From the lab
to the market
We write about scientific discoveries that are becoming businesses — who profits from them, and what it takes to get there.
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Plastic trash turned into a sponge that pulls water from dry air
Vienna chemists turned plastic trash into sponges that pull water from the air and release it when gently warmed, for example by sunlight. For now, this is laboratory research.
Water droplets in oil compute with ions and remember what just happened
Penn State researchers linked water droplets with thin fatty membranes and turned them into a network that processes signals with ions, much like nerve cells. For now this is early lab research.
A salt that melts for a moment improves the perovskite cell layer
Researchers improved a solar cell by adding a salt to its light-absorbing layer that melts briefly and then escapes. The cell turns more than 25 percent of light into current, but so far it is only a laboratory test.
Instead of random grains, one MoS₂ crystal grows where we want it
Korean researchers taught a thin chip-material layer to grow from the center of a marked field, not from a random point. That way they avoid seams that spoil the electronics.
A capacitor printed from cement lights LEDs
Chinese researchers 3D-printed an element from cement that stores electricity and keeps a strength close to ordinary concrete. In the lab it lit LEDs, but it stops working in frost of minus 18 degrees.
A drone flies among moving obstacles with a mathematical proof of safety
MIT researchers built a program that steers a drone among moving obstacles even though the machine does not know its surroundings. The authors prove mathematically that, under stated assumptions, the drone will not collide.
A paper wallpaper in the lab feeds on humidity in the room
Researchers built paper wallpaper that turns humidity in a room into a small electric current. It also dries the air a little — for now only in the lab.
The first nuclear clocks tick in thorium-doped crystals
Physicists in Vienna and Beijing have built the first clocks that keep time with the nucleus of a thorium atom held in a small crystal. For now they run worse than atomic clocks, but they are already helping the search for dark matter.
Iron laced with tungsten stores hydrogen without fusing into a lump
Iron can store hydrogen, but in a hot furnace its powder slowly fuses into a solid lump. US researchers added tungsten, and 1.5 kilograms of powder came through 30 cycles with almost no loss of capacity.