Materials science

Frame capture from video about making plastics self-destruct

How to make plastic truly biodegradable

08/31/21 — Professor Ting Xu and her students have come up with a solution for the global problem of single-use plastics: embed enzymes so that the unwanted plastic can self-destruct with a little heat and water

Photo illustration of sugar cubes over cosmic background

NASA sweetens the pot

08/26/21 — Berkeley team of chemists and engineer wins CO2 Conversion Challenge to make sugar in space from carbon dioxide

Researchers demonstrate new semiconductor device possibilities using black phosphorus

08/11/21 — Material's "magical" properties under stress and strain could help meet growing demand in optical communications and more

Animation of magnet pulling binary numbers

Berkeley scientists create world’s thinnest magnet

07/20/21 — Room-temperature 2D magnet could advance applications in computing and electronics

STEM tomography image of a 3D-grown 100-200-nanometer crystalline disc.

Crystal impurity is sheer perfection

06/29/21 Berkeley Lab — 3D-grown material designed by Berkeley researchers could speed up production of new technologies for smart buildings and robotics

3D illustration of a hexagonal graphene structure

A new twist

04/26/21 — By stacking and twisting graphene layers, researchers have converted a linear material into one with non-linear capabilities crucial to technology.

Out of the bag

04/26/21 — A chemical process that converts polyethylene plastic into a strong adhesive could create economic incentives for recycling plastic bags.

Graduate student Ivan Jayapurna with a sample film of PCL (polycaprolactone), a new, biodegradable polyester plastic.

New process makes ‘biodegradable’ plastics truly compostable

04/21/21 — Ting Xu's lab has embedded polymer-eating enzymes in plastic to allow programmed degradation after the plastic's useful life is over

Periodic Table symbols for berkelium and californium

Do you know the way to Berkelium, Californium?

03/24/21 Berkeley Lab — Heavy elements and a really powerful microscope help scientists map uncharted paths toward new materials and cancer therapies

Bundles of plastic bags awaiting recycling

Upcycling: Turning plastic bags into adhesives

12/17/20 — New catalytic process can stick polyethylene to metal or other materials, potentially boosting the economics of recycling

Exploded view of N95 mask, and assembled prototype modeled by undergrad researcher Jason Duckering

Anti-COVID mask breaks the mold

12/10/20 LBL — Scientists from Berkeley Engineering and Berkeley Lab have designed a rechargeable N95 mask with a custom fit

Sanjay Kumar, RObert RItchie and Peidong Yang

Top scholars named AAAS fellows

12/02/20 — Engineering professors Sanjay Kumar (bioengineering), Robert Ritchie (mechanical engineering and materials science) and Peidong Yang (chemistry and materials science) are among five Berkeley scholars elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science