Hacker News with Generative AI: Materials Science

Startup enables 100-year bridges with corrosion-resistant steel (news.mit.edu)
Allium Engineering, founded by two MIT PhDs, is tripling the lifetime of bridges and other structures with a new technology that uses a stainless steel cladding to make rebar resilient to corrosion.

Construction, Engineering, Materials Science, Sustainability

6 points by FinnKuhn 6 hours ago | 1 comments

Next Password Could Be Stored in Plastic (ieee.org)
Forget cloud storage. Scientists can now save data in plastic—storing digital information in short-chain polymers, and reading it back with electricity.

Data Storage, Materials Science, Security, Nanotechnology

7 points by Brajeshwar 1 day ago | 5 comments

Accidentally discovered nanostructured material passively harvest water from air (phys.org)
A serendipitous observation in a Chemical Engineering lab at Penn Engineering has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the need for any external energy.

Science, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Water Harvesting

26 points by pseudolus 1 day ago | 5 comments

Startup enables 100-year bridges with corrosion-resistant steel (news.mit.edu)
Allium Engineering, founded by two MIT PhDs, is tripling the lifetime of bridges and other structures with a new technology that uses a stainless steel cladding to make rebar resilient to corrosion.

Civil Engineering, Materials Science, Startups, Construction

3 points by gnabgib 2 days ago | 0 comments

Startup enables 100-year bridges with corrosion-resistant steel (news.mit.edu)
Allium Engineering, founded by two MIT PhDs, is tripling the lifetime of bridges and other structures with a new technology that uses a stainless steel cladding to make rebar resilient to corrosion.

Civil Engineering, Construction, Materials Science, Startups

3 points by rbanffy 2 days ago | 2 comments

InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel (techcrunch.com)
It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it actually comes from a lab in Maryland.

Materials Science, Innovation, Sustainability

4 points by mmooss 5 days ago | 1 comments

Lightweight plastic mirrors drop cost of solar thermal energy by 40% (newatlas.com)
Researchers in Australia are working on a way to lower the cost of producing solar thermal energy by as much as 40% with the help of shatterproof rear-view mirrors originally designed for cars.

Solar Energy, Sustainability, Materials Science, Australia

9 points by geox 5 days ago | 0 comments

InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel (techcrunch.com)
It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it actually comes from a lab in Maryland.

Materials Science, Innovation, Sustainability, Manufacturing

482 points by LorenDB 5 days ago | 425 comments

We Know Why Ancient Roman Concrete Lasts Thousands of Years (sciencealert.com)
The ancient Romans were masters of building and engineering, perhaps most famously represented by the aqueducts. And those still functional marvels rely on a unique construction material: pozzolanic concrete, a spectacularly durable concrete that gave Roman structures their incredible strength.

Ancient Rome, Engineering, Construction, Materials Science

29 points by tomcam 6 days ago | 15 comments

Scientists reveal hidden interface in superconducting qubit material (phys.org)
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have uncovered an unexpected interface layer that may be hindering the performance of superconducting qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers.

Quantum Computing, Superconductivity, Materials Science

4 points by PaulHoule 7 days ago | 0 comments

The making of the first 'electrostate' (pressreader.com)

Science, Physics, Materials Science

6 points by xnhbx 8 days ago | 3 comments

InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel (techcrunch.com)
It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it actually comes from a lab in Maryland.

Materials Science, Innovation, Manufacturing

3 points by signa11 9 days ago | 1 comments

Zinc Microcapacitors Are the Best of Both Worlds (ieee.org)
Researchers have developed zinc-ion micro-capacitors that could combine the best features of batteries and supercapacitors for small applications.

Energy Storage, Batteries, Microelectronics, Materials Science

74 points by Brajeshwar 10 days ago | 8 comments

What the hell are rare earth elements? (hubspot.com)
Rare earths are needed for EVs, smartphones, and fighter jets, but the United States lost the industry to China. Can it win it back?

Rare Earths, Materials Science, Technology, Geopolitics, China

46 points by Anon84 12 days ago | 7 comments

The six strongest materials on Earth are harder than diamonds (bigthink.com)
For millennia, diamonds were the hardest known material, but they only rank at #7 on the current list. Can you guess which material is #1?

Materials Science, Diamonds, Science, Physics

4 points by PaulHoule 14 days ago | 0 comments

Physicists discover an unusual chiral quantum state in a topological material (phys.org)
Chirality—the property of an object that is distinct from its mirror image—has long captivated scientists across biology, chemistry, and physics.

Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Materials Science

6 points by westurner 16 days ago | 0 comments

LLMs for Materials and Chemistry: 34 Real-World Examples (arxiv.org)
Large Language Models (LLMs) are reshaping many aspects of materials science and chemistry research, enabling advances in molecular property prediction, materials design, scientific automation, knowledge extraction, and more.

Generative AI, Materials Science, Chemistry

15 points by yz-exodao 16 days ago | 1 comments

Novel High Resolution 3D Printing Method for Metals and Ceramics [video] (youtube.com)

3D Printing, Materials Science, Manufacturing, Engineering, Video

7 points by grugagag 17 days ago | 1 comments

Transparent Metal (wikipedia.org)
Aluminium oxynitride (marketed under the name ALON by Surmet Corporation[3]) is a transparent ceramic composed of aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen.

Materials Science, Ceramics, Transparent Materials

4 points by prmph 18 days ago | 4 comments

Sea snail teeth top Kevlar, titanium as strongest material (2015) (cbc.ca)
British researchers have discovered the world’s strongest biological material ever tested: sea snail teeth.

Science, Materials Science, Biology, Nature

140 points by thunderbong 21 days ago | 61 comments

Eco-voxels: reconfigurable building blocks for Earth and space construction (techxplore.com)
For centuries, innovations in structural materials have prioritized strength and durability—often at a steep environmental price.

Construction, Sustainability, Materials Science, Space Exploration

4 points by PaulHoule 22 days ago | 0 comments

MIT engineers print synthetic "metamaterials" that are both strong and stretchy (news.mit.edu)
MIT engineers have now found a way to fabricate a metamaterial that is both strong and stretchy.

Engineering, Materials Science, MIT, Metamaterials

7 points by gnabgib 30 days ago | 0 comments

Scientists make water-repellent replacement for toxic 'forever chemicals' (phys.org)
A team of international scientists has invented a substitute for synthetic chemicals, called PFAS (perfluoroalkyl substances), which are widely used in everyday products despite being hazardous to health and the environment.

Science, Environmental Science, Chemistry, Materials Science, Sustainability

10 points by PaulHoule 35 days ago | 0 comments

Stainless steel strengthened: Twisting creates submicron 'anti-crash wall' (techxplore.com)
A combined team of metallurgists, materials scientists and engineers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shandong University and the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a way to make stainless steel more resistant to metal fatigue.

Materials Science, Engineering, Metallurgy, Nanotechnology

102 points by wglb 36 days ago | 44 comments

'Paraparticles' Would Be a Third Kingdom of Quantum Particle (quantamagazine.org)
A new proposal makes the case that paraparticles — a new category of quantum particle — could be created in exotic materials.

Quantum Mechanics, Physics, Materials Science

11 points by jnord 41 days ago | 2 comments

Why 'Prince Rupert's Drop' Glass Is Strong Enough to Shatter a Bullet (2023) (popularmechanics.com)
Don’t be fooled by this delicate drop of glass. It’s actually really hard to destroy.

Science, Materials Science, Physics, Glass, Strength

63 points by susam 44 days ago | 31 comments

A 32-bit processor made with an atomically thin semiconductor (arstechnica.com)
On Wednesday, a team of researchers from China used a paper published in Nature to describe a 32-bit RISC-V processor built using molybdenum disulfide instead of silicon as the semiconductor.

Semiconductors, Processors, Hardware, Materials Science

223 points by PaulHoule 45 days ago | 40 comments

Boron-Based Flame Retardants: Enabling Everyday Safety (borax.com)
On November 6, 1961, one of the most costly and destructive residential fires in California history ignited.

Safety, Fire Safety, Chemistry, Materials Science

15 points by guerrilla 47 days ago | 2 comments

A 'fungi tile' with elephant skin texture to cool buildings (ntu.edu.sg)
NTU Singapore scientists, in collaboration with local ecology and biomimicry design firm bioSEA, have developed ‘fungi tiles’ that could one day be used to cool down buildings without consuming energy.

Architecture, Sustainability, Materials Science, Biomimicry

5 points by geox 48 days ago | 0 comments

Does the future of AI depend on glass? (schott.com)
Fully realized AI systems could save millions of lives, so what’s holding it back? Glass core-based semiconductor packaging could solve the limitations of today's microchips, powering AI innovations in healthcare for precision and life-saving advancements.

Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare, Technology, Materials Science

3 points by con_johnson 51 days ago | 1 comments