I’m starting to worry that I’m turning into an ostrich.

I’m territorial and ill-tempered. I’m fighting a strange desire to eat shiny objects. And when I get scared, I find myself hiding my face as though not seeing whatever is scaring me will make it go away. And this may or may not be related: I’m developing a strong aversion to light bulbs.

Image courtesy http://www.ostrichheadinsand.com/

A company called Nth Degree Tech may be able to help me out with that last problem. They’re seeking to replace light bulbs with their first commercial product, a two foot by four foot LED light sheet that’s flat and looks like a glowing piece of paper, which they plan to ship to customers for evaluation by the end of the year (Bullis). This is an exciting development, since it would allow lighting designers to get freaky with curved or unusually shaped light-emitting surfaces – at a price point comparable to the current cost of fluorescent light bulbs and fixtures.

Image courtesy Nth Degree Tech

To make their snazzy new lighting material, Nth Degree workers carve up “a wafer of gallium nitride to produce millions of tiny LEDs—one four-inch wafer yields about eight million of them. The LEDs are then mixed with resin and binders, and a standard screen printer is used to deposit the resulting ‘ink’ over a large surface” (Bullis).  They toss down a layer of silver ink for the back electrical contact, add a layer of phosphors that alter the color of the light emitted by the LEDs from blue to various shades of white, and then they slap on an insulating layer that prevents those pesky short circuits that can burn out the LEDs.

The front electrical contact is made with an ink containing invisibly small metal wires, which makes it transparent and allows light through the layer.  The transparent electrical contact ALONE could be the subject of an entire article, since it’s unspeakably awesome. Its awesomeness derives from the fact that it may eventually replace the brittle and often testy indium tin oxide (ITO) sheets that have been used in touch screens and electroluminescent assemblies in the past. ITO can be expensive, it can’t be printed and it’s not at all flexible – it deserves to be made redundant.

Image courtesy Nth Degree Tech

While printing with inks that are comprised of “tiny working LEDs produces much brighter light than depositing powders or thin films of electroluminescent material,” Nth Degree’s light sheets don’t match the best LEDs available today, which emit over 200 Lumens per watt.  The sheets are better than incandescent lights in terms of efficiency, emitting 20 lumens per watt, but they’re not as good as fluorescent lights just yet, which emit 80 lumens per watt (Bullis).

The new design won’t require heat sinks the way current conventional LEDs do because the lights are distributed evenly and in a thin layer, meaning that they do not get hot.  The downside is that the tiny LEDs need a pretty robust power source and as a result, Nth Degree’s first light fixture will be two inches thick despite the fact that the light-emitting surface is thin and flexible (Bullis).  I’m not letting that ruffle my feathers, however, since I’m betting that the whole assembly will get thinner over time.

WU XING:

Filed under FIRE because it lights up!

Cited:

Bullis, Kevin. “Lighting Sheets Made of Tiny LEDs” Technology Review Online. 10/28/11. Accessed 02/24/12. URL.

I believe it started out with casual smart phone use in social situations – it was really convenient to communicate via text message and we all liked watching the Honeybadger video you found on YouTube while we were waiting for the bus.  I’ll admit I didn’t think anything of it when you mentioned you made 4,506 Facebook friends and had created an equal number of Google+ Circles.  I didn’t blink when you said you were also monitoring sixteen email accounts while a writing a blog about micro-finance, although in retrospect that seems like a lot.

Image courtesy bjcblog.wordpress.com

I started to worry when you let it slip that you were dabbling in electronics and that you had hacked a Microsoft Kinect. You started hanging out with a different crowd and you changed your behavior dramatically, staying up all night writing code.  You didn’t seem to care that you lost your job, and for the past month you’ve only emerged from your apartment to buy donuts and stepper motors.  You developed what I consider an unhealthy fascination with the movie Iron Man, even going so far as to characterize the sequel as, “an awesome flick.”

Image courtesy NCSU

But when you mentioned you were trying to get your hands on a biocompatible electronic device recently developed by researchers at NC State, I got really worried. I’m so worried I called your Mom, and now she’s worried too – and she’s making it your Dad’s problem. What on earth do you want with a soft, flexible memory device the consistency of Jell-O that functions in wet environments SUCH AS THE HUMAN BODY!?!?! I mean, this stuff could potentially interface with biological tissue!

The only thing I can think is that you are becoming a Cyborg.

I did a little digging, and I found out that the new device functions like a memristor, which is (as if you didn’t know):

“a passive two-terminal electronic component in which there is a functional relationship between charge and magnetic flux linkage. When current flows in one direction through the device, the resistance increases; and when current flows in the opposite direction, the resistance decreases, although it must remain positive. When the current is stopped, the component retains the last resistance that it had, and when the flow of charge starts again, the resistance of the circuit will be what it was when it was last active” (Wikipedia).

From what I can gather, the prototypes the researchers developed are flexible and can exist in two states: conductive or resistive. That’s important because two states could correspond to the 1s and 0s in binary computer code, and researchers are working on a way to program the devices, meaning that one day they might be able to interact with your neurons.

So tell me – and be honest: are you or are you not working on some kind of human/computer fusion project using yourself as a lab rat? Because if you are, I think we need to find you a support group.

WU XING:

Filed under wood due to the flexibility and hard/soft kind of quality.

Cited:

Dillow, Clay. “New Memory Device Feels Like Jell-O, Could Work Inside Your Body.” Popsci.com 7/14/11. Accessed 7/21/11. URL.

NCSU: Soft Memory Device Opens Door To New Biocompatible Electronics

Say what you will about the 1990’s, the decade produced some severely under-appreciated and entirely too short-lived cultural moments: I mean, Hammer pants? Titanic? Come on – you know you loved it!  Another phenomenon of the 1990’s that in some ways is slightly less exciting than the OJ Simpson trial, but which has stayed with us to this day is: green-tinted glass.

Image courtesy metaefficient.com

No one knows exactly how it started, but I imagine that sometime in the 1990’s, an architect somewhere in the world specified green-tinted glass for the fenestration on a prominent building. This building was probably published in a print magazine that a lot of other architects read, and somehow, without even knowing what was happening, they all suddenly wanted to use green glass on their projects too.  I completely understand: the exact same thing happened to me when I was reading Elle and saw that Heidi Klum decided to cut bangs (and yes, mine are still growing out).

Image courtesy instyle.com

What if there was a way to have your green glass cake when it felt trendy, and then not have the same cake twenty years later when it was moldy and dated, and kind of sad looking?  I think perhaps there is!

I recently learned that a University of Connecticut scientist has developed a method that allows films and displays to change color.  The obvious application for this technology is sunglasses, and everyone from Hollywood stars to the U.S. military are interested in lenses that respond to changes in the environment to make it easier to see (or be seen).

Typical transition lenses use photochromic films, which are sheets of polymers that change color when light hits them. The new color-changing technology uses electrochromic lenses; these are controlled by an electric current passing through them that adjusts when triggered by a stimulus such as light (Physorg.com). The arrangement is similar to a double-pane window with a gel sandwiched between the glass.

Image courtesy physorg.com

That’s what got me thinking that this material, which can change color as quickly as electricity can travel through it (ie instantaneously) could be great for buildings.  The polymer used by the scientists creates less waste and is less expensive to produce than previous mixtures, which is good because for an architectural application, you’d need a lot of it!

WU XING:

I have filed this under fire because electricity creates the color change, and under wood, because it’s a polymer.

Cited:

“A Better Way to Photo Gray: New Technology Allows Lenses to Change Color Rapidly.” Physorg.com 07/12/11. Accessed 07/15/11. URL.

I resent the noise of the printer, printer jams, shaking the toner cartridge, the harsh chemicals involved, and the amount of electricity it takes to print on a sheet of paper. I resent those things with the heat of a thousand suns.

But … just when I believed that I had calcified in my negative stance on all forms of printing, I learned that MIT engineers recently revealed a process they’ve developed to produce printed solar cells.  Their flexible cells can be printed on paper or fabric and folded over 1,000 times without losing efficiency, and they’re not energy-intensive to produce!  I was cautiously optimistic: maybe, I thought, printing doesn’t have to be completely evil?

Photos: Patrick Gillooly/MIT

The creation of typical solar cells involves exposing substrates to intense chemicals and high temperatures, which necessitates a whole lotta energy consumption.  MIT’s new fancy solar cells “are formed by placing five layers of material onto  a single sheet of  paper in successive passes. A mask is utilized to form the cell patterns, and  the entire printing process is done in a vacuum chamber” (Singh).  Fabric and paper substrates weigh less than the glass and other heavy backing materials that are typically used, and researchers think that they’re well on the way to developing scalable cells for use in photovoltaic arrays.

So here’s what I’ll say: the day my office printer can power itself by printing out solar cells is the day I will let go of these negative emotions and learn to forgive.

Click  here to see the technology in action (via Inhabitat).

WU XING:

I have filed MIT’s solar cells under water (because of the gentle process) and wood (because they’re flexible and can be printed on paper). And also, privately, under awesome.

Cited:

Singh, Timon. “MIT Unveils Flexible Solar Cells Printed on Paper.” Inhabitat.com 07/11/11. Accessed 07/12/11. URL.

VergeLabs, an architecture and design practice based in the United Arab Emirates founded as a partnership between Ginger Krieg Dosier and Michael Dosier, brought some of that magic to concrete with their development of Glowcrete.

Image courtesy Vergelabs

The researchers used phosphorescent pigment in two ways to produce glowing concrete: they added the pigment to expansion cement, the pigment, when distributed unevenly, left a glowing trail that served as a record of the mixing process; and they also added the phosphorescent pigment to the concrete as aggregate. The even distribution of pigment in the second case creates a uniform distribution of light emission.

In each case, as the surface of the concrete weathers and erodes, new phosphorescent aggregate is exposed, which extends the lifespan of the luminescence (Source: Vergelabs).  I’d like to learn more about the phosphorescent pigment the researchers used – I’m not sure how long it lasts or whether it’s toxic (although I’d imagine the answers to those questions are: not very and yes).  That being acknowledged, I can so clearly imagine this material at the bottom of a swimming pool or fountain, or even on the underside of an unfinished concrete slab – pure magic.

WU XING:

I have filed glowcrete under Earth (concrete) and Fire (glowiness!)

Cited:

Dosier, Ginger Kreig and Michael. “Glowcrete.” Vergelabs Research in Architecture. 05/30/06. Accessed 06/03/11. URL.

Image courtesy thenewyorkgreenadvocate.blogspot.com

The Lumenatrix Backlighting System by Duo-Guard aims to remedy at least the energy consumption issue by providing an LED-based architectural lighting system that allows designers to create free standing, smoothly illuminated architectural elements such as walls and ceilings without hot spots.

The Lumenatrix system is comprised of tiles (squares, hexagons, octagons, or rounds that can be custom-fabricated in 2″-12″ depths) supplied individually or in prearranged configurations.  The tiles can be recessed, surface, or pendant mounted, and they’re capable of transmitting daylight, which reduces the cost of a glowing wall during daylight hours.  The tiles are arranged in panels that consist of a structural power rail grid system that provides low voltage electricity to the LEDs.  The lights can slide on the rails to produce specific lighting effects.

Image courtesy thenewyorkgreenadvocate.blogspot.com

Heat sinks allow the system to run at lower temperatures, which theoretically increases the lifespan of the LED bulbs, and with one LED per square foot of illuminated surface, the power consumption of the system can be as low as 1-3 watts per square foot.

Check out the following video produced by Duo-Guard for Greenbuild last year to learn more about the system!

WU XING:

I have filed Lumenatrix Backlighting system under Fire, since it involves lighting.

Cited:

Lumenatrix Site

Image courtesy www.samcooks.com

Australian researchers at the University of Queensland and UNSW School of Physics have managed to manufacture cheap, strong, flexible and conductive plastic films by placing a thin film of metal onto a plastic sheet and mixing it into the polymer surface with an ion beam.  “Ion beam techniques are widely used in the microelectronics industry to tailor the conductivity of semiconductors such as silicon, but attempts to adapt this process to plastic films have been made since the 1980s with only limited success – until now” (Beale). The ion beam allows the researchers to tune the properties of the plastic film, meaning that they can control with an astonishing degree of precision the film’s ability to conduct or resist the flow of electric current.

Sample of the conducting film. (Photo: Adam Micolich)

The researchers found they could vary the electrical resistivity over 10 orders of magnitude, meaning that there are around ten billion options to adjust the recipe when making the plastic film. In theory, they could make plastics that conduct no electricity at all, plastics that conduct as well as metals do, as well as everything in between (Beale). The plastic films can even act as superconductors and pass current without resistance if they are cooled to a low temperature.

To take conductive plastic films from the lab to a potential commercial application, the team produced “electrical resistance thermometers that meet industrial standards. Tested against an industry standard platinum resistance thermometer, it had comparable or even superior accuracy” (Beale). The new films can be produced using equipment common to the microelectronics industry, and can tolerate more exposure to oxygen than standard semiconducting polymers.

The material completely fascinates me because it starts with all the desirable aspects of polymers (mechanical flexibility, robustness and low cost) and then adds good electrical conductivity, which is a property not normally associated with plastics.  Ion beam processed polymer films could have a fantastic future in the on-going development of soft materials for plastic electronics applications, fusing current and next generation technology.

WU XING:

I have filed conductive plastic films under wood and under fire.

Cited:

Beale, Bob. “New Plastics can Conduct Electricity” Physorg.com 02/22/11. Accessed 02/22/11. URL.

ARCHITERIALS is a year old now, and like most healthy, well-adjusted one-year-olds it needs to be changed constantly, crawls all over my apartment, and makes strange burbling noises.  No, really – it does.  It’s terrifying.

Over the past year I’ve profiled approximately 65 materials and learned about blogging, bacteria, and biscuits, although I must confess that the biscuts were a side project.  A delicious, buttery side project.  Anyhow, to celebrate the birthday of ARCHITERIALS and the fact that the tagline “Investigating architectural materials since 2010” has finally attained temporal legitimacy, I’ve compiled for this, the 10th day of January,  a list of 10 materials from 2010 that are generally awesome.  I’ve also summarized the awesomeness of each material in a brief paragraph, and I’ve tried to frame each one as part of a larger, sort of big-picture trend in materials science that I’m studying.  Should you click on the links and read the detailed posts about each material for more information? Definitely. 

Finally, thank you so much to those who’ve submitted information, followed, liked, and posted photos over the past year, I appreciate it more than you can imagine!  Keep the materials coming and do tell your friends if your friends seem like people who might be interested in ARCHITERIALS.

Ten Awesome Materials from 2010 and Reasons They are Awesome:

1.  Materials that can be deployed in disasters or used to improve living conditions:  Concrete Cloth

Concrete cloth is a concrete-impregnated fabric that is fire-proof, waterproof, moldable, drapeable, durable and generally fantastic.  Applications include: gabion reinforcement, sandbag defenses, ground surfacing/dust suppression, ditch lining, landing surfaces, formwork, spill containment and landfill lining, waterproofing, building cladding, boat ramps, erosion control, roof repair, water and septic tanks.  Concrete cloth solves problems you don’t even know you have, although nothing can repair your terrible relationship with your mother-in-law.   

2.  Sustainable, non-toxic materials:  Reclaimed Wood and Agricultural Fiber Panels

Kirei Board, Kirei Coco Tiles and Kirei Wheatboard made from the non-food portions (stalks and husks) of sorghum, coconut, and wheat plants.  The agricultural fiber that’s not sold by farmers for use in the manufacture of Kirei board takes up space in landfills or gets burned up and pollutes the air – therefore repurposing it cuts down on that sort of thing.  Sustainable building materials make the planet happy, and a happy planet makes for happy people. 

3.  Biodegradable materials:  Arbofoam

As it turns out, lignin can be transformed into a renewable plastic if it’s combined with resins, flax and other natural fibers. The resulting bio-plastic, called Arboform, can be thermoformed, foamed, or molded via injection machines.  It’s durable and super-precise when it’s cast, and it degrades similar to wood into water, humus, and carbon dioxide. It’s very cool stuff indeed and I’d love it if someone would send me information about a project where it’s been used.  Biodegradable materials cut down on landfill and reduce environmental pollution. 

4.  Thermoplastic/thermoelastic/thermoformed/thermo-etcetera materials:  Chemical Velcro

How could you not get excited about an adhesive 10 times stickier than Velcro and the reusable gecko-inspired glues that many research groups have been trying to perfect that comes apart when heated??!  I have been trying without success to get my hands on some of this to build demountable partition walls for my tiny apartment, and I’m not giving up.  Materials that respond to changes in temperature by changing their behavior or attributes will find widespread application in the future. 

5.  Materials that clean and sanitize themselves:  Liquid Glass

Liquid glass a coating that takes advantages of the unique properties of materials at nanoscale.  It is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids.  According to manufacturers, you can spray liquid glass on everything from wood to seeds to your sneakers.  It could someday replace all the toxic cleaning products you currently use to tidy and disinfect, and it reportedly costs about 8 dollars.  Materials that clean and sanitize themselves cut down on the need for toxic chemicals and pollutants. 

6.  Materials that emit light efficiently:   White LED Lights

White LED lights emit more light than a typical 20-watt fluorescent bulb, as well as more light for a given amount of power. With these improvements, the new LEDs can replace traditional fluorescent bulbs for all general lighting applications, and also be used for automobile headlights and LCD backlighting.  Shedding light on any given subject has never been more efficient.  As we transition to alternative forms of energy we are also looking for materials that emit light without using much energy in the first place.

7.  Nanomaterials:  Gold Nanoparticles

Gold nanoparticles can be used to further increase the efficiency of LED lights.  Researchers have implanted the particles in the leaves of aquatic plants, causing the leaves to emit red light.  Theoretically, the light produced by the leaves could cause their chloroplasts to conduct photosynthesis, meaning that no additional energy source would be needed to power the process.  In fact, the leaves would actually work overtime, absorbing CO₂ at night.  Nanomaterials allow us to intervene in processes like photosynthesis with a previously unheard-of degree of delicacy.

8.  Materials that augment already useful material properties:  Bendywood 

Bendywood is wood that has been pre-compressed so that it can be easily bent by hand.  The tension that forms on the outside of a bend merely returns the plant cells to their former shape, and the wood doesn’t break.  The material is delightfully flexible and pliable.  Bendywood was developed for indoor uses such as furniture, handrails, or curved mouldings, and it shows enormous promise.  Materials like Bendywood amplify the appealing properties of familiar materials so that it’s even easier to use them to our benefit.

9.  Bio-based materials:  Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)

At the intersection of biology and solar tech, there are jellyfish that produce green fluorescent protein (GFP).  Dripping GFP onto a silicon dioxide substrate between two electrodes causes it to work itself into strands, creating a circuit that absorbs photons and emits electrons in the presence of ultraviolet light.  The electron current (aka electricity) can then be used to power your hairdryer.  I’m completely fascinated by materials that help us to blur the boundaries between biological and man-made machines.

10.  Materials that repair themselves:  Bacilla Filla

Bacilla Filla is a material that patches up the cracks in concrete structures, restoring buildings damaged by seismic events or that have deteriorated over time.  Custom-designed bacteria burrows deep into the cracks in concrete, where they produce a mix of calcium carbonate and a special bacteria glue that hardens to the same strength of the surrounding concrete.  Materials that can detect their own flaws and damage and repair themselves will revolutionize the way we build and think about building materials in the future.

Image courtesy http://iopscience.iop.org

I’d long thought invisibility was reserved for fictional characters like Harry Potter, but it turns out researchers are actively trying to develop materials that create the effect.  So-called “metamaterials allow researchers to manipulate electromagnetic waves beyond the boundaries of what physics allows in natural materials. As well as promising better solar cells and high-resolution microscope lenses, metamaterials have also been used to create so-called invisibility cloaks, in which electromagnetic waves are bent around an object as if it simply weren’t there” (Cass).  Metamaterials must be constructed out of elements smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation being manipulated, which means that “invisibility cloaks (and most metamaterial devices in general) only work with wavelengths longer than those found in visible light, such as radio and microwave frequencies. Metamaterials designed to work with optical wavelengths are built on rigid and fragile substrates, and as a result they’ve been confined to the lab” (Cass). Not too long ago, researchers at the University of St. Andrews created sheets of a flexible metamaterial that can manipulate visible light, taking a big step towards bringing metamaterials out of the lab and onto the market.

The new metamaterial is called “Metaflex” for obvious reasons, and it’s not exactly a piece of cake to manufacture.  First, researchers deposit a sacrificial layer atop a rigid substrate, to prevent subsequent layers from binding to it.  Then, a sheet of flexible, transparent plastic gets laid down and “a lithographic process, similar to that used to make silicon chips, creates a lattice of gold bars, each 100 to 200 nanometers long and 40 nanometers thick, on top of the polymer. (These bars act as ‘nanoantennas’ that interact with incoming electromagnetic waves.) The Metaflex material is then bathed in a chemical that releases the polymer from the layer below and from the rigid substrate” (Cass).  Variations in length and spacing of nanoantennas let Metaflex interact with different wavelengths of light.

Image courtesy http://iopscience.iop.org

The largest sheets researchers have produced so far are smaller than a postage stamp at five by eight millimeters, and they are only four micrometers thick.  Those samples may seem small when your goal is to cloak an entire person, but Metaflex is by far the largest sample of an optical metamaterial ever made.  Researchers believe that Metaflex can be scaled up for industrial production because it is flexible.  Being able to shape Metaflex into cylinders or spherical sections would allow for the creation of “curved super lenses that could manify objects so small that they currently can’t be seen with optical lenses due to diffraction effects” (Cass). ”  Metaflex can be fabricated flat and bent into shape.

Images courtesy Studio Conover

You’ll be happy to know that in San Diego, California, a ray of hope shines like a beacon up from the inky dark hole of architectural product literature.  Said ray of hope is Studio Conover, “a cross-disciplinary company focusing on architectural consultation, materials specification and product design for the built environment. [They] specialize in exterior colorways and materials specification consultation with architects, builders and developers,” according to David Conover, the eponymous owner of the studio.  Really, they’ve got a great idea.  Information about a product that is organized, accurate, and communicated in a clear and aesthetically pleasing manner attracts architects like honey attracts bears, which makes it more likely that they will specify a certain product or material (the architects, not the bears).

The studio also happens to put out a fantabulous blog called Contexture that is full of useful information (some of which I am currently reviewing as I try to fix all the Internet Explorer CSS bugs I’ve managed to incorporate into this website in the past few days).  The name for the blog is a mashup of the words Conover and Texture, which is an appropriate connotation, given that:

“Much of our process involves working texture within and throughout the context of the particular job at hand. Whether we’re selecting a specific brick shape, color and installation pattern for a residential community, referencing an archaic woodtype letterform or contemplating the coarseness of cement or paper, texture remains a predominant underlying component simply because it is so representative of the products and projects we work on.”

Hopefully, people who make the stuff we use to construct buildings will use the people who design the stuff that explains what people make to help the people who design the buildings, and everyone will be better off!

*I’ve been meaning to write a post about plastic grass for ages, but since lawns in general are a hot button issue for me, I’m afraid it’s just going to be a massive rant.  I guess this post started out as a rant too – sorry.