Ceramic Tech Today

The Energy Race: Will federal budget woes affect progress?

By Eileen De Guire / November 22, 2011

Thin film solar panels produced by General Electric’s PrimeStar in Arvada, Colo. Credit: Edelman; NREL. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, was in Colorado last week, and after months of reeling…

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Video: ‘Oenodynamics’—the fluid dynamics of wine swirling

By Eileen De Guire / November 21, 2011

The fluid dynamics of wine swirling—orbital shaking—could extend to mixing and oxygenation in bioreactors for biopharmaceuticals manufacture. Credit: Farhat, et al.; YouTube. Even those of us who are not oenophiles—wine…

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With low-temp SOFC gains like this . . . why stop now?

By / November 18, 2011

Low-temperature SOFCs: (A) Functionally graded bismuth oxide (Electrolyte 1) / ceria (Electrolyte 2) can allow use of hydrocarbon fuels at the anode at reduced temperatures. (B) Estimation of power output…

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Ceramics and glass business news of the week

By Eileen De Guire / November 18, 2011

Here’s what we are hearing (some information from news releases): Superior safety for next gen high-temperature reactor: China receives first glass-to-metal sealed hermetic penetration assembly from Schott for testing China’s…

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On thinking

By Eileen De Guire / November 17, 2011

Rodin’s bronze and marble sculpture, The Thinker. How does he do it? Credit: Wikipedia. Most of us think for a living. Our outputs—experiments, talks, papers, etc.—are evidence of our having…

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Solid freeform fabrication of one-piece investment casting molds for airfoils

By Eileen De Guire / November 17, 2011

Integrally cored ceramic mold fabricated by ceramic stereolithography. The vertical cross-section on the left shows the core and shell parts. Five horizontal cross-sections of individual layers in the build-up are…

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New explanation for electrical conductivity at oxide-oxide interface

By Eileen De Guire / November 16, 2011

A cross-sectional scanning transmission electron micrograph of the interface between polar lanthanum chromium oxide and nonpolar strontium titanium oxide. Although the interface appears to be atomically abrupt, detailed spectroscopic measurements…

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Glass wall condos getting slammed as ‘throw away buildings’ in CBC series

By / November 16, 2011

Toronto lakefront skyline. Credit: Chensiyuan; Wikipedia. I wasn’t aware that Toronto has more glass condominium high-rise structures than any other city in North America, but I will take the Canadian…

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Other materials stories that may be of interest

By Eileen De Guire / November 15, 2011

A fully automated robot arm pours molten glass into the sample mold. Credit: Knud Dobberke; Fraunhofer ISC. Check ’em out: Instant-on computers may be possible with modified materials Researchers from…

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White House announces recent Materials Genome Initiative developments

By / November 15, 2011

The White House’s Cyrus Wadia, speaking above right with Penn State’s Zi-Kui Liu at the recent MS&T’11 meeting, and Tom Kalil revealed several new projects in support of the MGI.…

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