Lowering the heat makes new materials possible while saving energy

September 2016 Issue

Lowering the heat makes new materials possible while saving energy
A new technology developed by Penn State researchers, called cold sintering process (CSP), opens a window on the ability to combine incompatible materials, such as ceramics and plastics, into new, useful compound materials, and to lower the energy cost of many types of manufacturing.
Meet the Professor:

Clive Randall

Subatomic microscopy key to building new classes of materials
Researchers at Penn State and the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are pushing the limits of electron microscopy into the tens of picometer scale, a fraction of the size of a hydrogen atom.
Meet the Professor:

Venkat Gopalan Nasim Alem

A Device to Control “Color” of Electrons in Graphene Provides Path to Future Electronics
A device made of bilayer graphene, an atomically thin hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms, provides experimental proof of the ability to control the momentum of electrons and offers a path to electronics that could require less energy and give off less heat than standard CMOS transistors.
Meet the Professor:

Jun Zhu

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Fun and Games Provide a Serious Safety Message

The second annual Materials Safety Olympics fielded 18 teams from seven different departments across the University Park campus for an afternoon of intense competition, food and fun, all to highlight the importance of laboratory safety.

Four-member teams rotated through a variety of settings – chemical sorting, speed gowning, safety Taboo, scavenger lab hunt, safety trivia -- testing their knowledge of lab safety. The winning team, Team Das from Engineering Science and Mechanics, won the right to display the Corning Trophy, provided by Corning, Inc., and the department with the highest total score, Chemistry, took home the PPG Trophy, provided by PPG. Other major industry sponsors include Dow Chemical and AirGas. Thirteen local businesses generously provided prizes.

The Materials Safety Olympics was the culmination of Safety Week, in which students learned from industry experts that their future employment opportunities depend on a thorough knowledge of safety procedures, which could include interview questions and/or tests before hiring. Failure to follow safety procedures is also grounds for swift termination, they learned.

To learn more about establishing a safety culture at Penn State, visit the Materials Research Institute’s Safety web page.

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