As useful as plastics are in our everyday life, they’re difficult to recycle, with most ending up in landfill or the environment. Now, researchers in Japan have used a novel catalyst to recycle a common plastic into useful products like fuel and wax.

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Mundane as it may seem, glass is a surprisingly mysterious material. Now scientists at the University of Konstanz have identified a new state of matter called liquid glass, which has some unusual properties.

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When a rope is heated – either by friction or by fire – it may lose its structural integrity, subsequently breaking when put under load. A new surface coating, however, could cause ropes to change color if they've been overheated, providing a warning to users.

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Making plastic materials out of biomass offers a number of environmental benefits, but these bioplastics tend to underperform in a few key areas. Scientists may have found a solution to one such shortcoming; the inability to contain boiling liquids.

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France's Nawa Technologies is setting up operations in the United States, and bringing its fast, affordable vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) manufacturing process into a new application: making carbon fiber composites much stronger.

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An international team of researchers has succeeded in producing two types of diamonds in a matter of minutes, demonstrating a new technique where they not only form quickly, but do so at room temperature.

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Perovskite solar is gaining much attention in solar cell research, but there are greener alternatives in the works. Scientists have just uncovered a new use for these materials, learning they can harvest energy from indoor lighting with high efficiency.

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Engineers at Michigan State University have crafted a new type of liquid foam lining they say can help football helmets better sustain repeated impacts, improving their longevity and the safety of those wearing them.

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Scientists at Australia’s RMIT have developed a tiny sponge with big potential, and say the micron-sized material can be used to convert discarded cooking oil into biodiesel in a very cost-effective manner. And this catalyst is no one-trick pony.

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A new review article, from a team of material scientists, is suggesting a leather-like material made from mushroom-derived biomass has the potential to be cheaper, and more environmentally sustainable, than animal leather or its plastic derivations.

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