Revolutionizing lithium production on a string

Launch of a startup

25-Sep-2023 - A vital component of the batteries at the heart of electric vehicles and grid energy storage, lithium is key to a clean energy future. But producing the silvery-white metal comes with significant environmental costs. Among them is the vast amount of land and time needed to extract lithium from ...

How order first appears in liquid crystals

24-May-2018 - Liquid crystals undergo a peculiar type of phase change. At a certain temperature, their cigar-shaped molecules go from a disordered jumble to a more orderly arrangement in which they all point more or less in the same direction. LCD televisions take advantage of that phase change to project ...

A crystal method

Unlocking another piece of the puzzle that is crystal growth

02-Feb-2018 - From Mother Nature to our must-have devices, we're surrounded by crystals. Those courtesy of the former, such as ice and snow, can form spontaneously and symmetrically. But the silicon-based or gallium nitride crystals found in LEDs and other electronics require a bit of coaxing to attain their ...

New insights into nanocrystal growth in liquid

18-Sep-2017 - Many seashells, minerals, and semiconductor nanomaterials are made up of smaller crystals, which are assembled together like the pieces of a puzzle. Now, researchers have measured the forces that cause the crystals to assemble, revealing an orchestra of competing factors that researchers might be ...

Oyster shells inspire new method to make superstrong, flexible polymers

09-Jun-2017 - Researchers at Columbia Engineering have demonstrated for the first time a new technique that takes its inspiration from the nacre of oyster shells, a composite material that has extraordinary mechanical properties, including great strength and resilience. By changing the crystallization speed of ...

Chemical trickery corrals 'hyperactive' metal-oxide cluster

09-Dec-2016 - After decades of eluding researchers because of chemical instability, key metal-oxide clusters have been isolated in water, a significant advance for growing the clusters with the impeccable control over atoms that's required to manufacture small features in electronic circuits. Oregon State ...

Model could shatter a mystery of glass

30-Nov-2016 - A glass is a curious material in between liquid and solid states of matter, but eventually glass always yields to its solid proclivity by settling into the ordered patterns of a crystal. Or so it was thought. Princeton University researchers have developed a computational model for creating a ...

Researchers 'watch' crystal structure change in real time

27-Jul-2016 - Washington State University researchers have met the long-standing scientific challenge of watching a material change its crystal structure in real time. While exposing a sample of silicon to intense pressure--due to the impact of a nearly 12,000 mph plastic projectile--they documented the ...

Study calculates the speed of ice formation

06-Aug-2015 - Researchers at Princeton University have for the first time directly calculated the rate at which water crystallizes into ice in a realistic computer model of water molecules. The simulations provide insight into the mechanism by which water transitions from a liquid to a crystalline ...

Beyond peer review: manage errors in research data

19-Sep-2013 - Traditional peer review is not enough to ensure data quality amid the recent boom in scientific research findings, according to results of a 10-year collaboration between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and five technical journals. While production of research data is ...