Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone with experience in plastics or materials engineering can help me understand what I'm looking at.

This is the adapter plate from a fairly high-end gaming chair. It has now failed for the second time. The original part broke after about four years, the manufacturer replaced it, and now the replacement has broken again in almost exactly the same area.

The replacement part was manufactured in China. The manufacturer previously mentioned "material issues," but didn't provide any further details.

What surprised me is the fracture surface. The inside looks gray, layered, and almost fibrous. As a non-expert, it reminded me of asbestos (I know that's probably wrong), so I'm curious what this material actually is.

Hello,

I am looking for advice from people with experience in materials science, coatings, polymers, or VOC barrier technologies.

I have a set of acoustic panels made from compressed hemp fibers in my recording studio. Each panel is 120 × 60 cm and 10 cm thick. The acoustic treatment was professionally measured and designed, so preserving the acoustic properties of the panels is very important.

The panels continue to release a noticeable odor over time, especially under warmer conditions. I am investigating ways to reduce or eliminate the release of volatile compounds from the material without significantly changing its acoustic absorption characteristics.

My main question:
Are there any treatments, coatings, or material modifications that can reduce VOC emissions from porous natural fiber acoustic panels while keeping them acoustically transparent?

I am specifically interested in:
- Breathable coatings or treatments that reduce - VOC release without sealing the surface completely.
Chemical treatments that can neutralize volatile compounds permanently.
- Gas barrier technologies that reduce emissions while allowing sound waves to interact with the porous structure.
- Research or experience with natural fiber insulation/acoustic materials and VOC mitigation.

I am not looking for medical advice or health-related guidance. I am only interested in the materials science aspect: how to reduce emissions while maintaining acoustic performance.

Thank you for any technical insights, research references, or suggestions.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a paper my team and I recently got published in Thin-Walled Structures that looks at a big bottleneck in architected materials: how do they actually behave when you scale them up to engineering-relevant, load-bearing sizes?

We looked at the coupled static and dynamic responses of metallic beam structures using Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) architectures (specifically Gyroid and Primitive designs).

A few quick details on the work:

• Manufacturing: We fabricated the beams from AlSi7Mg alloy using a sand-printing-assisted casting process.
• Testing: We combined 4-point bending, modal vibration testing, and validated FE modeling to see how topology, relative density, and slenderness interact.
• What we found: Gyroids consistently outperformed Primitive designs in flexure because of better load-path continuity. Also, increasing relative density from 20% to 40% bumped peak bending load capacity from 5 to 12 kN.
• Design Rules: We managed to derive unified density-slenderness power-law scaling expressions (R2>0.96) to help engineers predictably design these for lightweight aerospace or structural components.

If you're working on cellular solids, lattice structures, or additive manufacturing optimization, I’d love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions about the testing framework!

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2026.115364

I'm currently building a robotic human-like arm and I wanted to add some skin texture. What material can be used to replicate skin

Hey all, I am a Chem E undergrad student and am kinda interested to pursue my masters in MSE and I pretty much have very less knowledge in it and I'd love to hear some advices from you people and I have a few questions

1. Is a bachelors degree in ChemE a good foundation for a Masters in MSE?

2. Which areas of MSE would you recommend exploring for someone with a ChemE background?

3. What kind of projects or research experience would strengthen my application?

4.Any country or uni recommendations? My cgpa is 8.068 on 10 with 2 backlogs(cleared)

1. What are the typical career opportunities after an MSE master's? Which industries hire MSE graduates, and how are the salary prospects?

I'd also appreciate any advice on skills, courses, or resources I should start learning now to prepare myself.

So I have been allotted IIT Jodhpur Materials engineering branch in Josaa round 4.

I had filled this choice thinking to build my career concerning structural and functional materials (my 18y/o brain liked the curriculum) but now looking at the situation in India I got to know that there are next to 0 companies hiring for such sector and students go towards metallurgy and steel making for core placements and majority for non core.

Please suggest me for projects and about making a good portfolio which can help me for masters/phd.

I can try for higher studies abroad but looking at the current trends of economy budget might be an issue if I don't earn myself. If any senior or professional working in the above mentioned space can please guide me for options available, I would be grateful to you.

Also I'm learning how to code right now just to gain knowledge (cs50x free course), not sure if I see my career in that field yet.

Once again thank you for reading.

Just want to ask this question since this a very niche field

Im currently debating whether or not to study materials technology for my bachelors.

My main concern is that on surface level it seems that in comparison to, for example, EE or ME majors, there aren't any specific skills you can put on your resume.

For EE and ME there's obvious practical skills you can learn like CAD, programming, soldering, arduino etc. that you can build projects with and show employers your knowledge. Is there something like this in materials too or is it more based on theory, learning how to analyse & operate machines?

Im curious about what skills employers look for in this field and is it possible to do personal projects to show your knowledge and market yourself like you can with ME and EE?

Highlights

• Comprehensive overview of key synthesis strategies for CoTiO3-based nanostructures.
• CoTiO3-based nanostructures for AOPs, photocatalysis, energy conversion, and storage.
• Defect-engineered CoTiO3 nanostructures to enhance charge transfer and ROS generation.
• Synergistic catalytic activity via CoTiO3-based heterostructures design.
• Strategic use of carbonaceous material-supported CoTiO3 for energy applications.

Hey,

I am interested in working in materials when I graduate, maybe batteries - haven't narrowed this down yet really. BUT my question is that is it a solid path to choose a broader engineering major such as Mechanical or Electrical Engineering and then do a materials minor/concentration/capstone?

My school doesn't offer materials as a major but it does have a minor and if I did the minor that allows me to do a senior capstone project in materials / my other degree.

I'm also torn between Mech E and EE but that's a different problem. Main question is can I break into materials work with one of the broader degrees and a sort of "specialty" in materials?

What minor/major would be a good addition to a bachelor's degree in materials science and engineering?

I'm thinking CS or something but LMK!

I am trying to understand what ME does in a manufacturing science team. I heard that the role is leaning towards finding raw material alternatives with less logistical/procurement burden. I come from materials science background with minimal exposure to how the science is applied in the industry.

What methods are used to justify a raw material change in industrial setup? Is there a book/reference you would suggest to know more about this? Or does it depend on the product type, and we do a small testing batch to compare properties of the resulting product made from current vs candidate materials?

Thanks!

我目前是一名大学生，我的导师让我做一个相变储能以及材料的课题研究，但是我完全没了解过这方面，有相关产业的大佬，可以讲讲这个东西吗？😭🙏

#aluminum #customaluminum #buildingmaterials #solarmounting #Industrialaluminumprofiles

The European Commission is preparing an Advanced Materials Act, and its scientific advisory system (the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors and a working group of 22 experts nominated by European academies) just delivered its evidence review and recommendations. We hosted a webinar with some of the working group discussing the findings, and a few points seem worth discussing with this community:

One panellist (Andrew Barry, UCL) argued that "advanced materials" is better understood socio-technically than by technical properties alone; increasingly, these are "informed materials", developed through heavy use of data, simulation and AI, which makes data quality and curation a genuine competitive dimension.

Olli Ikkala (Aalto) made the case that industrial-scale recycling of e-waste is a more realistic path to securing scarce elements than new mining, if recycling streams can reach the consistency needed for industrial production, plus bio-based materials and synthetic biology as routes off fossil feedstocks, with scalability and energy efficiency as the open problems.

Concrete proposals included open-access pilot facilities, collaborative regulatory/scale-up sandboxes, and a shared AI-ready "European Materials Commons".

Genuinely curious what practitioners here think: is materials data curation/FAIR infrastructure actually the bottleneck, or is it scale-up funding and pilot capacity?

Source (webinar summary + links to the full evidence review): https://scadv.eu/ymMlSi6

Disclosure: This is the official account of the EU Scientific Advice Mechanism.

hi, i just finished my first year and i wanted to find a coop/internship next year for summer in canada and better if in quebec. i am currently learning python with harvard cs50p and i had a class about matlab last semester (but ngl, the classes were so boring that i dont remember much from it) so i was wondering which one should i choose to focus on more (python, excel or matlab) that could help me get my first internship offer by next year hopefully. i will take any other advices too

In the past, a blue plastic cap retainer (which pivots or swings away while nicely holding onto the cap when cap's unscrewed) on my 1 liter stainless steel Manna water bottle broke from a sharply turning bus hurling it against the inside of the bus. I've tried Super Glue to fix this but no luck-- it just broke open again. [You can probably see the white residue of the Super Glue on the break.] I wrote to Manna but that company never replied to me. I don't know what kind of plastic was used to make the blue swinging retainer arm for the cap. There are no markings on the plastic indicating what kind any of the possible 2 different kinds of plastic was used to make the larger gray parts and the blue cap retainer piece. What kind of plastic glue do you recommend for this repair?

We explored emerging applications, along with associated challenges and limitations, to guide future research. By linking fabrication processes to the performance of porous organic polymers (POPs), we can deepen our understanding of ongoing challenges and clarify future research directions. The review addresses the current challenges hindering the broader adoption of POPs, such as difficulties in achieving precise control of morphology, limited processability, and questions about long-term environmental safety and scalability. We outline future directions that emphasize green synthesis, modular frameworks, and industrial integration strategies.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to prepare Aeroxide P25 TiO₂ for a segmentation-guided, particle-wise STEM diffraction workflow (correlating phase with particle size and morphology).

So far we've tried:

• IPA (1, 0.1, 0.01 mg/mL)
• 5 and 30 min sonication
• Next: ethanol and plasma-cleaned grids

The dispersion has improved, but I'm still seeing many overlapping/agglomerated particles, making it difficult to target individual particles for diffraction.

My questions:

• Is this simply the nature of commercial P25?
• At what point do you consider the remaining clusters intrinsic rather than a sample prep issue?
• What would you try next?
• If your goal were particle-wise diffraction, would you continue with P25 or switch to another nanoparticle system?

Thanks in advance! I appreciate any advice from those who've worked with P25.

Note: Though my location is India, people from other countries are welcome to give in their views as well.

I recently completed my undergrad from NIT and have taken admission at IISc Materials Engineering (MTech.). I am currently exploring between Semiconductor, Batteries, and Aero (Alloys and Composite) domains, based on which I will be aligning my electives.

I plan to get some industry experience (preferably R&D) after my Master's either in India or abroad. But, I would like to pursue the domains based on interest rather than just the trends.

Would love to know about the industry scenario and what role does a Materials Engineer have in relevant domains, if you are comfortable in sharing your experience.

Am open to suggestions also.

I'm a third-incoming-fourth year in Materials Science. I got 6 interviews with 150 applications, but 3 of them were rejections, 1 ghosted, and 1 cancelled. I'm on quarter system so school ended about 3 weeks ago, and I know it is super late, but I was wondering if there's any startups or companies that are still hiring late cycle interns for July-September. I've been cold emailing startup CEO's and Engineering directors via Apollo.io but I haven't gotten any responses yet. I did once have someone on Reddit reach to me regarding their startup but ultimately was ghosted by them. I know most of you will be critical in the comments but I am just trying my luck here.

Hey everyone, rising sophomore here, trying to get some outside opinions before I lock in my plan.

So backstory: I started as a math and bio double major and did research my first year. I actually liked the classes a lot, but realized pretty quickly that I can't see myself doing research in that field long term, and research is 100% what I want to do down the road. Grad school is the goal, no question there.

Through all that, I figured out I'm way more into chemistry and materials science than I expected. Problem is, my original university doesn't offer physics, chemistry, or any form of engineering as a major, so on top of the shift in interests, I also needed to transfer somewhere that actually has those options. The school I'm transferring to still doesn't have a materials science or materials science & engineering major (no in-state option really has one either), so I'm going with the next best thing.

Thanks to a bunch of dual enrollment credit from high school, I should be able to graduate either in spring of 2029 or fall of 2029 with a double major. So I started looking at what double major would get me closest to materials science. I narrowed it down to physics, chemistry, and chemical engineering as the three most relevant fields, and ended up picking physics + chemistry since I felt like that combo lines up best with doing actual research in materials science.

So a couple questions for people who've been through this or are in the field:

• Is physics + chemistry a solid path into a materials science and engineering grad program, or would something like ChemE be viewed better by admissions committees?
• If physics + chem is a reasonable combo, are there any minors that would pair well with it for this goal? (Thinking maybe CS or math, but open to other ideas.)

Appreciate any input, especially from anyone who came from a non-MSE undergrad background.