Graphene is superstrong and superconductive, and it has applications in everything from construction to electronics. But to date there have been almost no commercial uses of the material.
Lightweight, flexible materials can be used to make health-monitoring wearable devices, but powering the devices is a challenge. Using fuel cells instead of batteries could make the difference.
Two very similar new carbon nanotube products, released eight years apart, provoked very different reactions. What’s changed about the way we consider nanotechnology risks and benefits?
We need to carefully assess nanomaterials to ensure their safety, but there are questions over whether the existing practice of risk assessment is up to the task.
We all know engineering is useful, functional, even ingenious. But the engineering photography competition we hold each year provides us a chance to wander outside its merely utilitarian aspects into dimensions…
Coating liquid metal droplets in a nanoparticle mix creates an extra strong non-stick conductive material that retains its shape even under high impact, Australian research has found. The breakthrough…
Just on a year ago my colleagues and I announced our discovery that carbon nanotube yarns could be made to twist and rotate at great speeds when electrically stimulated. In this way we had created “artificial…
A major Japanese construction company, Obayashi Corporation, has announced plans to build a space elevator within 40 years, allowing people to be transported to space stations above the earth. The proposed…
As you read this, researchers around the world are slaving away furiously to develop stronger, smaller and more cost-effective materials for a range of potential uses. But while there are many “nano-scale…