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Category: engineering – Page 4

The Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) have jointly developed spray drying technology-based high-performance dry electrode manufacturing technology for the realization of high-capacity secondary batteries. The study is published in the Chemical Engineering Journal.

Secondary battery electrodes are made by mixing active materials that store electrical energy, conductive additives that help the flow of electricity, and binders which act as a kind of adhesive. There are two methods for mixing these materials: the wet process, which uses solvents, and the dry process, which mixes solid powders without solvents.

The dry process is considered more environmentally friendly than the wet process and has gained significant attention as a technology that can increase the energy density of secondary batteries. However, until now, there have been many limitations to achieving a uniform mixture of active materials, conductive additives, and binders in the dry process.

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Ground motion models developed using global databases of ground motion rely on something called the ergodic assumption, which, for broad tectonic types, means that intensity measures for a given earthquake in a given region can be applied to any location in that region. A non-ergodic ground motion model instead takes into account how ground motion varies with source, site and/or path effects.

In a new study, a team from Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company assesses the performance of different path-effect models for developing non-ergodic ground motion models using a Turkish ground-motion database. For more about their findings, please visit the paper.

ABSTRACT. The objective of this study is to assess the performance of different path‐effect models for developing nonergodic ground motion models (GMMs) using a Turkish ground‐motion database. The cell‐specific attenuation approach is widely used to capture path effects in the formulation of nonergodic GMMs. However, this approach can mainly capture anelastic attenuation effects associated with the spatial variation of the quality factor, and it is limited in capturing 3D velocity structure effects, which may be, in particular, relevant for long‐period ground motions or short‐distance and short‐period ground motions. Recent efforts have introduced new models to incorporate 3D velocity structure effects; however, the assessment of these models in the context of instrumentally recorded ground motions is limited. This study assesses the performance of three path‐effects models for Türkiye. Specifically, we consider the cell‐specific attenuation approach and two additional models based on Gaussian processes but with a different parametrization on how they represent the spatial correlation of path effects. The results indicate that the models based on Gaussian processes outperform the cell‐specific approach for long‐period spectral accelerations and short‐period ground motions at short distances, offering significant aleatory standard deviation reductions. The differences between the Gaussian process‐based models are also discussed, highlighting how their parameterization is reflected in prediction patterns. This study contributes to the transition from ergodic to nonergodic approaches in performance‐based earthquake engineering.

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Allogeneic cell therapeutics are currently being developed to overcome manufacturing bottlenecks of autologous products but face allorejection as their biggest obstacle. This review analyzes the immunogenicity of allogeneic cell therapeutics, outlines engineering strategies for immune evasion, and summarizes recent milestone achievements.

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Fast-charging lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous, powering everything from cellphones and laptops to electric vehicles. They’re also notorious for overheating or catching fire.

Now, with an innovative computational model, a University of Wisconsin–Madison has gained new understanding of a phenomenon that causes lithium-ion batteries to fail.

Developed by Weiyu Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UW–Madison, the model explains lithium plating, in which fast charging triggers metallic lithium to build up on the surface of a battery’s anode, causing the battery to degrade faster or catch fire.

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A chemical reaction that’s vital to a range of commercial and industrial goods may soon be initiated more effectively and less expensively thanks to a collaboration that included Oregon State University College of Engineering researchers.

The study, published in Nature, involves —adding the diatomic hydrogen molecule, H2, to other compounds.

“Hydrogenation is a critical and diverse reaction used to create food products, fuels, commodity chemicals and pharmaceuticals,” said Zhenxing Feng, associate professor of chemical engineering. “However, for the reaction to be economically viable, a catalyst such as palladium or platinum is invariably required to increase its reaction rate and thus lower cost.”

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A modified manufacturing process for electric vehicle batteries, developed by University of Michigan engineers, could enable high ranges and fast charging in cold weather, solving problems that are turning potential EV buyers away.

“We envision this approach as something that EV battery manufacturers could adopt without major changes to existing factories,” said Neil Dasgupta, U-M associate professor of mechanical engineering and and engineering, and corresponding author of the study published in Joule.

“For the first time, we’ve shown a pathway to simultaneously achieve extreme fast charging at , without sacrificing the energy density of the lithium-ion battery.”

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A team of researchers led by a physics graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst made the surprising discovery of what they call a “shape-recovering liquid,” which defies some long-held expectations derived from the laws of thermodynamics.

The research, published in Nature Physics, details a mixture of oil, water and magnetized particles that, when shaken, always quickly separates into what looks like the classically curvaceous lines of a Grecian urn.

“Imagine your favorite Italian salad dressing,” says Thomas Russell, Silvio O. Conte Distinguished Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering at UMass Amherst and one of the paper’s senior authors.

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The process of catalysis—in which a material speeds up a chemical reaction—is crucial to the production of many of the chemicals used in our everyday lives. But even though these catalytic processes are widespread, researchers often lack a clear understanding of exactly how they work.

A new analysis by researchers at MIT has shown that an important industrial synthesis process, the production of vinyl acetate, requires a catalyst to take two different forms, which cycle back and forth from one to the other as the chemical process unfolds.

Previously, it had been thought that only one of the two forms was needed. The new findings are published today in the journal Science, in a paper by MIT graduate students Deiaa Harraz and Kunal Lodaya, Bryan Tang, Ph.D., and MIT professor of chemistry and chemical engineering Yogesh Surendranath.

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Treatment with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies is associated with important immune-related adverse events. In this Review, the authors discuss the standard-of-care management for cytokine release and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndromes, and the potential of other T cell druggable targets as well as cellular engineering strategies to develop safer CAR-T cells.

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