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 | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 8 METALS | POLYMERS | CERAMICS TriTech Titanium Parts, Detroit, was launched earlier this year as a spin-off of AmeriTi Manufacturing, which was sold to Kymera International on the same day. AmeriTi was founded in 1984 to focus on titanium products from recycled material. TriTech produces net shape, complex titanium parts using 3D binder jet printing, metal injection molding, and investment casting. tritechtitanium.com. Levidian Nanosystems, U.K., and Adamant Composites Ltd., Greece, signed a joint development agreement to collaborate on enhancing composite materials with Levidian’s unique graphene. Over the next three years, the companies will incorporate sustainable graphene into a wide range of composite materials. The goal is to develop fabrics, prepreg, resin, adhesives, and coatings for applications in the automotive, aerospace and space, and wind energy industries. levidian.com. BRIEFS NEURON-INSPIRED POLYMER HEALS ITSELF Researchers at theNingbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a neuron-inspired, all-around telechelic polymer with impressive mechanical and physical properties, rapid self-healing ability, adhesion, triboelectricity, and aggregate-induced emission fluorescence. Inspired by the axon structure of neurons, the team synthesized a telechelic polymer with a three-arm structure. The 2-ureido-4 pyrimidinone terminates each arm and its length is well controlled within a small range to reduce entanglement density, thereby improving the polymer’s self-healing efficiency. In addition, extensive urea groups are embedded into each arm to construct a hierarchical hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) network. By adjusting the arm length, the polymer’s mechanical performance can be easily tuned. The polymer exhibits Aluminum’s relatively low conductivity can be a limitation in some real-world applications. Courtesy of Shannon Colson/ PNNL. CONDUCTIVE ALUMINUM COMING SOON Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, Wash., are working on ways to increase the conductivity of aluminum and make it economically competitive with copper. The team believes their results could lead to a highly conductive aluminum that could revolutionize everything from vehicles and electronics to the power grid. Although aluminum is one-third of the price and weight of copper, it is only about 60% as conductive, limiting its applications. “For years, we thought metals couldn’t be made more conductive. But that’s not the case,” says PNNL materials scientist Keerti Kappagantula. “If you alter the structure of the metal and introduce the right additives, you can indeed influence its properties.” To begin learning just how much aluminum conductivity could be increased, the PNNL team worked with colleagues at Ohio University, Athens, to identify the effects of temperature and structural defects in aluminum conductivity and develop an atom-by-atom recipe to increase its conductivity. This type of molecular simulation had not been done for metals before. The scientists turned to semiconductors for inspiration because previous research had successfully simulated conductivity in these silicon-based materials as well as some metal oxides. The team adapted these concepts to work with aluminum and simulated what would happen to the metal’s conductivity if individual atoms in its structure were removed or rearranged. These tiny changes added up to big gains in total conductivity. The model’s ability to simulate real-world conditions came as a welcome surprise. The researchers plan to see how much they can increase the conductivity of aluminum in the lab to match their theory with experimental results. pnnl.gov. Sample applications of the telechelic polymer. Courtesy of NIMTE.
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