Advanced Materials

• [New] The 450m viaduct was recently given approval by Buckinghamshire Council under Schedule 17 of the HS2 Act and it will be the first major railway viaduct in the UK to use the 'double composite' approach. / HS2 News and Information
• [New] The recycled composite sleepers will help Network Rail achieve its Zero Carbon 2050 target due to at least a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from sleeper production and embodying recycled plastic within the track infrastructure for at least 50 years. / Network Rail Media Centre
• Recovering and recycling Just a tenth of the plastic waste (14,750 tonne per year) could be worth up to £14.7 million to the NHS alone, demonstrating just one example of the potential opportunities. / PA Consulting
• Under current greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, temperatures in the Greater Yellowstone Area could increase by 5 to 10 degrees by 2100, causing upheaval in the ecosystem, including shifts in forest composition. / Wired
• There was heavy selling in the technology sector in response to increased regulatory risk, as Beijing was reported to intensify oversight of U.S.-listed Chinese counters, most of which are classified under the technology sector. / Biotech Today
• The OECD Composite leading indicators, designed to anticipate turning points in economic activity relative to trend, continue to expand steadily in the OECD area as a whole and in some large emerging-market economies. / OECD
• A change in the intensity of the conflict with Hamas could negatively affect Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and make it difficult to return to the equilibrium that existed before the May riots. / Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
• Polyethylene will now join plastic mixtures such as PVC and plastic waste containing polymers produced as a result of mechanical treatment of waste on Turkey's list of banned plastic imports. / Resource Magazine
• In the next five years, global capacity to produce virgin polymers for single-use plastics could grow by more than 30%. / The Guardian
• Future observatories, such as Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope due to launch in 2021, will look for signs of life on exoplanets by analysing the composition of their atmospheres. / The Guardian
• Technology investments are not distributed in a manner anywhere consistent with the United States' racial and ethnic composition, and as a result there's a risk that financial innovations can be missed and new markets overlooked. / American Banker
• The emergence of cellular composites will deliver enhanced crashworthiness and operational efficiencies of transportation vehicles, which will improve the safety and mileage range of future vehicles. / Queen Mary University of London
• The project, led by researchers from Queen Mary's Mechanics of Composite Materials Group, will create an intelligent data-driven virtual testing tool to assess an emerging type of lightweight materials, known as synthetic cellular composites. / Queen Mary University of London
• The $100 million Australian honey industry exports 4500 tonnes of honey every year, and could benefit from the findings, which could be used for a honey certification program to confirm the floral composition and provenance of commercial honey. / Good Fruit & Vegetables
• Battery pack materials which will be in demand include aluminium, copper, thermal management materials, thermal interface materials, steel, glass fibre reinforced polymers, carbon fibre reinforced polymers, inter-cell insulation, compression foams and housings, and pack fire-retardant materials. / The Assay
• Besides US monetary policy, factors related to the composition of capital inflows influence whether higher US bond yields will trigger a financial tightening in EMEs. / BIS
• The environmental legislation on recycling of end-of-life components and structures will mean that from 2025, 80,000 tons of fibre reinforced polymer composites will have to be recycled every year in Europe. / Europa
• In the range of 3-10 times the mass of Earth, there might be a wide variety of planetary compositions, including water worlds, snowball planets, or planets that, like Neptune, are composed largely of dense gas. / Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System
• Like any other country, China's economic growth will be driven over the medium term by the rate of productivity growth and the size and composition of its labor force. / Project Syndicate
• Fresh water sourcing in arid regions of West Texas and New Mexico threaten the water supply of local communities and essential agriculture activities, while environmental concerns surrounding the chemical composition of produced water serve only to fan the flames of public antipathy. / Insurance Journal
• Complete additional investment into Washington facility for HDPE post-consumer milk bottles, which will increase recycling capacity by a further 50% to 39,000 tonnes of input per annum, and will grow Biffa Polymers' business to an annual capacity of 155,000 tonnes and revenue of c. / -
• Freshwater sourcing in arid regions of West Texas and New Mexico threaten the water supply of local communities and essential agriculture activities, while environmental concerns surrounding the chemical composition of produced water serve only to fan the flames of public antipathy. / Natural Gas Intelligence

Last updated: 25 July 2021