Processing

Modeling teaches old dogs new tricks: Viscosity predictions from dilatometry and DSC

By Jonathon Foreman / July 31, 2020

Determining viscosity of a glass through experiment is a slow and expensive process. In two recent papers published in JACerS, Penn State professor John Mauro and his colleagues show how it can be predicted much easier by using dilatometry and DSC to calculate parameters for a glass viscosity model that was proposed in 2009.

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Build geometrically complex ceramic components using organic sacrificial supports

By Jonathon Foreman / June 9, 2020

One challenge in additive manufacturing is the design of complex shapes with large-sized unsupported regions. A recent ACerS journal article explores the use of organic sacrificial supports to achieve such designs.

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Ultrafast high-temperature sintering—opening the door to AI-driven materials discovery

By Lisa McDonald / May 15, 2020

Artificial intelligence techniques hasten the process of identifying new ceramic and glass compositions, but current synthesis methods limit how quickly new compositions can be experimentally tested. University of Maryland researchers and colleagues developed a new ultrafast high-temperature sintering method that could greatly speed up ceramic synthesis.

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Transparent ceramic materials may make self-driving vehicles faster and safer

By Lisa McDonald / April 21, 2020

For self-driving vehicles to become a common reality, the laser surveying system LiDAR must be improved. Researchers from Alfred University developed a transparent ceramic that could prove to be an ideal lasing material for LiDAR.

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An ultimate goal of research: Making better products by improving what you have

By Jonathon Foreman / April 17, 2020

It is one thing to develop a new material or process—but improving existing materials and processes is also important in making better products. Two papers in the May-June issue of International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology focus on improving effectivity of existing processes.

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‘MXene’mum production—two improvements in MXene processing

By Lisa McDonald / March 20, 2020

Industry must be able to mass produce high-quality MXenes if MXene-based devices are to take off. Two Drexel groups published papers describing new ways to improve processing, by scaling up production and removing water from chemical synthesis.

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A tale of two SiC slurries—and how open science may someday impact research

By Jonathon Foreman / February 25, 2020

Fabricating dense, complex-shaped items from silicon carbide can be challenging due to the material’s properties. Manufacturers benefit from studies on reducing viscosity of SiC slurries, such as two recent ones published in an ACerS journal, but open access to the data behind such studies may benefit them even more.

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Cracking the case toward commercial solar—perovskite films easily healed with moderate compression or heat

By Lisa McDonald / February 18, 2020

Perovskite solar cells are expected to become a leading contender to silicon-based solar cells, or for use in tandem with them, once several challenges are overcome. Researchers at Brown University found cracks in perovskite films are easily healed by applying compression or moderate heat.

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Doing double duty in the circular economy—creating foam glass from waste materials

By Jonathon Foreman / January 28, 2020

Porous ceramics hold great promise as value-added products for waste materials because they can use ceramic and glass powders as starting materials. Two recent papers published in a special issue of ACT explore this idea by creating foam glass from waste.

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Guided self-assembly: Templating gives control over eutectic material structure

By Lisa McDonald / January 24, 2020

Eutectic materials self-assemble to form a cohesive structure, but only a limited set of structures emerge. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Michigan found they could achieve new microstructures through templating.

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