Characterization

ASTM Committee C28 Advanced Ceramics celebrates three decades of excellence in standards

By April Gocha / January 5, 2016

2016 marks the thirtieth year of the founding of ASTM Committee C28 on Advanced Ceramics. Committee C28 kicks off its anniversary year with a joint meeting with ACerS on Jan. 24, 2016, as part of the 40th Jubilee celebration of ICACC’16 in Daytona Beach, Fla.

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What works for penguins could work for planes: Secrets of the feather show how to prevent ice formation

By April Gocha / December 21, 2015

New research shows that when it comes to anti-icing surfaces, the animal world’s most dapper creatures have a few tricks on their flippers.

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Ceramic double duty: Bifunctional material affords chiton shells strength and visibility with built-in eyes

By April Gocha / December 16, 2015

Ivy league researchers now show that mollusks called chitons have an interesting feature to adapt to their life under the sea—hundreds of tiny ceramic eyes integrated in and scattered across their strong aragonite shells.

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Jülich ceramic fuel cell sets world record with 70,000 hours of continuous service

By April Gocha / December 9, 2015

Researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich research center in Germany have set a world record for the longest continually-running solid oxide fuel cell, a major achievement for fuel cells everywhere.

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NASA gives jet engines layer of glass with injection of volcanic ash

By April Gocha / December 6, 2015

Scientists at NASA have taken measurements of what happens in full-scale tests—in which the scientists injected actual volcanic ash into an operating jet engine—and will spend the next several months analyzing the experimental data.

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Giant electric field-induced strains in lead-free ceramics

By April Gocha / December 3, 2015

An Iowa State University research team led by Xiaoli Tan recently discovered that Sr and Nb co-doped polycrystalline ceramics can generate the highest reported electrostrain value to date in any lead-free polycrystalline ceramic and represents a 50% improvement over previous results.

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Snap, crackle, pop: Rice Krispies reveal compaction bands wave through crushed porous, brittle materials

By April Gocha / November 24, 2015

Researchers at San Diego State University and beyond are using food as an experimental medium to uncover phenomena of materials science.

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UPDATE: Ceramics pair with silk to form skeletal tissue-repairing dynamic duo

By April Gocha / October 21, 2015

Researchers at Tufts University (Medord, Mass.) and the University of Sydney (Australia) have developed a novel type of biodegradable scaffold that combines silk and ceramic to help broken bodies jointly rebuild the cartilage and bone that compose joints.

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Father of lithium-ion cathode innovates new material to charge the future of sodium-ion batteries

By April Gocha / October 13, 2015

Materials scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have created another new cathode material—this time to propel sodium-ions into the future power mainstream.

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Inspired by tardigrades: Vapor deposition creates molecular order in glass

By April Gocha / September 13, 2015

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago, in collaboration with researchers in Wisconsin and France, has made a surprising discovery about glass—amorphous isn’t the only way to go.

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