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Nanoscale metallic glue could replace welding and soldering — Parallax Forums

Nanoscale metallic glue could replace welding and soldering

http://news.yahoo.com/groundbreaking-metallic-glue-sets-room-161912023.html

Researchers at Northeastern University have developed a new method for welding and soldering that does not require heat. The glue-like compound called MesoGlue bonds metals together at room temperature with minimal pressure needed to initiate a bond. “It’s like welding or sol­dering but without the heat,” says Hanchen Huang, pro­fessor and chair of Northeastern’s department of mechanical and industrial engineering.
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The technology hinges on the reaction between the metal-coated nanorods When the metal-coated nanorods come in contact with each other, they slide together, allowing the indium and gallium to come into contact. This pairing kicks off a chemical reaction that causes the two elements to liquefy. This liquid amalgam then is hardened by the metal core of each rod, creating a single structure that holds together like glue

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Amazing, that's a www.yahoo.com page that tells me I need JavaScript enabled in order to watch a video, I do have JS enabled. It then crashes when trying add an event listener to a non-existent HTML node. And uses two deprecated methods. And fails to load some asset from yhaoo.com. What a mess. And this is from the company that used to have the JS guru Douglas Crockford working for them. It's all gone down hill since he quit to work for Paypal.

    Oh yeah, the glue is interesting as well.

    It may well find it's uses but for my hobby jacking the fact that I can unsolder things is rather important.

  • I've been interested in glass/metal seals forever. If this indium/gallium thang works for high vacuum seals, pinch me! I'd love to kick the Apiezon W habit.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Interesting point User Name.

    You mean with this glue we might have an easy way to create our own Nixie tubes, thermionic valves and such?

    How cool would that be?

  • Well, it might not be super easy. A permanently sealed tube would need some sort of bake-out, and without knowing more about the material, I'm not sure it would stand bake-out temps. The article was probably intentionally vague about what solidifies the gallium-indium alloy.

    In a lab environment, though, it is common to have vacuum chambers and other devices semi-permanently attached to a roughing pump and molecular diffusion pump. That's more the sort of use that I was thinking of.

  • Anyone check out their website? They have a couple of videos up. Not quite ready for prime time yet, but worth keeping an eye on.

    mesoglue.com

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