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 A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 3 6 METALS | POLYMERS | CERAMICS Messe Düsseldorf extends its metal trade fair portfolio with a Cairo investment deal. As a special area of Metal & Steel Egypt, September 2-4, 2023, the four trade fairs GIFA Middle East Africa, METEC Middle East Africa, wire Middle East Africa, and Tube Middle East Africa will be held at the Egypt International Exhibition Center for the first time. www.metec.de. Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe and thyssenkrupp Hohenlimburg signed letters of intent with the Bilstein Group, Germany, for the supply of climate-friendly bluemint steel from 2023 on. From 2026 forward, steel will come from thyssenkrupp Steel’s direct reduction plants with melters in Duisburg, to be operated with green hydrogen and renewable electricity. Bilstein makes products for cold rolling applications in the automotive and toolmaking industries. thyssenkrupp.com. BRIEFS EASY-TO-SYNTHESIZE, SELF-HEALING GELS A research team consisting of Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science, Hokkaido University, and Yamaguchi University created a new method for easily synthesizing a self-healing polymer gel made of ultrahigh molecular weight (UHMW) polymers and nonvolatile ionic liquids. The recyclable and self-healable polymer gel could potentially be used as a durable, ionically conductive material for flexible Internet of Things devices. Most reported self-healing polymeric materials in recent years have been based on a chemical approach in which functional groups capable of reversible dissociation and reformation were integrated into polymeric networks. However, this method often requires precise synthetic techniques and complexmanufacturing processes. On the other hand, an STABILIZING STRATEGY FOR HIGH-ENTROPY ALLOYS Scientists at City University of Hong Kong discovered that tailoring the concentration of cobalt in high entropy alloys can prevent nanoparticles from rapid coarsening at high temperatures. This stabilizing strategy paves the way for designing novel, thermally stable, and chemically complex alloys in various engineering fields. Nanoparticle-strengthening technology is regarded as a powerful strategy to create materials with unique structural and functional properties. It’s been widely applied to innovate highstrength materials, like advanced aluminum alloys, steels, and superalloys. The researchers found that cobalt can effectively trigger a sluggish lattice diffusion effect in the nickel-cobalt-iron-chromium-aluminum-titanium (NiCoFeCrAlTi) alloy system by decreasing the interdiffusion coefficient of other elements. The cobalt also was shown to reduce the average particle size and further improve the thermal stability of these nanoparticles. According to lead scientist Yang Tao, the team’s findings create a highly effective pathway for well-targeted design of high-performance alloys with excellent thermal and mechanical properties for high-temperature structural applications. www.cityu.edu.hk. SEMmicrographs of nanoparticles in the chemically complex alloys aged at 1000°C for 240h, with their average diameters displayed in the bars. Courtesy of B. Xiao, et al., Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32620-6. Schematic depicting UHMW gels’ ability to be self-heal along with photos of the recombined gels being stretched. Courtesy of Ryota Tamate/National Institute for Materials Science.
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