materials

Topic description and stories

Six steps to a better material world

30 Nov 2011

Every year we make 10 times our own bodyweight of steel, aluminium, cement, plastics and paper, for every person alive, using a fifth of all the...

It’s a material world

15 Sep 2011

A spin-out from Cambridge's Engineering Department and a leading supplier of materials information technology software to industry, Granta Design has...

Physics of sustainability programme launched

24 Mar 2011

Funded by a £20 million donation from David Harding, the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability aims to address some of the major...

Bright future for British solar company

16 Sep 2010

Solar energy company to develop and manufacture high performance, lower cost plastic solar cells.

Calls for a global nuclear renaissance in new study

13 Aug 2010

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London today outlined a 20-year master plan for the global renaissance of nuclear...

Royal Society award given to Cambridge academic

21 Jun 2010

The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, has recognised the work of Dr Andrea Ferrari at the Department of Engineering with one of...

Longitude project to chart new waters in untold story

12 May 2010

The forgotten story of the British organisation that enabled the development of a system for measuring Longitude, only to disappear from memory after...

Magneto-active porous materials get close to the bone

01 May 2010

The most common cause of artificial joint failure is loosening of the prosthetic implant. Dr Athina Markaki is designing materials to anchor them...

Plastic Logic: from innovation to impact

01 Aug 2009

The path from innovation to impact can be long and complex. Here we describe the fascinating story behind the development of a new type of electronic...