastic. One of the main benefits of using BMGs is that
buttons can be built right into the cases, opening up the possibility to make the
next generation of smartphone cases waterproof as well as almost
indestructible.

http://industrial-innov.lbl.gov/II-materials.html

New Materials

Researchers throughout Berkeley Lab are developing new materials for use in
the broadest imaginable range of industrial applications, as well as everyday
applications from building materials to biomedicine. A new and growing area
of research at Berkeley Lab focuses on nanotechnology.

The examples of energy-efficient new materials that follow were developed or

studied at Berkeley Lab.
Gas-Filled Panels

Gas-Filled Panels, or GFPs, use thin polymer

films and low-conductivity gas to create a device
with extraordinary thermal insulation properties.
GFPs are essentially hermetic plastic bags that
can take on a variety of shapes and sizes.
Inside the outer barrier is a cellular structure
called a baffle. Argon gas filling provides an
effective thermal resistance level of R-7 per
inch, krypton gas provides R-12.5 per inch, and
xenon gas provides R-20 per inch.

 Energy use of domestic

refrigerator/freezers is directly influenced
by the overall thermal performance of the
cabinet and doors. An advanced thermal
insulation technology can improve the
efficiency of appliances such as
refrigerators.
 Insulation materials are critical in buildings
designed for low energy use and good
thermal comfort. Increasing the thermal
resistance, or R-value, of the insulation is
an effective strategy to lower heating
costs when thermal loads are dominated
by the building envelope.
 Thermal insulation will be increasingly
important in the future development of
cars because significant improvements in
gas mileage can be achieved by
downsizing the heating, ventilation, and
air conditioning equipment.
 Waste reduction and higher thermal
performance compared to close-cell foam
is possible using Gas-Filled Panels. The
panels feature low mass and low volume.
Aerogels

Aerogel is a lightweight, advanced material that

consists of more than 96 percent air. The
remaining four percent is a matrix of silica (silicon
dioxide), a principal raw material for glass. This
material is one of the lightest weight solids ever
developed.

Possible uses include:

 Environmentally friendly, energy-efficient,

recyclable alternatives for polyurethane
foam in freezers, refrigerators, refrigerated
vehicles and freezer display cases.
 Alternative insulators in appliances such as
water heaters and ovens.
 Aircraft and aerospace industry
applications.
 Luminescent composites with potential
opto-electronic applications.
 Magnetic composites that may be useful for
paramagnetic cooling at ambient
temperatures.
 High surface area carbon monoliths for
electrochemical applications.

New Solar Cells

Researchers in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences

Division (MSD), working with crystal-growing teams
at Cornell University and Japan's Ritsumeikan
University, have learned that the band gap of the
semiconductor indium nitride is not 2 electron volts
(eV) as previously thought, but instead is a much
lower 0.7 eV.

The serendipitous discovery means that a single

system of alloys incorporating indium, gallium, and
nitrogen can convert virtually the full spectrum of
sunlight-from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet-
 to electrical current. If solar cells can be made with
this alloy, they promise to be rugged, relatively
inexpensive-and the most efficient ever created.
Better Fuel Cells

Berkeley Lab researchers have

developed a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)
that promises to generate electricity as
cheaply as the most efficient gas turbine.

Their innovation, which paves the way for

pollution-free power generators that serve
neighborhoods and industrial sites, lies in
replacing ceramic electrodes with
stainless-steel-supported electrodes that
are stronger, easier to manufacture, and,
most importantly, cheaper. This latter
advantage marks a turning point in the
push to develop commercially viable fuel
cells.
The Molecular Foundry

The Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab will

open its doors on a limited scale in late 2003
as an international user facility for the study
of the theory, synthesis, and characterization
of nanoscale materials. Full scale operations
are expected to begin in 2006 when
construction of its new laboratory building is
complete.

The focus of the Foundry will be on the

development and understanding of both
"soft" (biological and polymer) and "hard"
(inorganic and microfabricated)
nanostructured building blocks and their
integration into complex functional
assemblies. This will be achieved through
collaborations with users from around the
 world in the disciplines of materials science,
physics, chemistry, and biological sciences.
Nanowire Nanolasers

One of the smallest lasers ever made-far too

small to be seen even with the aid of the most
powerful optical microscope-has been
successfully tested by a team of researchers
with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(Berkeley Lab) and the University of California
at Berkeley. This device, which emits flashes of
ultraviolet light, is called a "nanowire nanolaser"
and it measures just under 100 nanometers in
Photo by Peidong Yang/UC
diameter or about one ten-millionth of an inch. Berkeley, courtesy of Science

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