Lisa McDonald

Ceramic and glass business news of the week for July 20, 2020

By Lisa McDonald / July 20, 2020

Europe’s largest floating PV park gets local owners, sole U.S. rare earth miner goes public, and more ceramic and glass business news of the week for July 20, 2020.

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Pursuing a cobalt-free future: Nickel-manganese-aluminum cathodes for lithium-ion batteries

By Lisa McDonald / July 17, 2020

Many electric vehicles today use lithium-ion batteries that contain cobalt, an element with high ethical and environmental costs to its production. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin explored the potential of a cobalt-free lithium-ion battery that features a nickel-manganese-aluminum cathode and found promising results.

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Data-driven approaches to materials challenges, plus more inside August 2020 ACerS Bulletin

By Lisa McDonald / July 16, 2020

The August 2020 issue of the ACerS Bulletin—featuring data-driven methods to augment experimental methods—is now available online. Plus—USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries

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Video: Forever eliminate ‘forever’ chemicals—boron nitride destroys PFOA, GenX

By Lisa McDonald / July 15, 2020

PFAS chemicals are notoriously difficult to destroy, giving them the moniker “forever” chemicals. But researchers at Rice University were recently surprised to discover that boron nitride serves as an efficient photocatalyst for degrading PFAS chemicals.

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Other materials stories that may be of interest

By Lisa McDonald / July 15, 2020

Strategies for recycling solar panels, vulnerabilities in 3D-printed carbon-fiber composites, and other materials stories that may be of interest for July 15, 2020.

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Isolating a better option—ceramic Faraday rotators improve optical isolator performance

By Lisa McDonald / July 14, 2020

Optical isolators traditionally use single crystals to polarize light—could transparent ceramics be used instead? Researchers in Japan created high-performing transparent ceramics using lanthanide rare-earth oxides, materials previously believed to not be suited for optical applications.

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Ceramic and glass business news of the week for July 13, 2020

By Lisa McDonald / July 13, 2020

Guardian Glass launches Glass Technical Library, 9T Labs and Setforge to bring carbon fiber composite additive manufacturing to series production, and more ceramic and glass business news of the week for July 13, 2020.

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Faster is not always easier—grain boundary diffusion of cations in fluorite and perovskite oxides

By Lisa McDonald / July 10, 2020

Fast grain boundary diffusion of cations is a well understood phenomenon in metals—but much less is known about this phenomenon in oxygen-ion conducting metal oxides. Researchers at RWTH Aachen University simulated this diffusion and found that although metal ions move faster along the boundaries than in bulk, the process is not necessarily less energy intensive.

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Video: Rising e-waste and a deficit of recycling

By Lisa McDonald / July 8, 2020

In 2017, a report on global e-waste predicted the amount of e-waste would increase to 52.2 million metric tonnes by 2021—but we already passed 53 million metric tonnes in 2019 alone, according to a new report released this month. Learn more about why e-waste amounts are surging, why current recycling systems are not keeping up, and what can be done to combat the problem.

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Other materials stories that may be of interest

By Lisa McDonald / July 8, 2020

5G switching gets a 2D boost, boron nitride destroys forever chemicals, and other materials stories that may be of interest for July 8, 2020.

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