A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 2 1 7 METALS | POLYMERS | CERAMICS BRIEFS Aleris, Cleveland, offers a new 7017 aluminum alloy in North America for commercial plate and defense uses. After extensive review and testing, the U.S. Army Research Lab issued MIL-DTL-32505 for use in armor applications. 7017 offers high strength, good weldability, and corrosion resistance. It is currently used in Europe and Asia on combat vehicles to achieve superior ballistic protection. aleris.com. In a joint venture, SSAB, LKAB, and Vattenfall report production of the world’s first hydrogen-reduced sponge iron at pilot scale. The new hybrid technology captures roughly 90% of emissions produced by steelmaking. The pilot plant in Sweden has completed test production of sponge iron and proves it is possible to use fossil-free hydrogen gas to reduce iron ore instead of using coal and coke to remove the oxygen. The goal is to eliminate CO2 emissions from the steelmaking process by using only fossil-free feedstock and energy. www.hybritdevelopment.se. Honeywell, Houston, and Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd., Australia, announced Honeywell will provide control, utomati n, and nergy optimiz tion solutions to help Cobalt Blue streamlin its Brok n Hill Cobalt Proj ct (BHCP). Located in western New South Wales, BHCP will develop a new global supply of ethicall sour ed cobalt for green energy applications such as lithium-ion batteries and wind turbin blades. honeywellprocess.com. BRIEFS they are placed onto a graphite surface covered with an alkane. The next step is the photopolymerization itself, when the pattern is solidified with light. The molecules are illuminated by a violet laser that excites the electrons in the outermost electron shell, causing strong and durable covalent bonds to form between the molecules. The result is a porous 2D polymer, half a nanometer thick, consisting of several hundred thousand molecules identically linked, culminating in a material with nearly perfect order—right down to the atomic level. www.liu.se/en. TOUGHENING CERAMICS With existing techniques, it has been a challenge to observe transformation toughening in zirconia ceramics during dynamic fracture at the atomic level. Now, researchers from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, are using timeresolved x-ray diffraction to get realtime in situ pictures of materials’ responses to dynamic loading. Transformation toughening of ceramicmaterials is related to changes in their arrangement on the atomic level, which is why the new imaging technique is critical to gaining a complete picture of the process. The researchers use the timeresolved diffraction method to follow the behavior of yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystals subjected to shock loading. Studying these polycrystals, they demonstrated the toughening is related to a process known as spall fracture, providing insight into the origin of the high spall strength of zirconia ceramics. The researchers believe that Jonas Björk, assistant professor at Linköping university, led the polymer innovation. Courtesy of Thor Balkhed. MAKING ULTRATHIN POLYMERS Researchers from Sweden’s Linköping University, Sweden, and Germany’s Technical University of Munich and the Deutsches Museum, along with other international collaborators, created a new method to manufacture 2D polymers. The discovery makes it possible to develop new ultrathin functional materials with highly defined and regular crystalline structures. The polymerization of the material takes place in two steps. The researchers use a contraction of fluorinated anthracene triptycene, known as fantrip, to cause the molecules to spontaneously arrange themselves into a pattern suitable for photopolymerization when Illustration of hydrogen storage. Courtesy of SSAB.
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