Carbon fiber has long held much promise as a weight-saving, fuel-saving alternative to steel, chrome, and heavier auto-manufacturing materials. But due to its cost and the time it has taken to prove its worth, its use has been limited. Now, carbon fiber is on the verge of taking center stage in its first leading role in lightweight automobile construction. Fiber producer SGL and German automaker BMW last month opened a $100 million carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Moss Lake, WA to make the fiber and composite material for BMW's i series to be launched in 2013. The i3, an all-electric car, will be the first mass-produced vehicle made substantially of carbon fiber and carbon fiber reinforced plastic.

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Today's glass isn't the stuff of Coke bottles, window panes, and kitchenware. From suspended glass walkways high atop the Willis Tower in Chicago, to Apple's new glass donut-shaped headquarters to the Time Warner Center in New York (which boasts the largest glass curtain ever built), glass is taking on new shapes, forms, and uses that weren't even imaginable just 20 years ago. All this and more is being made possible by scientists and engineers who are changing the very molecular structure of glass itself, as illustrated in this video.

Your digital camera could soon be getting even smaller, and more powerful, thanks to consumer electronics maker Casio. The company has created the world's first camera lens using transparent ceramics. The transparent ceramic, called Lumicera, was developed by Murata Manufacturing and refined by Casio. It has the same light-transmitting qualities as optical glass used in conventional camera lenses, but has a much greater refractive index and is much stronger.

A University of Georgia professor has developed a simple treatment that renders medical garments and other textile fabrics germ free. The secret sauce consists of synthesized polymers that attach to natural fibers, like cotton, or to synthetics, such as polypropylene or polyester, to provide the anti-microbial effect.

Leave it to the Australians to invent new uses for wool, a product of one of the country's most abundant resources. Researchers at RMIT University have made a bullet-resistant wool that when blended with Kevlar actually improves the efficacy of the vest, especially when wet. The wool serves to slow down the speed of the projectile as soon as it hits the vest, thus helping to reduce internal injuries due to impact, as this video shows.

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Beginning in 2013, Goodyear will replace its iconic non-rigid, balloon-like airships with semi-rigid Zeppelins that feature an internal frame. The frame is made from aluminum-carbon fiber forming three front-to-rear longerons, which support 12 triangular frames to give the envelope its classic shape. A transverse cross beam mounts swiveling engines at each end.

HRL Laboratories developed what it says is the world's lightest material, a nickel alloy fabricated using lasers into a micro-lattice structure that is 99.99% air and 100x lighter than Styrofoam. Tubes that are 1,000x thinner than a human hair form 100 nm thick walls of the lattice. Applications could include battery electrodes and shock and energy damping due to the material's recovery from compression of greater than 50% strain. Watch the video to learn more.

BASF and smart have introduced the first thermoplastic polymer wheel rim for the smart electric car. The development will reduce wheel weight by 30%, which could translate into a 20% range increase. The rim is made of Ultramid®, a long fiber glass reinforced polymer, in a dual injection molded process.

A backplane for stretchable, flexible electronic circuitry from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab may revolutionize the plastic electronics industry. The process begins with a polymide substrate, laser-cut in a honeycomb pattern to increase its stretchability. Then layers of single-walled carbon nanotubes, silicon, and aluminum oxide are deposited to create a transistor.

Ceramic tile lined fluidized bed jet mills are available for contract micronizing at Custom Processing Services. The milling system can virtually eliminate metal contamination due to wear and is ideally suited for reducing glass, zirconia, silicas, polishing compounds, and aluminas to ultra-fine particle sizes. Contact CPS today for more info.

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