Rice builds nanowire battery
Hybrid energy storage device is as small as it can possibly get
The Rice lab of Professor Pulickel Ajayan has packed an entire lithium ion energy storage device into a single nanowire, as reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. The researchers believe their creation is as small as such devices can possibly get, and could be valuable as a rechargeable power source for new generations of nanoelectronics. Read more...
Researchers aim for 'direct brain control' of prosthetic arms
Engineering researchers from four U.S. universities, including Rice University, are embarking on a four-year project to design prosthetic arms that allows amputees to feel what they touch Read more...
MEMS students and advisor win 2011 IEEE World Haptics Conference Best Paper Award
Mechanical Engineering students, Vinay Chawda, Ozkan Celik, and their advisor Dr. Marcie O'Malley attended the 2011 IEEE World Haptics Conference in Turkey this past June where they won the Best Paper Award.
Oshman Design Kitchen teams cook up winning ideas
It's been a great month for recent Rice engineering alumni who entered senior design projects into high-profile competitions.
Team Dexter and Team Equiliberators won top honors for separate projects that help rehabilitate young patients, primarily those with cerebral palsy. Several mechanical engineering graduates were members of these winning teams. Read more....
'Super sand' to help clean up dirty drinking water
Contaminated water can be cleaned much more effectively using a novel, cheap material.
Dr. Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering is the leading scientist of a study which has Researchers at Rice University spinning a bit of nano-based magic to create "coated sand" that has enhanced properties for water purification. Dubbed "super sand", it could become a low-cost way to purify water in the developing world. Read more...
Magic Sand at Rice University
'Coated sand' excels at water purification
A team from the Rice lab of Professor Pulickel Ajayan published a report in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces describing a process to coat coarse grains of sand in graphite oxide; the resulting material is several times more efficient at removing contaminants than sand alone. Learn more...
Hydrogen Cars May be a Step Closer
Now that gas prices are finally stabilizing, alternative fuel ideas may return to the back burner. But here in Houston that kind of research never stops. Boris Yakobson, the Karl F. Hasselmann Chair of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry, appeared on KUHF-FM to discuss his work to create a lattice of calcium-decorated carbyne which has the potential to store hydrogen at levels that easily exceed Department of Energy goals. Listen to the broadcast...
Owl Engineers Win Second Place at IShow
A team of new Rice University graduates took second place and a $7,000 prize in the prestigious IShow competition sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Team Zikomo was one of two groups of Rice students among 10 chosen for the fourth annual nationwide competition, held June 11 at the society's convention in Dallas. Read more...
Newly named Dean of Engineering, Ned Thomas, to bring his research program to Rice University
A team of researchers at MIT has found a way to make complex composite materials whose attributes can be fine-tuned to give various desirable combinations of properties such as stiffness, strength, resistance to impacts and energy dissipation. Read more...
MIT's head of materials science and engineering named dean of engineering at Rice
Thomas led No. 1-ranked materials science department
Edwin "Ned" Thomas, the chair of the country's No. 1-ranked Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will become dean of Rice University's George R. Brown School of Engineering July 1. In addition to his role as dean, Thomas will be the William and Stephanie Sick Chair and a professor in both the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Read more...
