By Jamie Oberdick

The Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science recently went on a mission: To create new online content for K-12 students to learn about materials science and the impact it has on everyday lives.  

By Gabrielle Stewart

Pumping carbon dioxide underground may help combat the warming of the atmosphere but finding appropriate underground sites that could safely serve as reservoirs can be complicated.

By Jamie Oberdick

Tiny defects hold key to turning inert materials into more useful chemically active ones

Demonstrating that a material thought to be always chemically inert, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), can be turned chemically active holds potential for a new class of catalysts with a wide range of applications, according to an international team of researchers.  

hBN is a layered material and monolayers can be exfoliated like in graphene, another two-dimensional material. However, there is a key difference between the two.  

By Mariah Chuprinski

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Everyday items, like prescription drugs, gasoline and plastics, all undergo several rounds of catalytic processes during manufacturing. Industrial catalysis involves using a catalyst, a molecule or small piece of metal anchored to a solid matrix, to accelerate a chemical reaction while remaining unchanged. Scientists are continually looking for good catalysts that react with certain molecules but not others in order to reduce the energy needed to run the catalytic process.

By Matthew Carroll

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The person staring back from the computer screen may not actually exist, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) capable of generating convincing but ultimately fake images of human faces. Now this same technology may power the next wave of innovations in materials design, according to Penn State scientists.

By Jamie Oberdick

Three Penn State faculty and two graduate students have received the 2021 Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award.  

The award is presented by the Materials Research Institute and recognizes interdisciplinary materials research at Penn State which yields innovative and unexpected results. The award exists thanks to a gift from Della and Rustum Roy, who are both alumni of Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and long-serving faculty in the college.

Materials Research Institute gives undergraduate student workers an opportunity to gain valuable experience

By Jamie Oberdick

Faced with a growing workload in its research labs, the Materials Research Institute (MRI) met the challenge by offering Penn State students an opportunity that most materials science and engineering undergraduates normally never receive. 

By Gabrielle Stewart

Noninvasive glucose monitoring devices are not currently commercially available in the United States, so people with diabetes must collect blood samples or use sensors embedded under the skin to measure their blood sugar levels. Now, with a new wearable device created by Penn State researchers, less intrusive glucose monitoring could become the norm. 

Graphene, hexagonally arranged carbon atoms in a single layer with superior pliability and high conductivity, could advance flexible electronics according to a Penn State-led international research team. Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in Penn State's Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM), heads the collaboration, which recently published two studies that could inform research and development of future motion detection, tactile sensing and health monitoring devices.

From detecting subatomic particles that usher in new discoveries in astrophysics at the South Pole to driving economic development in communities across Pennsylvania, Penn State research is transforming society by furthering our understanding of the world and helping people in our own backyard, according to Penn State President Eric J. Barron.

By Mariah Chuprinsky

Commercial planes burn hundreds of gallons of jet fuel per hour of flight, which can be costly for both airlines and the environment. But if planes were made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) instead of the heavier material aluminum, they could go greater distances with less fuel. 

Researchers in the Penn State College of Engineering have teamed up to investigate a new, low-cost CFRP manufacturing method with a $595,000 grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research. 

The latest episode of the Growing Impact podcast features Mauricio Terrones, Verne M. Willaman Professor of physics and professor of materials science, and Lauren Zarzar, assistant professor of chemistry.

By Ashley J. WennersHerron

With elongated bodies, large eyes and a combination of arms and tentacles, squid appear alien. In reality, they are one of the oldest classes of animals on the planet. Squid evolved during the Jurassic period and now appear in every ocean around the world. They are ubiquitous across literature and cuisine alike, popping up in stories and on plates since at least the fourth century B.C., when Aristotle first described the beasts in “The History of Animals.” 

By Gabrielle Stewart

Printable electronics could cause a proliferation of smart, connected devices, from household appliances that can communicate with each other to medical diagnostic sensors that can be placed on the body to forgo invasive procedures. But the variety of printing surfaces poses a challenge, since a method used to print on a flat object may not be safe for use on human skin or applicable for complicated textures and shapes.

By Jamie Oberdick

A novel method of characterizing the structural and chemical evolution of silicon and a thin layer that governs battery stability may help resolve issues that prevent using silicon for high-capacity batteries, according to a group of researchers. 

By Tessa M. Pick

Interdisciplinary research teams from across Penn State recently received seed grants from the Penn State Biodevices Seed Grant program and the Grace Woodward Collaborative Research in Engineering and Medicine Grant program to fund their work in advancing biodevices.

Felecia Davis brings her work using responsive textiles to the multi-university team that is working to translate Black hairstyle techniques for use in architectural practice

Natural Black hair texture and styling practices – such a braiding, locking and crocheting – will help inspire and generate novel building materials and architecture structures using computational design processes in new research funded by the prestigious Graham Foundation.

Force field is used to create better simulations to enable more efficient, effective research

By Jamie Oberdick

More than 1,600 researchers in six of the world’s seven continents have requested parameters for a ReaxFF reactive force field developed by a Penn State researcher and used as a valuable research tool in fields as varied as biomaterials, polymers, batteries, and 3D printing. 

By A'ndrea Elyse Messer

Jet packs, robot maids and flying cars were all promises for the 21st century. We got mechanized, autonomous vacuum cleaners instead. Now a team of Penn State researchers are exploring the requirements for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles and designing and testing potential battery power sources.

Penn State faculty members DK Osseo-Asare, assistant professor of architecture and engineering design, and Yasmine Abbas, assistant teaching professor of architecture and engineering design, have designed an architectural space within the “UFA – Université des Futurs Africains [University of African Futures]” exhibition at the Le Lieu Unique, a national center for contemporary culture in Nantes, France. 

A Penn State scientist studying crystal structures has developed a new mathematical formula that may solve a decades-old problem in understanding spacetime, the fabric of the universe proposed in Einstein’s theories of relativity.

“Relativity tells us space and time can mix to form a single entity called spacetime, which is four-dimensional: three space-axes and one time-axis,” said Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering and physics at Penn State. “However, something about the time-axis sticks out like sore thumb.”

By A'ndrea Elyse Messer

Fixing traumatic injuries to the skin and bones of the face and skull is difficult because of the many layers of different types of tissues involved, but now, researchers have repaired such defects in a rat model using bioprinting during surgery, and their work may lead to faster and better methods of healing skin and bones.

Penn State facility enables development of new ultra-thin materials for advanced electronics

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a renewal of funding for the Materials Innovation Platform (MIP) national user facility at Penn State’s Materials Research Institute (MRI), the Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium (2DCC). The 2DCC is one of four MIPs in the United States and was awarded $20.1 million over five years, an increase of 13% above the initial award in 2016.

A tiny protein of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that gives rise to COVID-19, may have big implications for future treatments, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

By Gabrielle Stewart

In smart cities of the future, sensors distributed throughout buildings and bridges could monitor infrastructure health. Cloud-based computing could decrease traffic with real-time analysis available to commuters. Windows could tint themselves darker on sunny days or lighten to brighten a room on cloudy ones. 

New soft, responsive metamaterial holds potential for wide variety of societal benefits

By Jamie Oberdick

Engineered, autonomous machines combined with artificial intelligence have long been a staple of science fiction, and often in the role of villain like the Cylons in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, creatures composed of biological and engineered materials. But what if these autonomous soft machines were ... helpful? 

By Jamie Oberdick

Using a technique that mimics the ancient Japanese art of kirigami, a team of researchers may offer an easier way to fabricate complex 3D nanostructures for use in electronics, manufacturing and health care.

Kirigami enhance the Japanese artform of origami, which involves folding paper to create 3D structural designs, by strategically incorporating cuts to the paper prior to folding. The method enables artists to create sophisticated three-dimensional structures more easily.

By Gail McCormick

Two faculty members have been selected to receive Lab Bench to Commercialization (LB2C) grants from the Eberly College of Science in 2021. The competitive program provides funding for researchers in the college, enabling them to enhance the commercial potential of ongoing research and prepare them to translate their intellectual property to the marketplace.

This year's grant recipients are Lauren Zarzar, assistant professor of chemistry, and Ganesh Anand, associate professor of chemistry.

The recent synthesis of one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures, a type of heterostructure made by layering two-dimensional materials that are one atom thick, may lead to new, miniaturized electronics that are currently not possible, according to a team of Penn State and University of Tokyo researchers.  

Novel transistor planned as low-energy alternative to traditional silicon transistors

By Gabrielle Stewart

Computing is everywhere — in large sectors such as manufacturing and health care or devices like your smartphone, car and coffeemaker. With a five-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Saptarshi Das, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics, plans to develop a new nanoelectronic technology to reduce the energy consumed by computing on a global scale.

By Jamie Oberdick

By Erin Cassidy Hendrick

Through the power of additive manufacturing, these materials could be widely used in defense-related applications, including personal armor and armored vehicles

Researchers in the Penn State College of Engineering received $434,000 from the United States Army to develop additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, techniques for high strength steels and alloys.

By Mariah Chuprinski

A new kind of wearable health device would deliver real-time medical data to those with eye or mouth diseases, according to Huanyu  “Larry” Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM). 

By Jamie Oberdick

Piezoelectric materials hold great promise as sensors and as energy harvesters but are normally much less effective at high temperatures, limiting their use in environments such as engines or space exploration. However, a new piezoelectric device developed by a team of researchers from Penn State and QorTek remains highly effective at elevated temperatures.