Speciality steels made the headlines in 2021 following a serious car accident. Normally, alloys of this type corrode very slowly, but they must not be used to construct barriers along roads that are salted in winter. At other places on the road network, the same steels offer long lifetimes and cost savings.
Norway has seen an increase in solar power capacity in recent years, but in winter solar panels face a big problem: snow. Researchers modelled how much extra electricity could be generated if solar panel surfaces were designed to repel snow and ice.
Norwegian oil and gas companies are now plugging and abandoning production wells using an artificial ‘lava’. So far, the results have been excellent. Recent laboratory results indicate that the same method can be used to seal subsurface CO2 storage reservoirs.
“We see no technical obstacles to being able to produce silicon without CO2 emissions within the next two to three years,” says Maria Wallin at NTNU.
The fisheries and aquaculture sectors are major users of plastics. A research project has recently been launched to investigate how these plastics can be recycled and made into new products.
A new Norwegian technology is enabling the removal of an entire process stage from car component production lines. It makes the cars less expensive, more eco-friendly and faster to manufacture.
Linguistic logic rooted in classical philosophy can help us in our search for future eco-friendly materials.
Researchers are currently working to improve the recycling system for agricultural plastics. Their aim is that more plastic shall be recovered and recycling made simpler and more effective.
Smart gadgets in the home might soon be able to tell you what’s wrong with you. But the technology is good news for a lot of other things too.
Waste slags from the metallurgy industries often contain valuable materials, but in very small concentrations. This means that large areas of valuable land are used to accommodate reservoirs filled with what is sometimes toxic waste. We now want to use hydrogen to convert this waste into a resource.
How to know whether building materials are fit for reuse? A new guide can tell.
New research on semiconductors using microscopes that provide 3-D models at an atomic level could one day have an impact on your electronic gadgets.
Most people know that metals are made from ore, but how do we make gold from gravel? That’s the process we must understand to be able to make the metal industry climate friendly. Here are some alternatives for CO2-free metal production.
A team of Norwegian researchers has succeeded in producing hydrogen using a far more efficient method than is currently in use. The technology was ready as early as in 2017. The team has also demonstrated that the process can be scaled up for commercial application.
The climate will benefit if we shift to using aluminium in more and more construction. Buyers need to look past the procurement costs and consider the total life cycle costs instead.
How the unlikely combination of WWII Germany, a modest English engineer who created a worker’s paradise, an ambitious industrialist prosecuted as a traitor and a hardworking PhD helped build modern Norway, one aluminium ingot at a time.
The world is crying out for rare minerals for the manufacture of electric cars, wind turbines and other technologies that we simply need more of. But how can we guarantee access to these resources without threatening the natural world and mankind as we know it?
Keeping concrete warm during transport between the mixing plant and construction site results in a better, cheaper and more eco-friendly product. A new type of concrete mixer truck can result in less wastage and better quality of this important building material.
A new method using nanowires can make solar panels much more efficient and much cheaper than today.
Researchers at NTNU have developed a new elastomer with unprecedented stiffness and toughness, inspired by spider silk.
Ghost fishing and plastic waste from the fisheries industry is becoming a major environmental problem. Can we address the issue by using degradable plastics? Scientists at a new research centre are aiming to find the answers and develop the systems we need.
Movies of micromagnets created by researchers at NTNU could further our understanding of materials for the next generation of computers.
For more than 100 years, we’ve known that some metal alloys become stronger by being kept at room temperature. But we haven’t understood all the details – until now.
Solar cells that use special dyes to collect light could one day be integrated into buildings. Researchers at NTNU are trying to find the best dyes for the job.
