[Images above] Credit: NIST
ENERGY
Ultrathin fuel cell uses the body’s own sugar to generate electricity
Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Technical University of Munich designed a new kind of glucose fuel cell that converts glucose directly into electricity. The heart of the new device is made from ceramic.
Cleverly timed current injections keep wind farms operating despite voltage swells
Researchers from Skoltech, Shandong University, and ORE Catapult described how precisely calibrated reactive current injections may enable continuous clean power generation in spite of brief voltage swells in the system.
MANUFACTURING
New route to build materials out of tiny particles
Researchers from Delft University of Technology, Queen’s University, and University of Amsterdam showed they can simply use the shape of colloids to make interesting building blocks for new materials, regardless of the particles’ other properties.
Building lighter with concrete: How concrete 3D printing saves material and CO2
Researchers from Graz University of Technology and Baumit Beteiligungen GmbH are advancing the technique of concrete 3D printing.
Researchers create 3D binder jetted geopolymers competitive with structural concrete
A group of international researchers produced binder jet 3D printed geopolymer structures competitive with structural concrete for various applications. By creating a feedstock made entirely of sand and metakaolin, they produced prism-shaped geopolymer components with defect-free powder layers.
OTHER STORIES
Researchers identify new high-temperature superconductor
Using computational and experimental methods, researchers compared a low-valence nickelate to a prototypical cuprate with a similar electron filling. They found that despite requiring more energy to transfer charges, nickelates retained a sizable capacity for superexchange.
Flaws fixed in venerable 84-year-old method of measuring porosity
Researchers at University of Cambridge found that the Bet equation used to measure porosity sometimes fails. This failure happens because, to apply the Bet equation, scientists must define the most linear region of the adsorption isotherm, and this choice affects the outcome because the calculated surface area depends on that data range.
Information encryption and 3D optical storage in glass
Researchers demonstrated a new entirely photostimulation-induced reversible photochromic glass for 3D optical storage applications. The photostimulation-induced reversible color change was attributed to the decomposition and precipitation of silver microcrystals in the glass host.
Converting pharmaceutical glass into ceramics
Researchers examined the opportunities and challenges for the upcycling of pharmaceutical glass into different porous ceramics through the gel casting technique. Unlike previous experiments, the surfactant amount and temperature were reduced after alkali activation and then eliminated.
Nature journals will make sex and gender reporting mandatory in research
Come June, researchers who submit papers to a subset of the Nature Portfolio journals will need to describe whether, and how, sex and gender are considered in study design. If no such analyses were carried out, authors need to clarify why. This requirement will apply to work with human participants, as well as other vertebrate animals and cell experimental studies.