Researchers Turn Cement Into Metal Using Lasers
Illustration Of The Process This isn't quite what the process will look like, of course, but you get the idea. Argonne National Laboratory You might be getting a gadget made out of cement soon. A team of alchemists scientists say they've just figured out a process that turns cement into a metal semi-conductor using lasers. Metal sidewalks! Metal buildings! Metal everything! Well, no. But it could have make its way into one of your gadgets. The team--led by researchers from the Department of Energy and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute/SPring-8--took liquid cement and transformed it into a glass-metal hybrid. A glass is a solid with a non-crystalline chemical structure that can be turned into a molten, liquid state when heated. A glass-metal, or amorphous metal, is a type of metal with a similar structure and properties to a glass, which makes it conductive, less brittle than glass, and easily molded. The researchers...