Metals may seem tough, but given enough time even plain old air can be their undoing. Oxygen reacts with it to form metal oxides like rust, but now it turns out a metal oxide may come to the rescue.

In the lab Researchers at TU Wien employed noncontact atomic force microscopy and computational modelling to determine the structure of the aluminium oxide surface. (Courtesy: TU Wien) Determining the ...

Aluminium is a silvery white metal and is insoluble in water under normal circumstances. Totaling circa 8% of the earth's crust, Aluminium is the third most abundant element in Nature. Aluminum is a ...

Transparent aluminum oxide (TAlOx), a real material despite its sci-fi name, is incredibly hard and resistant to scratches, making it perfect for protective coatings on electronics, optical sensors, ...

Being a metal, aluminium is amenable to mechanical finishing processes commonly used with other metals, and can usually be used with the same equipment without disadvantage, although to exploit the ...

A Purdue University engineer and National Medal of Technology winner says he's ready and able to start a revolution in clean energy. Professor Jerry Woodall and students have invented a way to use an ...

Aluminium can be obtained from aluminium ore (Al 2 O 3) by a process called electrolysis. Oxygen is also produced by this reaction. The balanced equation for this process is: \(\mathbf{2}Al_{2}O_{3}\, ...

Oxidation can drastically change mechanical properties of nanostructures that typically have large surface-to-volume ratios. However, the underlying mechanisms describing the effect oxidation has on ...

Aluminum is one of our most widely-used metals, found in everything from beer cans to airplane parts. However, the lightweight metal doesn’t occur naturally, and producing it is a complex process. The ...