Engineering & Technology Materials Science and Engineering

PFAS, often called "forever chemicals," are difficult to remove from water because they don't break down easily. Researchers at Tohoku University have identified what makes certain materials more effective at removing these chemicals, offering new insights that could help develop better ways to clean contaminated water.

When exposed to chloride ions, such as in seawater, damaging pitting corrosion can occur in stainless steel. This study looked into how these tiny pits are formed - and how we can stop them.

Hydrogen's ability to power a cleaner future hinges not only on finding materials capable of efficiently storing and releasing it, but also on understanding the trade-off between storage capacity and practical operating conditions. To aid this endeavor, a research team led by Tohoku University, in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, developed the Digital Hydrogen Platform (DigHyd), a curated database containing more than 30,000 data entries from over 4,000 experimental publications.

SUTD researchers have discovered that the light electrons emit as they skim past a grating has always carried a hidden handedness, and that twisting the grating or nudging the beam sideways turns a plain silicon structure into a chiral, broadly tunable light source.

SUTD researchers have designed and 3D-printed microscopic colour routers that can capture clearer images in dim conditions without the light losses of conventional filters.

Steel making is not known for being environmentally friendly. Although alternative technologies are changing this, the conventional blast furnace method will remain in use for the foreseeable future. A recent research paper has shed light on how iron ore behaves in furnaces, possibly enabling slight tweaks to the production to make steel production more efficient.

Water electrolysis offers a promising way to produce hydrogen without directly emitting CO₂, but the iridium catalysts used in some systems are expensive and can lose their effectiveness over time. To address this challenge, researchers have developed a new catalyst that protects iridium nanoparticles in two ways: keeping them firmly in place and limiting excessive oxidation. This could help make hydrogen production more reliable and affordable.

Self-running experiments that improve from AI input sound too good to be true, but researchers at Tohoku University found a way. Their findings could help us develop stronger and tougher structural metals more efficiently.

Next generation quantum computers hold so much promise - but it takes an enormous amount of tests to develop them. To speed up this process, researchers found a method that can read quantum states at ultra-fast speeds.

The patterns that make up the weaves in textiles are seemingly endless. Certain patterns produce different qualities, such as making a material better at allowing sound to travel through it. But given the vast arrangement possibilities, testing each pattern arrangement can be a never-ending process. Now, a research team has developed an AI-assisted method to sift through the pattern possibilities.

Researchers from Kanazawa University and AIST, in Japan, have demonstrated the world's first trench-type inversion-channel diamond MOSFET with normally-off operation.

Researchers discovered that using liquid metal dealloying can help produce a special silicon carbide at a markedly lower temperature than conventional methods, while still allowing for control of its structure at the nanometer scale.

This study published in Advanced Science reports a wavelength-matched far-infrared approach for enhancing peripheral blood circulation using silicon carbide (SiC), which exhibits epsilon-near-zero behavior near 10.3 μm. By matching the selective thermal emission of SiC with the low-absorption optical window of human skin, the study demonstrates enhanced cutaneous blood flow compared with a conventional broadband graphite emitter. After 20 minutes of irradiation, SiC increased blood perfusion by 30.2%, compared with 18.6% for graphite, while maintaining skin temperature below 36 °C and without significant changes in blood pressure or heart rate. These results demonstrate the potential of wavelength-selective ENZ emitters for localized and thermally safe biomedical thermal modulation.

Correlation does not imply causation. Using AI to discover new materials is becoming more common, but data-driven approaches sometimes rely heavily on correlations and make testing AI-based predictions difficult. A new perspective paper published by Tohoku University researchers developed a framework for incorporating physics-based principles into AI to generate more interpretable, testable, and meaningful predictions.

What if the blue pigment in your ink or dye could help power the future of clean energy? A research group has fine-tuned blue pigment molecules to create a blue-pigment based catalyst that is high-performing and free of the more expensive platinum.

Rust usually takes months or years to form naturally, but researchers at Tohoku University found a way to speed it up dramatically. By blasting iron powder in water with ultrasound, they triggered the formation of spinel-type iron oxide nanoparticles in as little as 24 hours, no chemicals required. The technique could offer a greener route to materials used in magnets, catalysts, and biomedical applications.

SUTD researchers have turned minimally processed rice and lentil flours into 3D-printable pastes that cook into distinctly textured foods, offering a route to complete-protein vegetarian meals that do not depend on refined protein isolates.

Kyocera Corporation and Tohoku University have developed a new technology that integrates optical isolators directly onto silicon photonics chips using laser annealing. Building on their previous collaboration, the two organizations will continue working toward commercialization and more efficient, sustainable information technologies.

For decades, scientists have understood proteins primarily through two defining features: their amino acid sequence and their three-dimensional structure. This framework has driven major advances in biology, biotechnology, and medicine, culminating in recent artificial intelligence tools capable of predicting protein structures with remarkable accuracy. Yet a fundamental challenge remains: even when a protein's sequence and structure are known, predicting its function, interactions, and behavior often remains difficult. An international team of researchers from Japan, Finland, Italy, and the United States now reports evidence that part of this missing information may lie in an often-overlooked component of proteins: the highly organized water surrounding them. In a study accepted for publication in Nature Communications, the team provides the first direct three-dimensional visualization of sequence-dependent hydration architectures surrounding peptide assemblies at sub-nanometer resolution using advanced three-dimensional atomic force microscopy (3D-AFM) (Fig.1).

When tiny devices called MEMS (used in microphones, biosensors) undergo physical stress, their performance is compromised. Researchers found a new way to track this stress using a sensor that is part of the device.

Researchers at Tohoku University have discovered that changing the number of layers in a crystal can systematically tune both the magnetic and topological properties of a material. By synthesizing a brand-new compound, the team showed how adding spacer layers shifts magnetic order from antiferromagnetic to ferrimagnetic - while also producing a highly tilted "type-II" Dirac electron state that can't exist for particles in a vacuum.

Finding better materials to store hydrogen safely and efficiently is key to clean energy, but AI models trained on incomplete data can recommend candidates that don't actually work in practice. An international team led by Tohoku University, drawing on insight from 69 researchers, has proposed a "physics-aware" framework that combines thermodynamic constraints, reproducible data, and real experimental feedback to make AI-guided materials discovery more reliable. The roadmap could help accelerate the search for practical hydrogen storage solutions to support future clean-energy systems.

Scientists have turned a common blue pigment into a powerful tool for fighting climate change. Researchers at Tohoku University, Hokkaido University, and AZUL Energy created a copper phthalocyanine catalyst that converts carbon dioxide directly into methane fuel in a single step, reaching nearly 80% efficiency and sustaining performance for 80+ hours. The breakthrough could make carbon recycling more practical and scalable using an inexpensive, readily available material.

A new study shows that the Pt/C catalyst state before ionomer addition governs later ink dispersion and electrochemical Pt accessibility.

Researchers at Tohoku University have combined multiple tools to create an automated, self-improving AI workflow that may improve our search for polymer material candidates so that it is less expensive, less costly, and more environmentally friendly.

Researchers develop a new fabrication method for creating twisted microchannels inside polymer fibers, enabling efficient mixing of minute amounts of liquid.

Researchers from the University of Osaka have developed a fast computational framework that predicts the optical performance of quantum color centers without being restricted to a specific host material. By replacing computationally intensive calculations with simple theoretical formulas and procedures, the method enables rapid screening of promising quantum materials spanning ultraviolet to telecommunication wavelengths.

The low-temperature process produces low-loss silicon nitride waveguides on an eight-inch wafer and an octave-spanning spectrum.

As solid-state electrolyte research grows, so does the amount of data. The problem is that much of it remains scattered across the literature. That is where researchers at WPI-AIMR, Tohoku University, come in — with DigBat, a new platform designed to bring this information together and help map the growing landscape of solid-state electrolyte research. By connecting data from across the field, DigBat can help researchers see relationships more clearly and point toward promising directions for future battery materials research.

Feeding bacteria a cheap agricultural by-product enables the production of high-value biomaterials with promising biomedical and industrial applications.