Material Fabrication

The Role of Additive Manufacturing in Combatting Climate Change

3DPrint.com: Now that we are more than two decades into the current century, the importance of combatting climate change is accelerating. The Paris Agreement 2050 has highlighted the need for steep emissions cuts within the decade to keep global warming…

Granular Hydrogels for Improved Bioinks

Medgadget: Researchers at Penn State have developed a granular hydrogel that contains both hydrogel microparticles and self-assembling nanoparticles, and which could be highly suited for bioprinting purposes. The concept involves the nanoparticles becoming adsorbed onto the hydrogel microparticles and reversibly…

AI Could Make Air Conditioners 10x Better

IEEE Spectrum: The energy we spend on cooling indoor spaces has tripled since 1990, and it’s going to triple again by 2050 as developing and middle-income countries embrace air-conditioning. Researchers are putting a lot of sweat into innovative cooling technologies that…

Simple method creates stretchy color-changing films

C&EN: Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have demonstrated a fast, scalable, and cost-effective method to produce films that change color when stretched (Nat. Mater. 2022, DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01318-x). Using a digital projector and commercially available light-sensitive polymers, they were…