The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Sorted by date Results 376 - 400 of 658
Strong and flexible, HEA offers the ideal additive manufacturing combination Scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Georgia Institute of Technology have 3D printed a dual-phase, nanostructured, high-entropy alloy that exceeds the strength and ductility of other state-of-the-art additive manufactured materials and could be a game-changer for 3D printing. Led by assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering Wen Chen at UMass, and Ting...
SPEE3D's cold spray metal 3D printers can easily be considered one of the fastest printers in the world, deploying full-density, solid metal parts in minutes. Now, with the release of its Phaser nozzle, there is no competition when it comes to rapid printing of harder metals. Using a principle similar to creating a water jet stream that can slice through diamond, SPEE3D printers spray out powder through a nozzle and the immense pressure and friction forms the final product....
A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has discovered how subtle structural changes in strontium titanate, a metal oxide semiconductor, can alter the material's electrical resistance and affect its superconducting properties. An oxide of strontium and titanium, strontium titanate or fabulite, has been on the radar of scientists for the past 60 years, mostly because it displays unusual properties. For one, it can become a superconductor at low...
Researchers from the Birmingham Energy Institute, along with several partners, are supporting a new grant-funded project to recycle rare earth magnets from electronic waste, electric motors, and wind turbines for the United Kingdom's critical minerals supply chain. Secure Critical Rare Earth Magnets for UK, or SCREAM, is a 3.4-million-pound (US$4.1 million) UK Research and Innovation funded project that will establish a recycled source of rare earth magnets in the UK to...
X-MAT, the advanced materials division of Semplastics, recently announced it has been granted a United States patent for its electrode fabrication technology, which dramatically increases the storage capacity of graphite recovered from recycled batteries. "What we are doing with recycled electric vehicle batteries is unique and revolutionary and the patent proves it," said Semplastics CEO Bill Easter. The patent covers several important technologies that incorporate recycled...
COVID-19 may have served as an inflection point for metal 3D printing. After suffering a short-term downturn in the wake of the pandemic, the global metal additive manufacturing market is expected to grow to US$18.5 billion by 2032, according to business research firm IDTechEx. The United Kingdom-based market analyst says several factors have come into play to push this burgeoning technology to the foreground, most notably the supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic its...
The White House has allotted $500 million for a program that aims to transform old and current mine sites into renewable energy hubs. Being administered by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Clean Energy Demonstrations on Current and Former Mine Land Program aims to validate innovative approaches to converting mine lands to clean energy projects, with a goal of replication across the nation. DOE says the repurposing of mine land for energy projects that lower carbon dioxide...
A major breakthrough in nuclear fusion has been confirmed by the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, little over a year since the lab successfully achieved 1.3 megajoules of energy for a fraction of a second. After a year of painstaking work, the NIF has published its work in three peer-review papers. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun and other stars. Heavy hydrogen atoms collide with enough force that they fuse...
The United States Department of Energy is seeking public input for a new $750 million Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program. Funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the program is aimed at supporting small and medium-sized manufacturers to produce or recycle clean energy products or deploy cutting-edge greenhouse gas-reducing equipment at facilities in coal communities. Along with these investments, the program will expand the nation's clean energy...
Toward its goal of building its inventory of the cobalt needed for the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles, Electra Battery Materials Corp. has drilled a new zone of mineralization at its Iron Creek cobalt-copper project within the Idaho Cobalt Belt about 135 miles northeast of Boise. "Idaho could play an important role in the onshoring of the EV battery supply chain by providing a domestic supply of cobalt in America," said Electra Battery Materials CEO Trent Mel...
Ask anyone, "who invented the lightbulb?" and most would be able to answer Thomas Edison. Ask anyone, "who invented the telephone?" and some would be able to answer Alexander Graham Bell. Ask anyone, "who invented the lithium-ion battery powering your smartphone and laptop?" and perhaps scant few would be able to answer John Goodenough. Along with his colleagues Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino, Goodenough was jointly bestowed the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the...
The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management announced $6 million in funding toward research and development projects that will repurpose domestic coal resources for products that can be employed in clean energy technologies such as batteries and advanced manufacturing. Projects selected for this funding will support FECM's Carbon Ore Processing Program, which focuses on converting coal and coal wastes into products such as graphite, carbon...
In a world's first, Xerox' ElemX liquid metal printer was installed aboard the USS Essex, becoming the first metal 3D printer deployed on a United States naval vessel. Installed earlier this month in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the addition of a metal 3D printer is part of the U.S. Navy's strategy of using additive manufacturing to increase operational readiness for fleets. This move also builds on the relationship between the U.S. Navy and Xerox that began with the Naval...
After meeting the challenge of developing an electrifying green alternative to winter sport engines, Taiga Motors Inc. is now making a splash into summer with its Orca line of electric watercraft or jet skis. You can read about Taiga snowmobiles at Motorsport electrification begins with Taiga in the April 13, 2022, edition of Metal Tech News. Taiga's revolutionary all-electric Orca Carbon watercraft combines an innovative and optimized design, alongside exclusive cutting-edge...
MIT scientists find that brewer's yeast absorbs heavy metal. While drinking an ice-cold pint of beer may not flush lead from your system – there is not a libation strong enough for that task – the yeast used to brew your favorite ale may prevent the heavy metal from getting into your body in the first place. And like they say, "16 ounces of prevention is better than a pound of cure" – or something like that. Researchers at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Techn...
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed something many of the most extreme temperate locations in the world have long been waiting for, batteries that perform well in freezing cold and scorching hot weather while maintaining high capacity. Described in a paper published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," UC San Diego researchers were able to accomplish the feat of weatherized batteries by developing an electrolyte that is not only...
Through a recent breakthrough in battery recycling, Graphmatech, Graphenea, and Northvolt have succeeded in up-cycling end-of-life electric vehicle batteries into graphene oxide at industrial pilot scale, helping to hasten the transition to a green economy. "The upcycling of graphene oxide from recycling batteries represents a great development in our pursuit of a sustainable battery industry in Europe," said Emma Nehrenheim, chief environmental officer of Northvolt....
Upon completion of an exhaustive review of the circular economy for solar and battery technologies, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that alternatives to recycling – reducing the use of virgin materials in manufacturing, reusing for new applications, and extending product life spans – may offer untapped potential to build an effective circular economy for renewable energy. As demand for photovoltaic (PV) panels and lit...
With a small, intuitive leap, Netherlands-based 3D printer manufacturer Ultimaker is providing a simple yet ingenious addition to its line of polymer printers, a metal expansion kit that enables thermoplastic 3D printers to print metal parts. Founded in 2011, Ultimaker has been designing and building 3D printers during a time when the tech was all but nonexistent in the public eye. With its line of printers having survived a gamut of iterations and upgrades in the ensuing...
Electric-powered 18-wheelers that never need to charge and emit water vapor as exhaust – this is Volvo Trucks' vision for the future of heavy long-haul transport. Hydrogen fuel cells are the technology behind this eco-friendly dream, and the Swedish automaker's truck manufacturing division is already testing hydrogen-powered semis. In the most basic terms, a fuel cell transforms hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen into electricity, water vapor, and a little heat. Platinum catalyst...
What if the very carbon dioxide being blamed for global warming was the secret ingredient of massive batteries for the storage of renewable energy meant to prevent additional CO2 from entering the atmosphere in the first place? Italy-based startup Energy Dome has created such a battery that could help fully utilize low-carbon energy while also helping to stabilize electrical grids. The primary problem with renewable energy sources like wind and solar is the electricity they...
With lithium quadrupling in price over the past year, it's a great time to own this mineral, and the good times extend to Canada-based Li-Cycle Holdings Corp., which recycles metals from electronic waste – including nickel, copper and cobalt, but especially the lithium in consumer and electric vehicle batteries. In recognition for its incredible growth and potential, Corporate Knights has selected Li-Cycle as one of Canada's fastest-growing sustainable companies. "We are t...
With the ability to charge faster, store more energy, and be less likely to catch fire than their liquid lithium-ion battery counterparts, solid-state lithium batteries are considered by many in the automotive industry as the Holy Grail of the electric vehicle revolution. With the June 6 announcement that Solid Power Inc. has completed a pilot production line, Ford Motor Company and BMW Group are one step closer to realizing their vision of producing longer-range, lower-cost,...
Though scientists have tried with limited success for more than a decade to synthesize a new form of carbon called "graphyne," a team of researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder has finally succeeded in creating the material in bulk. Graphyne has long interested the scientific community because of its similarities to graphene, another form of carbon highly valued by industry. Yet despite decades of work and theorizing, only a few fragments of graphyne have ever been...
Volvo Cars has become the first carmaker to sign up with the SteelZero initiative, a net-zero steel pledge, which commits the European automaker to stringent carbon dioxide-based steel sourcing requirements by 2030, with the final goal of purchasing all its steel from fossil-fuel-free sources by 2050. Steel production is a major source of CO2 emission for the automotive industry, averaging 33% of all production-related emissions for a new Volvo car in 2021. Globally, steel...
