News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

Researchers at the University of Central Florida have advanced NASA technologies to develop a power suit for an electric car that is as strong as steel, lighter than aluminum and helps boosts the vehicle’s power capacity. The suit is made of a layered carbon composite material that works as an energy-storing supercapacitor-battery hybrid device due to its unique design at the nanoscale level. To construct the material, the researchers created positively and negatively charged carbon fiber layers that are stacked and attached in an alternating pattern. Nanoscale graphene sheets attached on the carbon fiber layers allow for increased charge-storing ability, while metal oxides deposited on attached electrodes enhance voltage and provide higher energy density.

A team of chemists and biologists at the University of Chicago has developed a nanodevice that can locate immune cells present in solid cancerous tumors and enable them to activate other immune cells so they can attack the tumors. The immune cells targeted by such nanodevices are called tumor-associated macrophages. The nanodevices enable these immune cells to display molecular structures, called antigens, on their surface, which tells other immune cells, called T cells, to attack the tumors. In tests with mice, the use of the nanodevices resulted in tumor regression.

A team of scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science, the University of Chicago, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, and the Donostia International Physics Center in Spain has developed a technique that predicts and guides the ordered creation of strong, yet flexible, diamond nanothreads, which are one-dimensional nanomaterials composed of carbon chains. This innovation should make it easier for scientists to synthesize diamond nanothreads.

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new type of catalyst material, called a metal hydroxide-organic framework (MHOF), which is made of inexpensive and abundant components. The catalyst speeds up the electrochemical reaction that splits apart water molecules to produce oxygen, which is at the heart of multiple approaches aiming to produce alternative fuels for transportation. The researchers found that MHOFs can match or exceed the performance of conventional, more expensive catalysts; they also found that the number of accessible active on MHOFs is increased significantly by synthesizing them as ultrathin nanosheets. 

Researchers from Boston College, Boston University, and Giner Inc., in Newton, MA, have developed a penny-sized, multiplexed biosensor that is the first to detect opioid byproducts in wastewater. The novel device uses graphene-based field effect transistors that can detect four different synthetic and natural opioids at once, while shielding them from wastewater's harsh elements. When a specific opioid metabolite attaches to a molecular probe on the graphene, it changes the electrical charge on the graphene. These signals are easily read electronically for each probe attached to the device.

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created a nanofiber material that outperforms steel plates and strong synthetic fabric in protecting against high-speed projectile impacts. To create the material, the researchers mixed multi-walled carbon nanotubes with Kevlar nanofibers. The advance lays the groundwork for carbon nanotube use in lightweight, high-performance armor materials, such as bulletproof vests and shields around spacecraft that mitigate damage from flying high-speed microdebris.

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) has announced that it is partnering with the University of Mississippi (UM), Jackson State University (JSU), Rice University to explore graphene’s unique abilities in uses ranging from advanced materials-by-design to self-sensing infrastructure. This strategic ERDC partnership provides an opportunity to leverage expertise and state-of- the-art materials research from Rice University’s NanoCarbon Center and the UM Center for Graphene Research and Innovation (CGRI). 

Researchers at Arizona State University have shown that proteins can act as tiny, current-carrying wires. The researchers studied electron transport through proteins and established that over long distances, protein nanowires display better conductance properties than chemically synthesized nanowires specifically designed to be conductors. Synthetically designed protein nanowires could be used in nanoelectronics and in medical sensing and diagnostics.

Researchers from various departments and laboratories at MIT, the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT, Raith America Inc., and Technion, Israel, have demonstrated how to improve the efficiency of scintillators by at least tenfold, and perhaps even a hundredfold, by changing the material’s surface to create certain nanoscale configurations, such as arrays of wave-like ridges. Scintillators are materials that emit light when bombarded with high-energy particles or X-rays. In medical or dental X-ray systems, they convert incoming X-ray radiation into visible light that can then be captured using film or photosensors.

Researchers at Tufts University have taken the existing lipid-nanoparticle technology and engineered it to be applicable to a broad range of diseases by targeting it to specific tissues and organs. They packed lipid nanoparticles with mRNA – the same genetic material used in two COVID-19 vaccines, but this time coding for a normal gene that is mutated in individuals with a rare disease called lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). The mutated gene causes smooth muscle tissue to grow out of control, creating cysts. In a mouse model of LAM, delivering a normal gene directly to the lungs led to a significant reduction in cysts.