ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | SEPTEMBER 2025 7 predictions depends on a deep theoretical understanding of its electronic structure and free energy.” Plutonium’s electronic structure is among the most complex of all elemental metals because its electrons are easily influenced by relativity, magnetism, and crystal structure. The new free-energy model accounts for magnetic fluctuation effects for the first time. “Our model is unique and novel because it includes magnetic states that are allowed to fluctuate and depend on temperature,” says Söderlind. Acknowledging those magnetic states in the theory allows it to match the odd experimental observations of contraction at high temperatures. As a next step, the team plans to address the impact of microstructures, defects, and imperfections present in the physical material. They believe this methodology could be extended to other materials where dynamic magnetism plays a role, such as iron and its alloys, which are important in geophysics. llnl.gov. BALL MILL TURNS ALGAE INTO PLASTIC A team of chemists at Virigina Tech is working on a new approach to creating plastics made of whole-cell algae and common chemicals. They say the biohybrid plastics are strong, highly adaptable, and fully recyclable. Josh Worch, assistant professor, and his team invented a strategy to enhance the recyclability of plastic materials without compromising performance. They combined unprocessed algae with common chemical components in a ball mill to make the tough bio- hybrid plastics. The key to creating the material is the team’s mechanochemical synthesis strategy, which came from a moment of “serendipitous science,” according to Worch. When the team put the algae and chemical components into the mill, they found that the ball mill technique shortened plastic synthesis from two days to one-and-a-half hours and allowed the biomass to integrate with the synthetic parts of the material, making it a hybrid plastic. Researchers used spirulina as the biomass because it is inexpensive and widely available. They also considered other types of biomass such as agricultural waste from crop processing. “This is one of the most exciting parts of our ball milling approach, since we believe the technique is generalizable to many different materials,” says Worch. He added that the new hybrid plastic is robust, adaptable, and can easily be remolded into new shapes or completely broken down into its component parts for reuse. vt.edu. WORLD-LEADING ELECTRON BEAM TECHNOLOGY pro-beam.com PRECISE. QUICK. HIGH QUALITY. Welding with the electron beam offers these and many other advantages - find out more about it here: From left: Associate Professor Josh Worch watches graduate student Meng Jiang and former undergraduate student Emily Bird prepare the ball mill for use. Courtesy of Spencer Coppage/Virginia Tech.
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