While less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than conventional silicon-based photovoltaic panels, the great promise was that CIGS cells could be produced cheaper and deposited on glass, flexible metal or other materials.
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The technology could potentially be used in the high-performance composite polymer materials replacing metal in the new generation of superjumbo aircraft.
From there, a visitor can purchase prints made on-site, or order products sporting their images on canvas, metal, bamboo and other materials.
Part of the Dreamliner's appeal to airlines is its increased fuel efficiency due to its construction of lightweight composite materials instead of metal.
Anatsui, 68, is famed for using wood, metal, clay and recycled materials to create artworks that are heavily influenced and inspired by indigenous traditional African cultures.
More modern versions have been powered by everything from waterwheels to electrical motors, and they work a wide variety of different kinds of materials, including metal and glass.
It has long been known that some solid materials, called metal hydrides, are capable of storing small amounts (about 1-2% of their own weight) of hydrogen at room temperature.
In 1998, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory physicists Max Sherman and Lain Walker tested a variety of sealing materials on sheet metal ducting, then heated and cooled the ducts to simulate the aging process.
The material is an organic photovoltaic semiconductor (called rr-P3HT) which, unlike the metal or silicon-based materials used until now for such biotechnological interfaces, is soft, light, flexible and highly biocompatible and naturally sensitive to visible light.
There, they experiment with raw materials like resin and metal, pushing these substances into shapes that seem to defy nature.
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The materials sector, including metal and mining companies, lagged all industries with a 55% drop in profits and 19% decline in market value.
While industrialised 3D printing has been around for decades, printing in a variety of materials including ceramics, metal and rubber, the desktop versions are far more limited.
At Gadget Camp, sponsored in part by a foundation affiliated with the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, girls learned how to make a lamp, a candy dispenser, and other useful items out of various materials including wood, metal, fiberglass and PVC pipe.
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Among the materials found were a galvanized metal pipe, a fuse, coils of metal ribbon and several bags of chemical powders, it adds.
Depositing the CIGS materials evenly on glass or metal foil is a lot harder than it sounds, and figuring out a way to mass produce thin films is another big challenge.
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These include Yuri Suzuki, a materials scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is building stacks of metal oxides in the hopes that, when combined with carbon-based materials, they'll blend into a new kind of semiconductor that can control spin at normal temperatures.
The composite materials are much lighter than traditional metal (though equally as sturdy), enabling planes to be a little larger and thus more spacious while still consuming the same amount of fuel.
As water-based materials are better at stopping radiation than metal, the approach theoretically represents the best of all worlds with less bulk, a simpler life support system and maximum room for supplies.
Other gases can be targeted by adding metal atoms to the tubes' walls or wrapping other materials around them.
It is fabulous when layered with similar shades and white, and natural materials such as wood, parchment, leather and metal.
Ultimately, the impact of this work will be to influence policy in order to treat heavy metal contamination and to optimise management policy for arsenic and nuclear legacy materials.
Construction materials for housing typically include lumber, wood, gravel, metal, iron, and steel.
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Neu was enormously successful in hugely growing the value of the privately held family concern, Hugo Neu, from a simple scrap metal trading business into one of the largest automobile crushing operations in the U.S. He then profited from taking all that crushed metal and made it available for the needs of emerging nations for raw materials for their economies.
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They rarely take physical delivery of raw materials and have no effect on the actual production and consumption of metal, grain or oil.
Engineers and scientists are developing many new types of materials such as carbon nanotubes, ceramic-matrix nanocomposites (and their metal-matrix and polymer-matrix equivalents), and new carbon fibers.
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They did this by putting pieces of silicon or one of a number of other solid materials inside a shoe-box-sized cavity and zapping the material with microwaves from a metal tip.
Again, you have to deal with signal issues in high-RF noise environments, deal with materials issues acting as RF shields (like in many computer rooms or anything with lots of metal in it), and you have to balance the convenience with the somewhat-increased security risk.
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