James Pikul

Heat Treat Fringe Friday: Metal-Air Scavenging Robot “Eats” Aluminum

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Heat Treat Fringe Friday

Sometimes our editors find items that are not exactly “heat treat” but do deal with interesting developments in one of our key markets: aerospace, automotive, medical, energy, or general manufacturing. As we approach the weekend, today’s Heat Treat Fringe Friday Best of the Web post focuses on an interesting development in the world of manufacturing robotics.

Batteries have served us well for decades, but they are becoming too heavy and inefficient for some uses as devices continue to shrink. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have now developed a new type of robot that powers itself by “eating” metal from its environment.

The metal-air scavenger (MAS) design would still have the basic layout of a battery, including a cathode, anode, and electrolyte. But the clever part is that the anode isn’t built into the device – any metallic surface that the MAS passes over will provide the function.

James Pikul, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania (source: U Penn)

“Our MAS has a power density that’s 10 times better than the best harvesters, to the point that we can compete against batteries,” says James Pikul, lead researcher on the study. “It’s using battery chemistry, but doesn’t have the associated weight, because it’s taking those chemicals from the environment.”

An excerpt: “The cathode is made up of carbon, coated in polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and with nanobeads of platinum embedded inside. The electrolyte is a hydrogel containing salty water. When this jelly-like patch is dragged around on top of a metallic surface, it oxidizes the metal below, breaking down chemical bonds to power itself. At the same time, the cathode material is reducing oxygen from the air above it.”

To read more about this story, click here.

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“Metallic Wood”: Strong as Titanium

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Source: Medium.com

 

The study was led by James Pikul, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at Penn Engineering.

We’ve come a long way in the search for and application of lightweight metals, which are being used now in everything from high-performance golf clubs to airplane wings, but random defects that arise in the manufacturing process mean that these materials are only a fraction as strong as they could theoretically be.

In a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and the University of Cambridge have designed and built materials that are stronger than anything heretofore developed, using a sheet of nickel with nanoscale pores that make it as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter.

“The empty space of the pores and the self-assembly process in which they’re made make the porous metal akin to a natural material, such as wood.

And just as the porosity of wood grain serves the biological function of transporting energy, the empty space in the researchers’ “metallic wood” could be infused with other materials. Infusing the scaffolding with anode and cathode materials would enable this metallic wood to serve double duty: a plane wing or prosthetic leg that’s also a battery.”

 

Read more: “Penn Engineer’s ‘Metallic Wood’ Has the Strength of Titanium and the Density of Water”

 

Photo credit/caption: Penn Engineering/A microscopic sample of the researchers’ “metallic wood.” Its porous structure is responsible for its high strength-to-weight ratio, and makes it more akin to natural materials, like wood.

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