Tootfinder

🧱 Advances in Solidification Technologies of Lunar Regolith-Based Building Materials Under Extreme Lunar Environments
#materials

🧺 Prehistoric basketweaving inspires new materials for stiff, resilient robots
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-08-prehistoric-basketweaving-materials-stiff-resilient.html

Prehistoric basketweaving inspires new materials for stiff, resilient robots
Able to undergo repeated compressions without losing their shape, woven materials could form robots, exoskeletons, car parts, architectural components and more.

🌱 Living materials now easier to build with a larger palette of ingredients
#materials

Living materials now easier to build with a larger palette of ingredients
Sustainable materials—powered by sunlight and living microbes—that remove pollutants from water, release oxygen into a wound or heal themselves after damage could become simpler to create thanks to new research by a team of biologists and engineers at the University of California San Diego.

🌡️ Breakthrough carbon nanotube material sets new thermal insulation record
#materials

Breakthrough carbon nanotube material sets new thermal insulation record
Chinese researchers have developed a new carbon nanotube insulator that can withstand high temperatures up to 2,600°C, outperforming all other materials used for extreme-temperature applications. This breakthrough could be used for heat shields on hypersonic vehicles and spacecraft during re-entry into the atmosphere and in other high-temperature environments.

💪 Cleaner, cooler and cheaper: Upgraded catalyst system achieves low-temperature oxidation
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-cleaner-cooler-cheaper-catalyst-temperature.html

Cleaner, cooler and cheaper: Upgraded catalyst system achieves low-temperature oxidation
What if chemical manufacturers could cut their energy costs while eliminating toxic heavy metals from their processes? Researchers at Nagoya University have developed a catalyst system that does exactly that by converting alcohols to valuable chemical products at lower temperature using safer iodine compounds instead of dangerous heavy metals, expensive precious metals, and reagents.

Unlocking ceramic 3D printing for next-generation chemical reactors
#materials #chemistry #ceramic #manufacturing

Unlocking ceramic 3D printing for next-generation chemical reactors
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have integrated binder jet additive manufacturing with an advanced post-processing method to fabricate leak‐tight ceramic components, overcoming a key challenge of ceramic additive manufacturing.

🧊 Novel cement lets buildings cool themselves
#materials

Novel cement lets buildings cool themselves
When temperatures get too hot to handle, most of us crank up the air conditioning to keep cool. It does the job, but it's expensive and uses a significant amount of energy. But now an innovation by scientists, primarily from Southeast University in China, could help us cut our reliance on AC. They've developed a new type of cement that allows buildings to stay cool on their own. Their research is published in the journal Science Advances.

🤢 Acid-resistant artificial mucus improves gastric wound healing in animals
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-acid-resistant-artificial-mucus-gastric.html

Acid-resistant artificial mucus improves gastric wound healing in animals
Hydrogels—materials like gelatin that can absorb and hold water—can aid wound healing and enable slow-release drug delivery, but they usually break down in acidic environments like the stomach.

🧬 Need a new 3D material? Build it with DNA
#dna

Need a new 3D material? Build it with DNA
When the Empire State Building was constructed, its 102 stories rose above midtown one piece at a time, with each individual element combining to become, for 40 years, the world's tallest building. Uptown at Columbia, Oleg Gang and his chemical engineering lab aren't building Art Deco architecture; their landmarks are incredibly small devices built from nanoscopic building blocks that arrange themselves.