8 Dec 2022

Technology Developments Pushing the Frontiers of Chemical Recycling
Chemical recycling of plastic waste is gaining momentum. Headlines on investments, planned expansions, and real-world product launches are all accelerating in frequency and scale.
17 Oct 2022

Smart Plastic Material a Step Toward Soft, Flexible Electronics
Inspired by living things from trees to shellfish, researchers set out to create a plastic much like many life forms that are hard and rigid in some places and soft and stretchy in others. Their success — a first, using only light and a catalyst to change properties such as hardness and elasticity in molecules of the same type — has brought about a new material that is 10 times as tough as natural rubber and could lead to more flexible electronics and robotics.
12 Oct 2022

Stable Electrodes for Long-Term, Wearable Brain-Machine Interface
Researchers have developed an electroencefalography electrode that patients wear on their head to monitor brain activity. The EEG electrodes system could act as a brain-computer interface, which can be controlled by brain signals to help repair damage to the brain caused by strokes and other disorders.
28 Sep 2022

Magnetic Field Helps Thick Battery Electrodes Tackle EV Challenges
As electric vehicles grow in popularity, the spotlight shines more brightly on some of their remaining major issues. Researchers are tackling two of the bigger challenges facing electric vehicles: limited range and slow recharging.
11 Aug 2022

Graphene Synapses Advance Brain-Like Computers
Computers that think more like human brains are inching closer to mainstream adoption. But many unanswered questions remain. Among the most pressing, what types of materials can serve as the best building blocks to unlock the potential of this new style of computing.
27 Jun 2022

Blood Pressure E-Tattoo Promises Continuous, Mobile Monitoring
Blood pressure is one of the most important indicators of heart health, but it's tough to frequently and reliably measure outside of a clinical setting. For decades, cuff-based devices that constrict around the arm to give a reading have been the gold standard. But now, researchers have developed an electronic tattoo that can be worn comfortably on the wrist for hours and deliver continuous blood pressure measurements at an accuracy level exceeding nearly all available options on the market today.
Full profile interview
3 Feb 2021

Advanced Material Development
Advanced Material Development (AMD) commercializes research on 2D nanotechnology, and soft matter physics, based on industrial needs. IDTechEx spoke with John Lee (CEO).
20 Jul 2020

Cobalt-Free Lithium-Ion Battery Reduces Costs not Performance
For decades, researchers have looked for ways to eliminate cobalt from the high-energy batteries that power electronic devices, due to its high cost and the human rights ramifications of its mining. But past attempts haven't lived up to the performance standards of batteries with cobalt.
24 Apr 2020

Machine Learning for Rocket Engine Design
Time, cost and safety prohibit testing the stability of a test rocket using a physical build "trial and error" approach. But even computational simulations are extremely time consuming. A single analysis of an entire SpaceX Merlin rocket engine, for example, could take weeks, even months, for a supercomputer to provide satisfactory predictions.
12 Feb 2020

New Electrode Design May Lead to More Powerful Batteries
New research could lead to batteries that can pack more power per pound and last longer, based on the long-sought goal of using pure lithium metal as one of the battery's two electrodes, the anode.
12 Feb 2020

Warning That 3D Printing Pills Can Stop Drugs Working
3D printing drugs can cause unexpected and undesirable reactions that prevent their release, scientists have found. The work is one of the first studies of its kind to reveal problems when producing 3D printed pills.
10 Oct 2019

Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards development of lithium-ion battery
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 rewards the development of the lithium-ion battery. This lightweight, rechargeable and powerful battery is now used in everything from mobile phones to laptops and electric vehicles. It can also store significant amounts of energy from solar and wind power, making possible a fossil fuel-free society.
2 Aug 2019

Electric car research boosted by cobalt-free battery
The elimination of cobalt -- an expensive chemical component currently required to power our smartphones and laptops -- from lithium-ion batteries has been the goal of Texas Engineer Arumugam Manthiram for much of his career.
24 Jun 2019

New e-tattoo enables accurate, uninterrupted heart monitoring for days
A new wearable technology made from stretchy, lightweight material could make heart health monitoring easier and more accurate than existing electrocardiograph machines — a technology that has changed little in almost a century.
23 May 2019

New AI sees like a human, filling in the blanks
Computer scientists have taught an artificial intelligence agent how to do something that usually only humans can do--take a few quick glimpses around and infer its whole environment, a skill necessary for the development of effective search-and-rescue robots that one day can improve the effectiveness of dangerous missions.
1 May 2019

Future hypersonics could be artificially intelligent
A test launch for a hypersonic weapon — a long-range missile that flies a mile per second and faster — takes weeks of planning. So, while the U.S. and other states are racing to deploy hypersonic technologies, it remains uncertain how useful the systems will be against urgent, mobile or evolving threats.