Tag Archives: RMIT University

Prototype of nanofibre uniforms for Australian military

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CSIRO project lead Dr Yen Truong (L) and Head of Program Management at DMTC, Deepak Ganga (R) with the prototype uniform. Courtesy: CSIRO

I last had a story about the Australian military and advanced technology in a June 18, 2023 posting titled, “Mind-controlled robots based on graphene: an Australian research story” where soldiers were patrolling with mind-controlled robotic dogs.

This story is textile-oriented (h/t Azonano’s September 24, 2024 news item). A September 24, 2024 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) press release announces a new kind of uniform,

Researchers at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, have successfully developed a next-generation uniform prototype that employs nanofibres to safeguard Australian troops from chemical and biological threats.

The innovative material is a lightweight fabric that effectively filters out harmful particles while remaining light-weight and breathable, keeping the wearer comfortable in extreme temperatures.

CSIRO Manufacturing Research Unit Director, Dr Marcus Zipper said this textile innovation was the result of collaboration with industry and research partners, including DMTC.

“Our nanofibre technology, pioneered by CSIRO scientists, has the potential to significantly improve the level of protection soldiers’ uniforms provide and can also be used for non-military applications, including protecting emergency responders and hazmat crews,” Dr Zipper said.

“CSIRO research and development in materials science looks to improve how a particular material functions – we work across a broad range of advanced materials including metals, composites, polymers, adsorbents and nanofibres,” Dr Zipper said.

The initial phase of this project was funded by the Department of Defence. The successful nanofibre suit prototype was coordinated by DMTC Limited.

Also involved in supporting the project are Bruck Textiles, Defence Science and Technology Group and RMIT University.

Head of Program Management at DMTC, Deepak Ganga, said the new prototype uniform could deliver a significant leap forward in soldier protection, ensuring better comfort and mobility in harsh environments.

“This project demonstrates the power of collaboration. CSIRO’s scientific excellence in nanofibre research has been matched with the expertise of our partners in textiles, defence science, and manufacturing,” Mr Ganga said.

“This has resulted in a groundbreaking solution that offers benefits for Australian troops, for the first responder community and, potentially for Australia’s alliance partners,” he said.

CSIRO project lead Dr Yen Truong said key to the prototype’s success lies in its innovative nanofibre technology, developed by CSIRO scientists.

“We harnessed the unique properties of nanofibres to create a lightweight fabric that effectively filters out harmful particles while remaining highly breathable,” said Dr Truong.

“In rigorous testing, the prototype surpassed all performance targets for air filtration, air permeability, thermal comfort, and chemical protection.

“This means it effectively filters pollutants from the air, allows for breathability, maintains comfortable temperatures even in extreme conditions, and offers superior protection from hazardous chemicals.”

With DMTC Limited, Dr Truong and team are seeking funding to progress to the next stage of development, which is expected to involve field testing with Australian Defence Force personnel and further refinement of scaled manufacturing processes with industrial partners.

As you can see, they’re being quite close-lipped about how or from what the textile is constituted. This September 24, 2024 CSIRO article by Rebecca Willetts offers a little more information,

For soldiers on the frontline, chemical and biological hazards are a sobering threat.

Traditional bulky protective suits offer a crucial layer of protection but come at the expense of breathability and mobility. This can lead to discomfort, heat stress and even hinder performance in harsh environments – potentially jeopardising the wearer’s health.

Our researchers are working to revolutionise personal protective equipment. We’ve developed a next-generation suit prototype that prioritises safety and comfort for soldiers and first responders.  

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The secret to our breakthrough lies in nanofibres – incredibly fine filaments at least 100 times thinner than a human hair. These tiny wonders have an extraordinary surface area that prevents harmful aerosol particles from passing through. What truly sets them apart is their breathability. Unlike traditional protective materials, nanofibre layers allow air to circulate freely – ensuring the wearer remains comfortable even in extreme conditions.

Senior researcher Dr Yen Truong is leading the project at CSIRO. She explains that nanofibres have the potential to revolutionise the way we think about protective gear. 

“They offer a unique combination of filtration performance while maintaining breathability. The latter represents a challenge that has long hampered the development of effective lower thermal burden protective suits,” she says. 

…

The Nano Protective Adsorbent Composite (NPAC) project, which was made possible with Federal Government support, began in 2017. 

Our team of scientists at CSIRO worked hand-in-hand with experts from Bruck Textiles, the Defence Science and Technology Group and RMIT University under the coordination of DMTC. This collaboration brought together knowledge and experience in nanotechnology, textile manufacturing, defence science and fashion design. 

The first success was the development of the innovative nanofibre-based fabric. This fabric acts as a barrier against harmful airborne particles while maintaining airflow. Scaling up this technology from the laboratory to commercial production presented a significant challenge.

“It’s easy enough to create a composite nanofibre material in a small lab setting, but transitioning to mass production is a different thing altogether,” Yen says. 

Our pilot-scale electrospinning machine produces the nanofibre. This larger-than-typical lab equipment played a crucial role in the production of larger quantities of fabric.

This demonstrated the technology’s potential for commercialisation, paving the way for real-world applications. A major breakthrough came in 2023 when Bruck Textiles, a leading Australian textile manufacturer, successfully produced 90 metres of the fabric. This material was then fabricated into a prototype uniform, which underwent rigorous testing. 

In testing it surpassed performance targets for air filtration, air permeability, thermal comfort, and chemical protection. This meant the suit not only protected the wearer from hazardous substances, but also offered comfort and mobility in demanding situations.

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“We envision a future where firefighters, paramedics and other frontline workers can focus on their critical tasks without being hindered by heavy, cumbersome protective gear,” Yen says.

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It’s a long way from 90 meters of fabric to producing the quantities required to outfit military and other personnel. I wish them good luck!

As for more details about the nanofibers, I wasn’t able to find much about them in a relatively short online search but i did find more about Dr. Truong’s work here on her ResearchGate profile page.

Single chip mimics human vision and memory abilities

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A June 15, 2023 RMIT University (Australia) press release (also on EurekAlert but published June 14, 2023) announces a neuromorphic (brainlike) computer chip, which mimics human vision and ‘creates’ memories,

Researchers have created a small device that ‘sees’ and creates memories in a similar way to humans, in a promising step towards one day having applications that can make rapid, complex decisions such as in self-driving cars.

The neuromorphic invention is a single chip enabled by a sensing element, doped indium oxide, that’s thousands of times thinner than a human hair and requires no external parts to operate.

RMIT University engineers in Australia led the work, with contributions from researchers at Deakin University and the University of Melbourne.

The team’s research demonstrates a working device that captures, processes and stores visual information. With precise engineering of the doped indium oxide, the device mimics a human eye’s ability to capture light, pre-packages and transmits information like an optical nerve, and stores and classifies it in a memory system like the way our brains can.

Collectively, these functions could enable ultra-fast decision making, the team says.

Team leader Professor Sumeet Walia said the new device can perform all necessary functions – sensing, creating and processing information, and retaining memories – rather than relying on external energy-intensive computation, which prevents real-time decision making.

“Performing all of these functions on one small device had proven to be a big challenge until now,” said Walia from RMIT’s School of Engineering.

“We’ve made real-time decision making a possibility with our invention, because it doesn’t need to process large amounts of irrelevant data and it’s not being slowed down by data transfer to separate processors.”

What did the team achieve and how does the technology work?

The new device was able to demonstrate an ability to retain information for longer periods of time, compared to previously reported devices, without the need for frequent electrical signals to refresh the memory. This ability significantly reduces energy consumption and enhances the device’s performance.

Their findings and analysis are published in Advanced Functional Materials.

First author and RMIT PhD researcher Aishani Mazumder said the human brain used analog processing, which allowed it to process information quickly and efficiently using minimal energy.

“By contrast, digital processing is energy and carbon intensive, and inhibits rapid information gathering and processing,” she said.

“Neuromorphic vision systems are designed to use similar analog processing to the human brain, which can greatly reduce the amount of energy needed to perform complex visual tasks compared with today’s technologies

What are the potential applications?

The team used ultraviolet light as part of their experiments, and are working to expand this technology even further for visible and infrared light – with many possible applications such as bionic vision, autonomous operations in dangerous environments, shelf-life assessments of food and advanced forensics.

“Imagine a self-driving car that can see and recognise objects on the road in the same way that a human driver can or being able to able to rapidly detect and track space junk. This would be possible with neuromorphic vision technology.”

Walia said neuromorphic systems could adapt to new situations over time, becoming more efficient with more experience.

“Traditional computer vision systems – which cannot be miniaturised like neuromorphic technology – are typically programmed with specific rules and can’t adapt as easily,” he said.

“Neuromorphic robots have the potential to run autonomously for long periods, in dangerous situations where workers are exposed to possible cave-ins, explosions and toxic air.”

The human eye has a single retina that captures an entire image, which is then processed by the brain to identify objects, colours and other visual features.

The team’s device mimicked the retina’s capabilities by using single-element image sensors that capture, store and process visual information on one platform, Walia said.

“The human eye is exceptionally adept at responding to changes in the surrounding environment in a faster and much more efficient way than cameras and computers currently can,” he said.

“Taking inspiration from the eye, we have been working for several years on creating a camera that possesses similar abilities, through the process of neuromorphic engineering.” 

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Long Duration Persistent Photocurrent in 3 nm Thin Doped Indium Oxide for Integrated Light Sensing and In-Sensor Neuromorphic Computation by Aishani Mazumder, Chung Kim Nguyen, Thiha Aung, Mei Xian Low, Md. Ataur Rahman, Salvy P. Russo, Sherif Abdulkader Tawfik, Shifan Wang, James Bullock, Vaishnavi Krishnamurthi. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202303641 First published: 14 June 2023

This paper is open access.

Glowing suture material could reduce infection and simplify post op monitoring

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Reassuringly, you won’t be waking up in the hospital to see your sutures glowing in the dark. On that note, here’s more about the innovation in a February 1, 2023 news item on ScienceDaily,

A new antimicrobial suture material that glows in medical imaging could provide a promising alternative for mesh implants and internal stitches.

Surgical site infections are one of the most common medical infections, occurring in 2 to 4% of patients post-surgery. For some procedures, such as vaginal mesh implants to treat prolapse, infection rates can be higher.

Study lead author and Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow [RMIT University, Australia], Dr Shadi Houshyar, said their suture was being developed in partnership with clinicians specifically for this type of procedure.

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Caption: The filament visible in chicken samples, as seen under CT scan. Credit: RMIT University

A February 1, 2023 RMIT University press release (also on EurekAlert but published January 31, 2023), which originated the news item, provides more context and technical detail about the research,

“Our smart surgical sutures can play an important role in preventing infection and monitoring patient recovery and the proof-of-concept material we’ve developed has several important properties that make it an exciting candidate for this,” said Houshyar, from the School of Engineering at RMIT University, Australia.

Lab tests on the surgical filament, published in OpenNano, showed it was easily visible in CT scans when threaded through samples of chicken meat, even after three weeks. It also showed strong antimicrobial properties, killing 99% of highly drug-resistant bacteria after six hours at body temperature.

Houshyar said the team was not aware of any commercially available suture products that combined these properties.

How they did it

The multidisciplinary team led by RMIT – included nano-engineering, biomedical and textile experts working in partnership with a practicing surgeon – used the university’s cutting-edge textile manufacturing facility to develop their proof-of-concept material.

The suture’s properties come from the combination of iodine and tiny nanoparticles, called carbon dots, throughout the material.

Carbon dots are inherently fluorescent, due to their particular wavelength, but they can also be tuned to various levels of luminosity that easily stand out from surrounding tissue in medical imaging.

Attaching iodine to these carbon dots, meanwhile, provides them with their strong antimicrobial properties and greater X-ray visibility.

Houshyar said carbon nano dots were safe, cheap and easy to produce in the lab from natural ingredients.

“They can be tailored to create biodegradable stitches or a permanent suture, or even to be adhesive on one side only, where required,” she said.

“This project opens up a lot of practical solutions for surgeons, which has been our aim from the start and the reason we have involved clinicians in the study.”

Clinical possibilities

Consultant colorectal surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Melbourne, Justin Yeung, was involved in the study. He said it addressed a real challengefaced by surgeons in trying to identify the precise anatomical location of internal meshes on CT scans.

“This mesh will enable us to help with improved identification of the causes of symptoms, reduce the incidence of mesh infections and will help with precise preoperative planning, if there is a need to surgically remove this mesh,” he said.

“It has the potential to improve surgery outcomes and improve quality of life for a huge proportion of women, if used as vaginal mesh for example, by reducing the need for infected mesh removal.”

“It may also significantly reduce surgery duration and increase surgical accuracy in general through the ability to visualise mesh location accurately on preoperative imaging.” 

Next steps

Study co-author from RMIT’s School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, Professor Elisa Hill-Yardin, said the next steps were pre-clinical trials.

“While this research is at an early stage, we believe we are onto something very promising that could help a lot of people and are really keen to speak with industry partners who are interested in working with us to take it further,” she said.

“We see potential especially in vaginal mesh implants and similar procedures.”

The research team used Australia’s leading university-based textile manufacturing facilities at RMIT’s Centre for Materials Innovation and Future Fashion to produce the proof-of-concept material. They will soon be producing larger suture samples to use in pre-clinical trials, which they have just received seed funding for from RMIT.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Smart suture with iodine contrasting nanoparticles for computed tomography by Shadi Houshyar, Hong Yin, Leon Pope, Rumbidzai Zizhou, Chaitali Dekiwadia, Elisa L. Hill-Yardin, Justin MC Yeung, Sabu John, Kate Fox, Nhiem Tran, Ivan Cole, Aaron Elbourne, Vi Khanh Truong, and Adam Truskewycz. OpenNano Volume 9, January 2023, 100120 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onano.2022.100120

This paper is open access.

Using nanomagnets to remove plastic from water

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it seems Australian researchers are working hard to find ways of removing microplastics from water. I have two items, first, a November 29, 2022 news item on Nanowerk announces some of the latest work,

Researchers at RMIT University have found an innovative way to rapidly remove hazardous microplastics from water using magnets.

Lead researcher Professor Nicky Eshtiaghi said existing methods could take days to remove microplastics from water, while their cheap and sustainable invention achieves better results in just one hour.

The team says they have developed adsorbents, in the form of a powder, that remove microplastics 1,000 times smaller than those currently detectable by existing wastewater treatment plants. 

The researchers have successfully tested the adsorbents in the lab, and they plan to engage with industry to further develop the innovation to remove microplastics from waterways.

…

A November 30, 2022 RMIT University press release, which originated the news item, provides more technical detail about the work,

“The nano-pillar structure we’ve engineered to remove this pollution, which is impossible to see but very harmful to the environment, is recycled from waste and can be used multiple times,” said Eshtiaghi from RMIT’s School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering.

“This is a big win for the environment and the circular economy.”

How does this innovation work?

The researchers have developed an adsorbent using nanomaterials that they can mix into water to attract microplastics and dissolved pollutants.

Muhammad Haris, the first author and PhD candidate from RMIT’s School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, said the nanomaterials contained iron, which enabled the team to use magnets to easily separate the microplastics and pollutants from the water.

“This whole process takes one hour, compared to other inventions taking days,” he said.

Co-lead researcher Dr Nasir Mahmood said the nano-pillar structured material was designed to attract microplastics without creating any secondary pollutants or carbon footprints.

“The adsorbent is prepared with special surface properties so that it can effectively and simultaneously remove both microplastics and dissolved pollutants from water,” said Mahmood from Applied Chemistry and Environmental Science at RMIT.

“Microplastics smaller than 5 millimetres, which can take up to 450 years to degrade, are not detectable and removable through conventional treatment systems, resulting in millions of tonnes being released into the sea every year. This is not only harmful for aquatic life, but also has significant negative impacts on human health.”

The team received scientific and technical support from the Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility and the Micro Nano Research Facility, part of RMIT’s newly expanded Advanced Manufacturing Precinct, to complete their research. 

What are the next steps?

Developing a cost-effective way to overcome these signficant challenges posed by microplastics was critical, Eshtiaghi said.

“Our powder additive can remove microplastics that are 1,000 times smaller than those that are currently detectable by existing wastewater treatment plants,” she said.

“We are looking for industrial collaborators to take our invention to the next steps, where we will be looking at its application in wastewater treatment plants.”

Eshtiaghi and her colleagues have worked with various water utilities across Australia, including with Melbourne Water and Water Corporation in Perth on a recent Australian Research Council Linkage project to optimise sludge pumping systems.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Self-assembly of C@FeO nanopillars on 2D-MOF for simultaneous removal of microplastic and dissolved contaminants from water by Muhammad Haris, Muhammad Waqas Khan, Ali Zavabeti, Nasir Mahmood and Nicky Eshtiaghi. Chemical Engineering Journal Available online 23 November 2022, 140390 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2022.140390

This paper is behind a paywall.

Back in 2019

Caption: This visual abstract depicts the findings of Kang et al.. Novel and robust nanocarbon springs were synthesized via solid pyrolysis with a controlled morphology, and simultaneously engineered nitrogen dopants and encapsulated magnetic nanoparticles. The carbocatalysts can effectively catalyze peroxymonosulfate to generate highly reactive radicals under hydrothermal conditions for decomposing microplastics into harmless substances in water. Credit: Kang et al/Matter

This July 31, 2019 Cell Press news release on EurekAlert announces a different approach, from an Australian team, to removing plastics from water,

Plastic waste that finds its way into oceans and rivers poses a global environmental threat with damaging health consequences for animals, humans, and ecosystems. Now, using tiny coil-shaped carbon-based magnets, researchers in Australia have developed a new approach to purging water sources of the microplastics that pollute them without harming nearby microorganisms. Their work appears July 31 in the journal Matter.

“Microplastics adsorb organic and metal contaminants as they travel through water and release these hazardous substances into aquatic organisms when eaten, causing them to accumulate all the way up the food chain” says senior author Shaobin Wang, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Adelaide (Australia). “Carbon nanosprings are strong and stable enough to break these microplastics down into compounds that do not pose such a threat to the marine ecosystem.”

Although often invisible to the naked eye, microplastics are ubiquitous pollutants. Some, such as the exfoliating beads found in popular cosmetics, are simply too small to be filtered out during industrial water treatment. Others are produced indirectly, when larger debris like soda bottles or tires weather amid sun and sand.

To decompose the microplastics, the researchers had to generate short-lived chemicals called reactive oxygen species, which trigger chain reactions that chop the various long molecules that make up microplastics into tiny and harmless segments that dissolve in water. However, reactive oxygen species are often produced using heavy metals such as iron or cobalt, which are dangerous pollutants in their own right and thus unsuitable in an environmental context.

To get around this challenge, the researchers found a greener solution in the form of carbon nanotubes laced with nitrogen to help boost generation of reactive oxygen species. Shaped like springs, the carbon nanotube catalysts removed a significant fraction of microplastics in just eight hours while remaining stable themselves in the harsh oxidative conditions needed for microplastics breakdown. The coiled shape increases stability and maximises reactive surface area. As a bonus, by including a small amount of manganese, buried far from the surface of the nanotubes to prevent it from leaching into water, the minute springs became magnetic.

“Having magnetic nanotubes is particularly exciting because this makes it easy to collect them from real wastewater streams for repeated use in environmental remediation,” says Xiaoguang Duan, a chemical engineering research fellow at Adelaide who also co-led the project.

As no two microplastics are chemically quite the same, the researchers’ next steps will center on ensuring that the nanosprings work on microplastics of different compositions, shapes and origins. They also intend to continue to rigorously confirm the non-toxicity of any chemical compounds occurring as intermediates or by-products during microplastics decomposition.

The researchers also say that those intermediates and byproducts could be harnessed as an energy source for microorganisms that the polluting plastics currently plague. “If plastic contaminants can be repurposed as food for algae growth, it will be a triumph for using biotechnology to solve environmental problems in ways that are both green and cost efficient,” Wang says.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Degradation of Cosmetic Microplastics via Functionalized Carbon Nanosprings by Jian Kang, Li Zhou, Xiaoguang Duan, Hongqi Sun, Zhimin Ao, Shaobin Wang. Matter Volume 1, Issue 3, 4 September 2019, Pages 745-758 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2019.06.004

This paper is open access.

Comments

I’m glad to see this work and as for which approach might be preferable, I don’t know if there’s a clear winner. The 2022 work removes both microplastics and pollutants in one hour! An impressive feat, which leaves us with microplastics and pollutants to deal with. By contrast , the 2019 work transforms the microplastics into materials that don’t pose harm to the aquatic environment. Great although it takes eight hours. I wish the best for all the researchers working on this microplastics problem.

Lobster-inspired 3D printed concrete

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A January 19, 2021 news item on ScienceDaily highlights bioinspired 3D printing of concrete,

New research shows that patterns inspired by lobster shells can make 3D printed concrete stronger, to support more complex and creative architectural structures.

Digital manufacturing technologies like 3D concrete printing (3DCP) have immense potential to save time, effort and material in construction.

They also promise to push the boundaries of architectural innovation, yet technical challenges remain in making 3D printed concrete strong enough for use in more free-form structures.

In a new experimental study, researchers at RMIT University [Australia] looked to the natural strength of lobster shells to design special 3D printing patterns.

Their bio-mimicking spiral patterns improved the overall durability of the 3D printed concrete, as well as enabling the strength to be precisely directed for structural support where needed.

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Video: Carelle Mulawa-Richards

A January 19, 2021 RMIT University press release (also on EurekAlert) by Gosia Kaszubska, which originated the news item, goes into technical detail about the research once you get past the ‘fluffy’ bits,

When the team combined the twisting patterns with a specialised concrete mix enhanced with steel fibres, the resulting material was stronger than traditionally-made concrete.

Lead researcher Dr Jonathan Tran said 3D printing and additive manufacturing opened up opportunities in construction for boosting both efficiency and creativity.

“3D concrete printing technology has real potential to revolutionise the construction industry, and our aim is to bring that transformation closer,” said Tran, a senior lecturer in structured materials and design at RMIT.

“Our study explores how different printing patterns affect the structural integrity of 3D printed concrete, and for the first time reveals the benefits of a bio-inspired approach in 3DCP.

“We know that natural materials like lobster exoskeletons?have evolved into high-performance structures over millions of years, so by mimicking their key advantages we can follow where nature has already innovated.”

3D printing for construction

The automation of concrete construction is set to transform how we build, with construction the next frontier in the automation and data-driven revolution known as industry 4.0.

A 3D concrete printer builds houses or makes structural components by depositing the material layer-by-layer, unlike the traditional approach of casting concrete in a mould.

With the latest technology, a house can be 3D printed in just 24 hours for about half the cost, while construction on the world’s first 3D printed community began in 2019 in Mexico.

The emerging industry is already supporting architectural and engineering innovation, such as a 3D printed office building in Dubai, a nature-mimicking concrete bridge in Madrid and The Netherlands’ sail-shaped “Europe Building”.

The research team in RMIT’s School of Engineering focuses on 3D printing concrete, exploring ways to enhance the finished product through different combinations of printing pattern design, material choices, modelling, design optimisation and reinforcement options.

Patterns for printing

The most conventional pattern used in 3D printing is unidirectional, where layers are laid down on top of each other in parallel lines.

The new study published in a special issue of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing investigated the effect of different printing patterns on the strength of steel fibre-enhanced concrete.

Previous research by the RMIT team found that including 1-2% steel fibres in the concrete mix reduces defects and porosity, increasing strength. The fibres also help the concrete harden early without deformation, enabling higher structures to be built.

The team tested the impact of printing the concrete in helicoidal patterns (inspired by the internal structure of lobster shells), cross-ply and quasi-isotropic patterns (similar to those used for laminated composite structures and layer-by-layer deposited composites) and standard unidirectional patterns.

Supporting complex structures

The results showed strength improvement from each of the patterns, compared with unidirectional printing, but Tran said the spiral patterns hold the most promise for supporting complex 3D printed concrete structures.

“As lobster shells are naturally strong and naturally curved, we know this could help us deliver stronger concrete shapes like arches and flowing or twisted structures,” he said.

“This work is in early stages so we need further research to test how the concrete performs on a wider range of parameters, but our initial experimental results show we are on the right track.”

Further studies will be supported through a new large-scale mobile concrete 3D printer recently acquired by RMIT – making it the first research institution in the southern hemisphere to commission a machine of this kind.

The 5×5m robotic printer will be used by the team to research the 3D printing of houses, buildings and large structural components.

The team will also use the machine to explore the potential for 3D printing with concrete made with recycled waste materials such as soft plastic aggregate.

The work is connected to a new project with industry partners Replas and SR Engineering, focusing on sound-dampening walls made from post-consumer recycled soft plastics and concrete, which was recently supported with an Australian Government Innovations Connections grant.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Influences of Printing Pattern on Mechanical Performance of Three-Dimensional-Printed Fiber-Reinforced Concrete by Luong Pham, Guoxing Lu, and Phuong Tran. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/3dp.2020.0172 Published Online:30 Dec 2020

This paper is open access.

Spray-on coatings for cheaper smart windows

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An August 6, 2020 RMIT University (Australia) press release (also on EurekAlert but published August 5, 2020) by Gosia Kaszubska announces a coating that makes windows ‘smart’,

A simple method for making clear coatings that can block heat and conduct electricity could radically cut the cost of energy-saving smart windows and heat-repelling glass [electrochromic windows?].

The spray-on coatings developed by researchers at RMIT are ultra-thin, cost-effective and rival the performance of current industry standards for transparent electrodes.

Combining the best properties of glass and metals in a single component, a transparent electrode is a highly conductive clear coating that allows visible light through.

The coatings – key components of technologies including smart windows, touchscreen displays, LED lighting and solar panels – are currently made through time-consuming processes that rely on expensive raw materials.

The new spray-on method is fast, scalable and based on cheaper materials that are readily available.

The method could simplify the fabrication of smart windows, which can be both energy-saving and dimmable, as well as low-emissivity glass, where a conventional glass panel is coated with a special layer to minimise ultraviolet and infrared light.

Lead investigator Dr Enrico Della Gaspera said the pioneering approach could be used to substantially bring down the cost of energy-saving windows and potentially make them a standard part of new builds and retrofits.

“Smart windows and low-E glass can help regulate temperatures inside a building, delivering major environmental benefits and financial savings, but they remain expensive and challenging to manufacture,” said Della Gaspera, a senior lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at RMIT.

“We’re keen to collaborate with industry to further develop this innovative type of coating.

“The ultimate aim is to make smart windows much more widely accessible, cutting energy costs and reducing the carbon footprint of new and retrofitted buildings.”

The new method can also be precisely optimised to produce coatings tailored to the transparency and conductivity requirements of the many different applications of transparent electrodes.

Global demand for smart glazing

The global market size for smart glass and smart windows is expected to reach $6.9 billion by 2022, while the global low-E glass market is set to reach an estimated $39.4 billion by 2024.

New York’s Empire State Building reported energy savings of $US2.4 million and cut carbon emissions by 4,000 metric tonnes after installing smart glass windows.

Eureka Tower in Melbourne features a dramatic use of smart glass in its “Edge” tourist attraction, a glass cube that projects 3m out of the building and suspends visitors 300m over the city. The glass is opaque as the cube moves out over the edge of the building and becomes clear once fully extended.

First author Jaewon Kim, a PhD researcher in Applied Chemistry at RMIT,  said the next steps in the research were developing precursors that will decompose at lower temperatures, allowing the coatings to be deposited on plastics and used in flexible electronics, as well as producing larger prototypes by scaling up the deposition.

“The spray coater we use can be automatically controlled and programmed, so fabricating bigger proof-of-concept panels will be relatively simple,” he said.

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Caption: The ultra-thin clear coatings are made with a new spray-on method that is fast, cost-effective and scalable. Credit: RMIT University

That is an impressive level of transparency. As per usual, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper (should you wish to explore further),

Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis of Antimony‐Doped Tin Oxide Transparent Conductive Coatings by Jaewon Kim, Billy J. Murdoch, James G. Partridge, Kaijian Xing, Dong‐Chen Qi, Josh Lipton‐Duffin, Christopher F. McConville, Joel van Embden, Enrico Della Gaspera. Advanced Materials Interfaces DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.202000655 First published: 05 August 2020

This paper is behind a paywall.

Quantum processor woven from light

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Weaving a quantum processor from light is a jaw-dropping event (as far as I’m concerned). An October 17, 2019 news item on phys.org makes the announcement,

An international team of scientists from Australia, Japan and the United States has produced a prototype of a large-scale quantum processor made of laser light.

Based on a design ten years in the making, the processor has built-in scalability that allows the number of quantum components—made out of light—to scale to extreme numbers. The research was published in Science today [October 18, 2019; Note: I cannot explain the discrepancy between the dates]].

Quantum computers promise fast solutions to hard problems, but to do this they require a large number of quantum components and must be relatively error free. Current quantum processors are still small and prone to errors. This new design provides an alternative solution, using light, to reach the scale required to eventually outperform classical computers on important problems.

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Caption: The entanglement structure of a large-scale quantum processor made of light. Credit: Shota Yokoyama 2019

An October 18, 2019 RMIT University (Australia) press release (also on EurekAlert but published October 17, 2019), which originated the news time, expands on the theme,

“While today’s quantum processors are impressive, it isn’t clear if the current designs can be scaled up to extremely large sizes,” notes Dr Nicolas Menicucci, Chief Investigator at the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

“Our approach starts with extreme scalability – built in from the very beginning – because the processor, called a cluster state, is made out of light.”

Using light as a quantum processor

A cluster state is a large collection of entangled quantum components that performs quantum computations when measured in a particular way.

“To be useful for real-world problems, a cluster state must be both large enough and have the right entanglement structure. In the two decades since they were proposed, all previous demonstrations of cluster states have failed on one or both of these counts,” says Dr Menicucci. “Ours is the first ever to succeed at both.”

To make the cluster state, specially designed crystals convert ordinary laser light into a type of quantum light called squeezed light, which is then weaved into a cluster state by a network of mirrors, beamsplitters and optical fibres.

The team’s design allows for a relatively small experiment to generate an immense two-dimensional cluster state with scalability built in. Although the levels of squeezing – a measure of quality – are currently too low for solving practical problems, the design is compatible with approaches to achieve state-of-the-art squeezing levels.

The team says their achievement opens up new possibilities for quantum computing with light.

“In this work, for the first time in any system, we have made a large-scale cluster state whose structure enables universal quantum computation.” Says Dr Hidehiro Yonezawa, Chief Investigator, CQC2T at UNSW Canberra. “Our experiment demonstrates that this design is feasible – and scalable.”

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The experiment was an international effort, with the design developed through collaboration by Dr Menicucci at RMIT, Dr Rafael Alexander from the University of New Mexico and UNSW Canberra researchers Dr Hidehiro Yonezawa and Dr Shota Yokoyama. A team of experimentalists at the University of Tokyo, led by Professor Akira Furusawa, performed the ground-breaking experiment.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Generation of time-domain-multiplexed two-dimensional cluster state by Warit Asavanant, Yu Shiozawa, Shota Yokoyama, Baramee Charoensombutamon, Hiroki Emura, Rafael N. Alexander, Shuntaro Takeda, Jun-ichi Yoshikawa, Nicolas C. Menicucci, Hidehiro Yonezawa, Akira Furusawa. Science 18 Oct 2019: Vol. 366, Issue 6463, pp. 373-376 DOI: 10.1126/science.aay2645

This paper is behind a paywall.

The latest math stars: honeybees!

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Understanding the concept of zero—I still remember climbing that mountain, so to speak. It took the teacher quite a while to convince me that representing ‘nothing’ as a zero was worthwhile. In fact, it took the combined efforts of both my parents and the teacher to convince me to use zeroes as I was prepared to go without. The battle is long since over and I have learned to embrace zero.

I don’t think bees have to be convinced but they too may have a concept of zero. More about that later, here’s the latest abut bees and math from an October 10, 2019 news item on phys.org,

Start thinking about numbers and they can become large very quickly. The diameter of the universe is about 8.8×1023 km and the largest known number—googolplex, 1010100—outranks it enormously. Although that colossal concept was dreamt up by brilliant mathematicians, we’re still pretty limited when it comes to assessing quantities at a glance. ‘Humans have a threshold limit for instantly processing one to four elements accurately’, says Adrian Dyer from RMIT University, Australia; and it seems that we are not alone. Scarlett Howard from RMIT and the Université de Toulouse, France, explains that guppies, angelfish and even honeybees are capable of distinguishing between quantities of three and four, although the trusty insects come unstuck at finer differences; they fail to differentiate between four and five, which made her wonder. According to Howard, honeybees are quite accomplished mathematicians. ‘Recently, honeybees were shown to learn the rules of “less than” and “greater than” and apply these rules to evaluate numbers from zero to six’, she says. Maybe numeracy wasn’t the bees’ problem; was it how the question was posed? The duo publishes their discovery that bees can discriminate between four and five if the training procedure is correct in Journal of Experimental Biology.

An October 10, 2019 The Company of Biologists’ press release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, refines the information with more detail,

Dyer explains that when animals are trained to distinguish between colours and objects, some training procedures simply reward the animals when they make the correct decision. In the case of the honeybees that could distinguish three from four, they received a sip of super-sweet sugar water when they made the correct selection but just a taste of plain water when they got it wrong. However, Dyer, Howard and colleagues Aurore Avarguès-Weber, Jair Garcia and Andrew Greentree knew there was an alternative strategy. This time, the bees would be given a bitter-tasting sip of quinine-flavoured water when they got the answer wrong. Would the unpleasant flavour help the honeybees to focus better and improve their maths?

‘[The] honeybees were very cooperative, especially when I was providing sugar rewards’, says Howard, who moved to France each April to take advantage the northern summer during the Australian winter, when bees are dormant. Training the bees to enter a Y-shaped maze, Howard presented the insects with a choice; a card featuring four shapes in one arm and a card featuring a different number of shapes (ranging from one to 10) in the other. During the first series of training sessions, Howard rewarded the bees with a sugary sip when they alighted correctly before the card with four shapes, in contrast to a sip of water when they selected the wrong card. However, when Howard trained a second set of bees she reproved them with a bitter-tasting sip of quinine when they chose incorrectly, rewarding the insects with sugar when they selected the card with four shapes. Once the bees had learned to pick out the card with four shapes, Howard tested whether they could distinguish the card with four shapes when offered a choice between it and cards with eight, seven, six or – the most challenging comparison – five shapes.

Not surprisingly, the bees that had only been rewarded during training struggled; they couldn’t even differentiate between four and eight shapes. However, when Howard tested the honeybees that had been trained more rigorously – receiving a quinine reprimand – their performance was considerably better, consistently picking the card with four shapes when offered a choice between it and cards with seven or eight shapes. Even more impressively, the bees succeeded when offered the more subtle choice between four and five shapes.

So, it seems that honeybees are better mathematicians than had been credited. Unlocking their ability was simply a matter of asking the question in the right way and Howard is now keen to find out just how far counting bees can go.

I’ll get to the link to and citation for the paper in a minute but first, I found more about bees and math (including zero) in this February 7, 2019 article by Jason Daley for The Smithsonian (Note: Links have been removed),

Bees are impressive creatures, powering entire ecosystems via pollination and making sweet honey at the same time, one of the most incredible substances in nature. But it turns out the little striped insects are also quite clever. A new study suggests that, despite having tiny brains, bees understand the mathematical concepts of addition and subtraction.

To test the numeracy of the arthropods, researchers set up unique Y-shaped math mazes for the bees to navigate, according to Nicola Davis at the The Guardian. Because the insects can’t read, and schooling them to recognize abstract symbols like plus and minus signs would be incredibly difficult, the researchers used color to indicate addition or subtraction. …

Fourteen bees spent between four and seven hours completing 100 trips through the mazes during training exercises with the shapes and numbers chosen at random. All of the bees appeared to learn the concept. Then, the bees were tested 10 times each using two addition and two subtraction scenarios that had not been part of the training runs. The little buzzers got the correct answer between 64 and 72 percent of the time, better than would be expected by chance.

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Last year, the same team of researchers published a paper suggesting that bees could understand the concept of zero, which puts them in an elite club of mathematically-minded animals that, at a minimum, have the ability to perceive higher and lower numbers in different groups. Animals with this ability include frogs, lions, spiders, crows, chicken chicks, some fish and other species. And these are not the only higher-level skills that bees appear to possess. A 2010 study that Dyer [Adrian Dyer of RMIT University in Australia] also participated in suggests that bees can remember human faces using the same mechanisms as people. Bees also use a complex type of movement called the waggle dance to communicate geographical information to one other, another sophisticated ability packed into a brain the size of a sesame seed.

If researchers could figure out how bees perform so many complicated tasks with such a limited number of neurons, the research could have implications for both biology and technology, such as machine learning. …

…

Then again, maybe the honey makers are getting more credit than they deserve. Clint Perry, who studies invertebrate intelligence at the Bee Sensory and Behavioral Ecology Lab at Queen Mary University of London tells George Dvorsky at Gizmodo that he’s not convinced by the research, and he had similar qualms about the study that suggested bees can understand the concept of zero. He says the bees may not be adding and subtracting, but rather are simply looking for an image that most closely matches the initial one they see, associating it with the sugar reward. …

If you have the time and the interest, definitely check out Daley’s article.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the latest paper about honeybees and math,

Surpassing the subitizing threshold: appetitive–aversive conditioning improves discrimination of numerosities in honeybees by Scarlett R. Howard, Aurore Avarguès-Weber, Jair E. Garcia, Andrew D. Greentree, Adrian G. Dyer. Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb205658 doi: 10.1242/jeb.205658 Published 10 October 2019

This paper is behind a paywall.

Using light to manipulate neurons

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There are three (or more?) possible applications including neuromorphic computing for this new optoelectronic technology which is based on black phophorus. A July 16, 2019 news item on Nanowerk announces the research,

Researchers from RMIT University [Australia] drew inspiration from an emerging tool in biotechnology – optogenetics – to develop a device that replicates the way the brain stores and loses information.

Optogenetics allows scientists to delve into the body’s electrical system with incredible precision, using light to manipulate neurons so that they can be turned on or off.

The new chip is based on an ultra-thin material that changes electrical resistance in response to different wavelengths of light, enabling it to mimic the way that neurons work to store and delete information in the brain.

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Caption: The new chip is based on an ultra-thin material that changes electrical resistance in response to different wavelengths of light. Credit: RMIT University

A July 17, 2019 RMIT University press release (also on EurekAlert but published on July 16, 2019), which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Research team leader Dr Sumeet Walia said the technology moves us closer towards artificial intelligence (AI) that can harness the brain’s full sophisticated functionality.

“Our optogenetically-inspired chip imitates the fundamental biology of nature’s best computer – the human brain,” Walia said.

“Being able to store, delete and process information is critical for computing, and the brain does this extremely efficiently.

“We’re able to simulate the brain’s neural approach simply by shining different colours onto our chip.

“This technology takes us further on the path towards fast, efficient and secure light-based computing.

“It also brings us an important step closer to the realisation of a bionic brain – a brain-on-a-chip that can learn from its environment just like humans do.”

Dr Taimur Ahmed, lead author of the study published in Advanced Functional Materials, said being able to replicate neural behavior on an artificial chip offered exciting avenues for research across sectors.

“This technology creates tremendous opportunities for researchers to better understand the brain and how it’s affected by disorders that disrupt neural connections, like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” Ahmed said.

The researchers, from the Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group at RMIT, have also demonstrated the chip can perform logic operations – information processing – ticking another box for brain-like functionality.

Developed at RMIT’s MicroNano Research Facility, the technology is compatible with existing electronics and has also been demonstrated on a flexible platform, for integration into wearable electronics.

How the chip works:

Neural connections happen in the brain through electrical impulses. When tiny energy spikes reach a certain threshold of voltage, the neurons bind together – and you’ve started creating a memory.

On the chip, light is used to generate a photocurrent. Switching between colors causes the current to reverse direction from positive to negative.

This direction switch, or polarity shift, is equivalent to the binding and breaking of neural connections, a mechanism that enables neurons to connect (and induce learning) or inhibit (and induce forgetting).

This is akin to optogenetics, where light-induced modification of neurons causes them to either turn on or off, enabling or inhibiting connections to the next neuron in the chain.

To develop the technology, the researchers used a material called black phosphorus (BP) that can be inherently defective in nature.

This is usually a problem for optoelectronics, but with precision engineering the researchers were able to harness the defects to create new functionality.

“Defects are usually looked on as something to be avoided, but here we’re using them to create something novel and useful,” Ahmed said.

“It’s a creative approach to finding solutions for the technical challenges we face.”

Here’s a link and a citation for the paper,

Multifunctional Optoelectronics via Harnessing Defects in Layered Black Phosphorus by Taimur Ahmed, Sruthi Kuriakose, Sherif Abbas,, Michelle J. S. Spencer, Md. Ataur Rahman, Muhammad Tahir, Yuerui Lu, Prashant Sonar, Vipul Bansal, Madhu Bhaskaran, Sharath Sriram, Sumeet Walia. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201901991 First published (online): 17 July 2019

This paper is behind a paywall.

Graphene from gum trees

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Caption: Eucalyptus bark extract has never been used to synthesise graphene sheets before. Courtesy: RMIT University

It’s been quite educational reading a June 24, 2019 news item on Nanowerk about deriving graphene from Eucalyptus bark (Note: Links have been removed),

Graphene is the thinnest and strongest material known to humans. It’s also flexible, transparent and conducts heat and electricity 10 times better than copper, making it ideal for anything from flexible nanoelectronics to better fuel cells.

The new approach by researchers from RMIT University (Australia) and the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (India), uses Eucalyptus bark extract and is cheaper and more sustainable than current synthesis methods (ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, “Novel and Highly Efficient Strategy for the Green Synthesis of Soluble Graphene by Aqueous Polyphenol Extracts of Eucalyptus Bark and Its Applications in High-Performance Supercapacitors”).

A June 24, 2019 RMIT University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides a little more detail,

RMIT lead researcher, Distinguished Professor Suresh Bhargava, said the new method could reduce the cost of production from $USD100 per gram to a staggering $USD0.5 per gram.

“Eucalyptus bark extract has never been used to synthesise graphene sheets before and we are thrilled to find that it not only works, it’s in fact a superior method, both in terms of safety and overall cost,” said Bhargava.

“Our approach could bring down the cost of making graphene from around $USD100 per gram to just 50 cents, increasing it availability to industries globally and enabling the development of an array of vital new technologies.”

Graphene’s distinctive features make it a transformative material that could be used in the development of flexible electronics, more powerful computer chips and better solar panels, water filters and bio-sensors.

Professor Vishnu Shanker from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal, said the ‘green’ chemistry avoided the use of toxic reagents, potentially opening the door to the application of graphene not only for electronic devices but also biocompatible materials.

“Working collaboratively with RMIT’s Centre for Advanced Materials and Industrial Chemistry we’re harnessing the power of collective intelligence to make these discoveries,” he said.

A novel approach to graphene synthesis:

Chemical reduction is the most common method for synthesising graphene oxide as it allows for the production of graphene at a low cost in bulk quantities.

This method however relies on reducing agents that are dangerous to both people and the environment.

When tested in the application of a supercapacitor, the ‘green’ graphene produced using this method matched the quality and performance characteristics of traditionally-produced graphene without the toxic reagents.

Bhargava said the abundance of eucalyptus trees in Australia made it a cheap and accessible resource for producing graphene locally.

“Graphene is a remarkable material with great potential in many applications due to its chemical and physical properties and there’s a growing demand for economical and environmentally friendly large-scale production,” he said.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Novel and Highly Efficient Strategy for the Green Synthesis of Soluble Graphene by Aqueous Polyphenol Extracts of Eucalyptus Bark and Its Applications in High-Performance Supercapacitors by Saikumar ManchalaV. S. R. K. Tandava, Deshetti Jampaiah, Suresh K. Bhargava, Vishnu Shanker. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng.2019XXXXXXXXXX-XXX DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b01506 Publication Date:June 13, 2019

Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.