The sustainability debate in materials science sometimes asks the wrong questions. How do we recycle more aluminium & steel? These are legitimate — but they treat recyclability/sustainability as an afterthought, forcing materials never designed for circularity back into something useful at considerable cost and energy penalty: facts that Europe, specially, cannot anymore afford. The presence … Continue reading New recycling processes or new materials?
Hydrogen is often celebrated as the clean fuel of the future, but its relationship with metals is far more complicated than it might seem. When hydrogen atoms enter a metal, they can silently weaken it from the inside — a phenomenon known as hydrogen embrittlement — and despite being recognised for over 150 years, the … Continue reading “Seeing” hydrogen embrittlement for the first time at the nanoscale
What House of Dynamite (Netflix, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32376165/) quietly reminds us in 2025 is that the world we inherited after the Cold War has drifted into a precarious corner of space and time. Perhaps this moment is one of the greatest tests our species has ever faced. For decades, science has too often been used as a … Continue reading “Your orders, Mr. President”
We are excited to share that our recent perspective review, “The Legacy and the Future of Aluminum Alloys: Space Exploration and Extraterrestrial Settlement,” has been featured among the Top 20 Most Read Articles in the American Chemical Society (ACS) Materials Au! https://pubs.acs.org/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=amacgu Most Read Articles are refreshed daily and are based on full-text downloads (PDF … Continue reading Our Paper Among the Most Read Articles on ACS! 🚀
With great pleasure I am sharing with you our new review paper entitled "A snapshot of high-entropy alloy processing techniques and their effects on resulting mechanical properties" written by Mr. Christopher Matthews, a brilliant alumni student from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Dakota School of Mines, now a Master Student in Metallurgy at … Continue reading A snapshot of high-entropy alloy processing techniques and their effects on resulting mechanical properties
Our interview to the Brazilian newspaper "Jornal da USP" is now online! "Zip Phases," synthetic materials combining metallic and non-metallic chemical elements, could be used in the future in electronics, energy storage, superconductivity, and sensors. A new class of synthetic intermetallic materials, with unique atomic structures and physical properties offering high technological potential, has been … Continue reading “Zigzag Atoms: Scientists develop material with high technological potential” — The University of São Paulo
Interesting media coverage of a Nature Nanotechnology paper drawing the attention of materials science community to the danger of AI-generated microscopy images. Time to rethink the whole concepts of University, Education & Science in a world dominated by AI and fast access to documented information? Yes! News coverage by Royal Society of Chemistry, by Katrina … Continue reading Materials scientists warn of threat posed by AI-generated experimental images
It started far beneath the southern sky,In Brazil, where questions first took flight.In Leoben’s halls the dream grew strong,And in Los Alamos — it found where it belonged. There atoms formed a pattern new,Two shapes, two souls — yet one clear view:One diamond-like, with perfect grace,One hexagonal — a mirrored face. With metal bonds and … Continue reading The Birth of the ZIP Phases
Our work on the discovery of the new Zigzag Intermetallic Phases (ZIP phases) has received an outstanding response from the scientific community on ResearchGate — it is currently featured as the most-read paper of the past 30 days! https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Advanced-Materials-1521-4095 The ZIP phases (short for zigzag intermetallic compounds) are a completely new family of materials with a remarkable feature … Continue reading Most-read paper at Advanced Materials
A beam of light? No - electrons dance,Through foil so thin, they pierce by chance.A lattice revealed, a whisper, a trace,Of atoms aligned in crystalline grace. No longer just theory, or grayscale in books,But fringes and defects in shimmering looks.The voids, the bubbles, the twins, the grains and the tears,A world once unseen now lays … Continue reading Ode to My First TEM
Materials at Extremes 