Concrete isn’t the sexiest building material, made up of little more than cement, water, and rocks. It’s neither as strong as steel nor as flexible as wood, but without it our world would look a lot different. From sidewalks to skyscrapers, concrete plays a major role in construction, both inside and out.
Now, researchers from the University of Exeter have created a new concrete production technique that reinforces the material with graphene. In a study published this week in the journal Advanced Function Materials, the researchers describe how the composite material — which they’ve taken to calling GraphCrete — is at least two times as strong and four times more water-resistant than conventional concrete, and could make future construction more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
“Nearly 10 percent of global carbon emissions are due to cement and concrete use,” Monica Craciun, professor of nanoscience at University of Exeter and co-author of the study, told Digital Trends. “We demonstrate a new perspective for reinforcing traditional concrete on the nanoscale level, which has great impact on its mechanical properties.”
To do so, Craciun and her colleagues used graphene, the semi-metal that is often called a wonder material for its seemingly endless applications. In the recent research, a graphene concentrate was used to fortify concrete in its early formation, doubling its compressive strength and making it almost four times more water-resistant.
“What does this mean?” Craciun said. “You can use twice as less concrete per cubic-meter and still achieve the same strength. Or, alternatively, in areas of the world subject to flooding you can increase the life and durability of any building. In short, our graphene reinforced concrete can contribute to significant decrease in carbon emissions due to improved strength and durability.”
The increased strength and durability would also make GraphCrete desirable for developers who want to build bigger buildings.
Graphene is notorious for rarely making it out of the lab. However, Craciun is confident she and her team will find real-world applications for the research soon.
“We are currently exploring the business case for Graphene Nano Additives that can enhance the physical properties of composite materials,” she said, adding that they are looking for stakeholders interested in exploring business cases for their technologies.
Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.
The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.
In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.
Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.
What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.