Materials & Manufacturing

A team of fiber scientists at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, have created cotton fabric that, they say, can kill bacteria, conduct electricity, ward off malaria, capture harmful gas, and weave transistors into clothing. They explain that cotton, a cellulose-based material, can be controlled one atom at a...

There’s no doubt that additive manufacturing (AM), including emerging 3D printing technologies, is booming. Despite its promise though, AM still has far to go to in understanding the impact of subtle differences in manufacturing methods on the properties and capabilities of resulting materials....

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created thin, flexible electronic devices that efficiently harvest the mechanical energy from natural motions of the human body. In addition to advances in materials processing to enable fabrication of these thin film devices, accurate analytical models...

A team of scientists from the University of Twente in The Netherlands has discovered a way to 3D print structures of copper and gold, by stacking microscopically small metal droplets. These droplets are made by melting a thin metal film using a pulsed laser. They say that this technology would allow...

Researchers at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, recently acquired a 3D bioprinter with which they plan to “print” synthesized nerve tissue. The key, they say, is developing the right “bioink” or printable tissue. One of the team member’s research on cellulose nanocrystals as...

Implanted biomedical devices used for drug delivery, tissue engineering, or sensing can help improve disease treatment. But, often these devices are susceptible to attack by the immune system. To help reduce that immune-system rejection, a team of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...

Medtech companies reshuffle facility locations to capture market opportunities. In this Outsourcing Outlook newsletter, Contributing Editor Steve Halasey examines the latest industry news concerning outsourcing/contract manufacturing.