Materials & Innovations

Dow Corning makes multi-billion dollar solar investment

By / February 9, 2009

Dow Corning Corp., known for its silicon-based technology, is betting it can be a major supplier to solar industry via a capital investment of several billion dollars. The investment will…

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Nanocoated pump seal wins ‘Oscar’ of invention

By / February 9, 2009

Dubbed the “Oscars of Innovation” by the Chicago Tribune, the R&D 100 Awards, presented annually by R&D magazine, are a badge of distinction that identifies a product as one of…

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Virginia Tech students awarded for inventing ‘moon bricks’

By / February 9, 2009

Their invention of lunar brick has earned a Virginia Tech student research team one of only two awards presented in a 2008 design competition sponsored by PISCES, an international research center…

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Vitro launches self-cleaning glass

By / February 9, 2009

Vitro SAB, one of Mexico’s largest glass manufacturers, is launching a new line of self-cleaning glass that’s said to improve visibility when it rains. Called “Ecopure,” the line is being…

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‘Restore science to its rightful place’

By / January 21, 2009

A key passage from President Obama’s address For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we…

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Video of the week – Two approaches to cloaking

By / January 21, 2009

Several research teams are actively pursuing cloaking/invisibility concepts. One of the prominent groups is at Duke University and the other is at University of California, Berkeley. The Berkeley team uses…

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Who cloaked my cheese?

By / January 18, 2009

Back when “Ceramic Tech Weekly” was still just a newsletter (waaay back in mid-2008), I wrote several stories (see here and here) about the emerging technologies related to what is…

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Ceramics as alternative to conventional laser generation

By / January 15, 2009

Kudos to Akio Ikesue and Yan Lin Aung for their recent article in Nature Photonics. Ikesue (bias confession: he is an ACerS member) and Yan report on recent developments in…

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Video(s) of the week – The hard and “soft” of ceramic armor

By / January 14, 2009

Today’s videos are something of an introduction to ceramic armor. The first video uses the suit worn in the most recent Batman movie (The Dark Knight) as a jumping off…

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Solar refrigeration coming to off-grid areas

By / January 12, 2009

A cool idea for solar-powered cold-storage is about to make refrigeration a lot more affordable, practical and environmentally friendly in off-the-grid and partially-electrified areas of the world. Birth of a…

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