A team of researchers at Rice University has developed a faster and cleaner method for recovering aluminum and removing toxic metals from bauxite residue, or red mud, which is a hazardous by-product of aluminum production. This new technique, published in American Chemical Society Applied Materials and Interfaces Sept. 15, involves a brief electrical pulse lasting under one minute along with a small amount of chlorine gas. If implemented on a larger scale, it could revolutionize global waste management and materials recovery.

A future where all homes and vehicles in the U.S. are fully electrified could overwhelm power supply and risk outages unless key upgrades are made, says a new study conducted by Purdue University engineers. But a few strategies could cut two-thirds of the potential costs of reinforcing the nation’s distribution grid to handle this demand.

As modern communication and sensing systems demand ever higher speeds and efficiencies, integrated photonics has emerged as a critical enabling technology.

To solve a problem, we have to see it clearly. Whether it’s an infection by a novel virus or memory-stealing plaques forming in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, visualizing disease processes in the body is the first step toward alleviating human suffering. It’s also often the most difficult and costly. But an artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough by Virginia Tech computer scientists published Sept. 16 in Cell Systems — a high-impact journal dedicated to biological research — is bringing those fog-bound processes into focus.