What new materials are there?

2 dimensional matter made by stacking crystal layers only several atoms thick.

https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/...1.2126096383.1582910361-1597102516.1582910361

The ability to move, manipulate, and store electrons is key to the vast majority of modern technology, whether we’re trying to harvest energy from the sun or play Plants vs. Zombies on our phone. In a paper published in Nanoscale, the researchers described a way to make electrons do something entirely new: Distribute themselves evenly into a stationary, crystalline pattern.

“I’m tempted to say it’s almost like a new phase of matter,” Kar says. “Because it’s just purely electronic.”
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martinbayer said:
I'm an aerospace systems/performance rather than a materials/structures specialist, so forgive me if I'm potentially retreading covered ground (I did do a forum search though), but (apart from thermal load aspects) I found this article and the links contained therein highly intriguing: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-case-for-making-cities-out-of-wood?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Martin
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Given what different kinds of timber products and structures made thereof are already feasible, the treatment as described seems a bit energy intensive for the purpose of construction. I'm not familiar with that particular technique so won't rule it out out of hand but pretty substantial load bearing structures are possible with current massive glue laminated (and comparable) products. One example: Mjøstårnet (link 1, link 2) which is an 18 story building in Norway.

On the face of it, wood is a very good material from a sustainability standpoint. A carbon sink, renewable, recyclable and aptly used, safe. Intensive treatments might hamper recycling so I have further questions about treating or infusing the material with sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite. Just a minority of tree genera and grades of timber are suitable for construction (cultured, fast growth or heavily fertilized wood tends to be of "pulp" variety) so I'm interested in whether these treatments will enable the use of poorer "base" material: This perhaps has potential for conserving old growth forest which is really at a premium and should be conserved. The carbon cycle of these buildings should also be slow - probably above just decades or the life cycle plans not slated for energy use at least - for them to be actually net CO2 negative. Are these treatments intended to be effective for that long? Forests are currently severely depleted in terms of providing their highest quality "services", both for human and whole of ecosystem use.

So, quickly thought out, there's promise and risk but yes, it is intriguing. Existing methods to construct large wooden buildings are, at least in parts of the industry, well thought out and require a high degree of proficiency and specialization. Better perhaps to build a few examples out of this new stuff before extrapolating too far into world-conquering silver bullet visions to see where this might actually find its most appropriate adaptations. In other words I need to see apple tree to apple tree comparisons.
 
www.princeton.edu

New Princeton study takes superconductivity to the edge

The existence of superconducting currents, or supercurrents, along the exterior of a superconductor, has been surprisingly hard to find. Now, researchers at Princeton have discovered these edge supercurrents in a material that is both a superconductor and a topological semi-metal. This evidence...
www.princeton.edu www.princeton.edu
 
UpForce said:
Given what different kinds of timber products ...
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An interesting and quite poignant development in the usage of massive glue laminated wood structures comes from Modvion (link), a Swedish company, who have just erected their first 30 m/98 ft wind tower prototype on Björkö outside Gothenburg. They claim their proprietary (details seem to be hard to come by) modular construction can be extended up to at least 150 m/492 ft height and have signed letters of intent to do just that. I'm not familiar with the loads involved in modern wind mills but certainly they're substantial enough for this to be at least somewhat applicable to other kinds of large structures as well.
 

Defense-aerospace.com

www.defense-aerospace.com www.defense-aerospace.com

"Through a subsidiary company called Alpine Advanced Materials, Catalyze Dallas turned one of those unused defense concepts, HX5 thermoplastic, into a product with thousands of potential applications. The company touts HX5’s ability to replace aerospace-grade aluminum while maintaining 90 percent of aluminum’s strength and shockingly, at 50% the weight. Beyond the simple weight reduction, HX5 can withstand extreme temperatures and corrosion and has even proven resilient in the vacuum of outer space. "
 

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