Complex materials

Michigan State University spinout InPore Technologies makes a particle that, when mixed with other materials, makes plastic stronger, lighter, cheaper, and more flame-retardant. Yeah. I know. Doesn’t sound all that sexy. It really is, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, the reason the East Lansing, MI-based company recently earned a $100,000 paycheck from the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest business plan competition is not only because it has great technology to sell, but because it has people who know how to clearly describe, in the words of CEO Gerry Roston, “the story.”

A collaboration of six research groups at MSU has received funding in the form of a Strategic Partnership Grant (SPG) in order to push the current limit of material imaging capabilities to the most fundamental level and help solve a major hurdle in complex materials. The SPG, funded by the MSU Foundation, is designed to concentrate on major projects in key areas of research for the development of new knowledge and to initiate centers of excellence.

Ground waste glass can be used as a sustainable and environmentally friendly supplementary cementitious material in the production of concrete, MSU researchers in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have found. Replacing about 20 percent of the cement normally used in concrete production with milled waste glass results in reduced cost and diminished energy usage. At the same time, it improves the strength and durability of the concrete.

Diamond is hard and chemically stable but not naturally conductive; adding boron turns it into a new kind of carbon electrode useful for electroanalysis. Greg Swain explores how boron doping changes the properties of diamond thin films and gives them potential for biomedical applications like a study of the sympathetic neural control mechanisms of arteries and veins to see how the mechanisms change in salt-sensitive hypertension.