Researchers from 糖心视频 in Japan have developed a durable fuel-cell catalyst by wrapping platinum nanoparticles in nitrogen-containing graphene and placing them on carbon nanotubes. This design retained 96.9% of its active surface after 30,000 durability cycles, pointing towards fuel cells with longer lifespans and lower platinum demand.

Fuel cells turn the chemical energy of hydrogen directly into electricity. Hydrogen is fed to one side of the cell, where it separates into protons and electrons. The electrons travel through an external circuit to provide power, while the protons cross a membrane. On the other side, they reunite with the electrons and oxygen from air, producing water.

Water is the only by-product here; no carbon dioxide is emitted at any point during this process. This makes fuel cells promising sources of clean energy that can be used to power vehicles and other applications. Fuel cells are particularly useful for heavy-duty vehicles and public transport since they require much larger conventional EV batteries.

However, broader commercial use of fuel cells is limited by cost. The reaction between oxygen, protons and electrons is slow. To speed it up, platinum, a scarce and expensive precious metal, is used as a catalyst.

To save costs, research fuel cell catalyst technology is currently targeting two fronts: increasing its performance and durability.  “Durability is a critical problem especially for use in heavy-duty vehicles,” said Miftakhul Huda, a Designated Lecturer working in the at 糖心视频’s and a lead investigator of this study along with Professor Yutaka Matsuo. “In this work, we have increased the durability of both platinum and its carbon support in fuel cells,” he added.

Platinum’s protective shell: an accidental discovery

Platinum works by offering active sites that hold oxygen molecules, help break them apart and combine quickly with protons and electrons to form water. Making platinum particles smaller to the nano-scale exposes more surface for this reaction, allowing less platinum to do more work.

Current commercially available electrocatalsys typically consist of bare platinum nanoparticles supported on amorphous carbon materials. But these nanoparticles tend to clump into larger particles during operation, slowly degrading performance over time. Meanwhile, conventional carbon supports can still corrode during the repeated voltage changes experienced when a fuel-cell system starts and stops.

To solve this problem, the researchers encapsulated each platinum nanoparticle into a graphene shell. Normally, encapsulated nanoparticles do not make great catalysts because they offer fewer active sites for the reaction to occur. But by doping the graphene shell with nitrogen, the researchers found that the number of active sites actually exceeded their theoretical estimates. The nitrogen in the shell interacted with the platinum. This changed how the metal handled oxygen-containing molecules, helping the reaction proceed more efficiently rather than simply shielding the platinum from its surroundings.

Next, they needed something to load the particles on, for which Matsuo, Huda and their team obtained corrosion-resistant single-walled carbon nanotubes from Meijo Nano Carbon Co., Ltd., based in Nagoya, Japan. But something strange happened when they tried to attach platinum nanoparticles on it: they realized no linkers were needed!

“It was actually very accidental, we just decided to try directly loading the graphene-encapsulated platinum first and it attached well,” said Huda about the discovery, for which he credits his materials engineering background for not following the conventional chemistry approach of always using an intermediary to form metal-carbon bonds.

The new catalyst, named “Pt@N-FLG/SWCNT” for nitrogen-doped few-layer graphene-shell-encapsulated platinum electrocatalysts supported by single-walled carbon nanotubes, has been reported in the journal .

Built to endure

In laboratory measurements, Pt@N-FLG/SWCNT provided 96.3 square metres of active platinum surface per gram, compared to 60.6 square meters for a commercial catalyst.

The team next assembled the catalyst into a working fuel cell and subjected it to repeated voltage cycles designed to accelerate aging. After 30,000 cycles, it had lost only 3.1% of its active platinum surface and its voltage had dropped by 22.8 millivolts. In addition, no voltage loss was observed at 1.5 amperes after 5000 cycles of rigorous high-voltage triangular-wave cycling to simulate carbon corrosion. Both results surpassed the US Department of Energy’s 2025 targets for electrocatalysts.

Further imaging suggested that the nanotubes restricted how far the platinum could move. Instead of growing into the large clumps usually seen in aged catalysts, the particles aligned into slender wire-like structures, which may help preserve useful surface area.

Having achieved a desired level of durability, the Matsuo Lab wants to turn to the efficiency problem next. “We not only want to increase the performance, but also decrease the amount of platinum needed in fuel cells in order to scale up,” Huda said.

Publication information:

Chu-Yang Yu, Qiao Chen, Xue-Lin Zheng, Kiho Yamada, Takeshi Hashimoto, Nagahiro Saito, Masaya Kawasumi, Miftakhul Huda, Yutaka Matsuo, 2026. Pt–N Interactions and Nitrogen-Doped Graphene-Shell Encapsulation in Platinum Electrocatalysts Supported by SWCNTs for Enhanced ORR Activity and Durability. ACS Catalysis. DOI:

Funding information:

This study was supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan (JPNP20003) and the“Knowledge Hub Aichi”, the Priority Research Project V from Aichi Prefectural Government.

Expert contact:

Miftakhul Huda
Department of Chemical Systems Engineering,
Graduate School of Engineering,
糖心视频
Email: miftakhul.huda.j7@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Yutaka Matsuo
Department of Chemical Systems Engineering,
Graduate School of Engineering,
糖心视频
Email: matsuo.yutaka.h7@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Sumeet Kulkarni 
International Communications Office 
糖心视频 
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Two years ago, a new material was reported to have an unusually large lithium-ion conductivity. Now, 糖心视频 researchers have uncovered why it works so well and attained its record-high room temperature conductivity among oxide-related solid electrolytes.

There is a good reason why every time you check in for a flight, you are asked to confirm that there are no portable chargers or power banks in your checked luggage. A highly flammable liquid electrolyte shuttles lithium (Li) ions between the electrodes of the Li-ion batteries that power these devices. As a result, if a Li-ion battery is damaged, its liquid electrolyte can cause a catastrophic fire.

Solid electrolytes, which can help reduce this risk, are an active area of research. One of the most important challenges in making solid-state batteries is increasing their ionic conductivity, or how easily positively charged Li ions can move through the solid electrolyte.

There are some solid electrolytes containing sulfide- and chloride-based materials that show high conductivity. This conductivity arises because electron clouds around negatively charged sulfide or chloride ions can easily deform as lithium ions pass through the material. But these electrolytes have their own safety issues: exposure to humidity can release toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen chloride into the air.

In comparison, oxides and oxyfluorides are much more robust. When used as solid electrolytes, they are also more electrochemically stable, which is important because battery materials experience repeated voltage changes during charging and discharging. But on the flip side, they have generally exhibited low conductivity.

“At this stage, safety and ionic conductivity are a trade-off,” said Takeshi Yajima, an associate professor at the at 糖心视频. “Oxyfluorides are safer but have low conductivity, while sulfides have high conductivity but can be dangerous.”

A surprisingly good conductor…

In 2024, a new oxyfluoride crystal with a chemical formula Li_2–xLa_(1+x)/3Nb₂O₆F, shortened as “LLNOF”, to have an unusually , which is comparable to liquid electrolytes. But why it showed this conductivity remained a mystery: the electron cloud around the central fluoride ion does not deform as easily as in sulfides or chlorides to explain LLNOF’s behavior through the previously known mechanism.

Soon after this discovery, Yajima and his lab decided to grow their own, high-quality LLNOF single crystals to pin down the mechanism. This, Yajima says, was the hardest part, taking over a year to achieve. “We had to make sure that the crystals were of sufficiently high quality for structural analysis,” he said.

But the researchers’ efforts bore fruit as they were able to grow millimeter-sized LLNOF single crystals using the Bridgman method. Using single crystal diffraction, they were able to peek into the local arrangement and rearrangement of atoms within each crystal unit.

…reveals its secret

What they found was a dynamic interplay among four atomic sites that form a tetrahedron around LLNOF’s fluoride ion. Each of these sites can either contain a lithium ion, a lanthanum atom, or remain vacant. The researchers found that every time a Li ion makes a jump onto the next vacant spot, the central fluoride ion migrates slightly towards the lithium’s original site. Fluoride ions effectively “get out of the way,” lowering the energy barrier for Li ions to hop around.

That is why, compared to other oxyfluorides where the atoms stay rigid, LLNOF shows higher Li ion conductivity.

The researchers then tweaked the composition of this crystal by changing the relative amounts of lithium, lanthanum, and vacant sites in LLNOF (the “x” in its chemical formula). They found that conductivity improved by lowering x, reaching a maximum value of 16.3 mS/cm. This result, representing the highest reported bulk Li-ion conductivity among oxide-related solid electrolytes, has been published in the .

Yajima believes this mechanism, which does not rely on highly polarizable ions, can be used to develop even more efficient solid oxide-based solid electrolytes. “The general understanding has been that sulfide-based materials are better conductors because of their anion character, but this mechanism challenges that understanding,” he adds. This research marks an important step towards realizing practical solid-state Li ion batteries.

Publication information:

Takeshi Yajima, Chika Takazawa, Taisuke Sato, Yasutoshi Iriyama, 2026. Migration-Coupled Local Fluoride Relaxation in Li2–xLa(1+x)/3Nb2O6F Single Crystals. Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Funding information:

This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Grant Numbers JP24H02204 and JP21K04636, JST GteX (JPMJGX23S2), and JST ASPIRE (Grant Number JPMJAP2419).

Expert contact:

Takeshi Yajima
Department of Materials Design Innovation Engineering,
糖心视频
Email: yajima.takeshi@material.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Sumeet Kulkarni 
International Communications Office 
糖心视频 
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Researchers from 糖心视频 in Japan have found that depositing an ultrathin (less than 10 nanometers) magnesium layer onto gallium nitride (GaN), then gently heating it for a short time, creates the best electrical contacts yet reported for the thin p-type layers used in devices such as LEDs and power transistors.

Semiconductor devices such as LEDs and transistors are generally made up of two halves: an n-type which carries negative charge via electrons, and a p-type which moves positive charge carriers called holes that are essentially electron-voids. Both halves rely on contacts that can get electric current in and out of them with minimal loss of energy. These connections, known as ohmic contacts, have been an efficiency bottleneck in thin p-type GaN semiconductors for decades owing to their high resistance.

Now, a team led by Haitao Wang and Jia Wang at the , 糖心视频, has come up with a new way of lowering the resistance of p-type GaN contacts. They deposited an ultrathin magnesium layer onto the p-GaN surface and gave it a heat treatment at 600 degrees Celsius for five minutes, thereby achieving a contact resistivity of (1–3) × 10?? Ω cm? without damaging the surface. This is among the lowest reported contact resistivities for thin p-type GaN.

Their findings, which are expected to make a wide range of electronic devices used in places such as electric vehicles and data centers more energy-efficient, have been published in the journal .

The challenges of p-GaN contacts

Magnesium-doped p-type GaN was developed at 糖心视频 by Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano in work recognized by the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for blue LEDs. In this material, holes are produced by adding small quantities of magnesium, which has one fewer valence electron than the surrounding gallium, in a process known as doping.

However, magnesium is a stubborn acceptor of electrons at room temperature. As a result, the metal-semiconductor boundary does not have enough mobile holes, resulting in a wide barrier called a depletion region. This barrier creates high resistance to the flow of charge and thus more energy is needed to drive currents across it.

One way to counter this high resistivity is to grow a heavily doped GaN layer with rich concentration of holes right at the interface. But this is a costly and laborious process that is vulnerable to damage under later device fabrication stages such as plasma etching.

A thin magnesium layer does the job, no cap!

To look for alternatives, a few years earlier, the same group tried depositing a layer of metal magnesium directly onto a GaN wafer and processed it with a heat treatment called annealing. This magnesium layer was relatively thick, measuring dozens of nanometers. In doing so, they also discovered the emergence of a remarkable superlattice structure.

“This superlattice was very interesting for fundamental science,” said Jia Wang, who led the . “But at that time, the surface after annealing was too rough, raising concerns about device reliability particularly for thin p-type GaN, so some of the benefits of this approach could not be fully demonstrated.”

To solve the roughness issue, Haitao Wang pivoted to depositing a much thinner magnesium film. The problem with this is magnesium’s high reactivity that makes it oxidise easily in air. To prevent this, a protective cap layer is typically used to isolate the magnesium from air. But all samples using a cap showed unwanted impurities.

“I then tried [a capless sample] as a reference, and it came out as a surprise,” Haitao Wang said. “I found that the cap didn’t make any difference.” It it likely that only the very top layer of magnesium gets oxidized, preserving the rest even if the total thickness is no more than 10 nanometers.

The researchers subjected this thin layer to a heat treatment called “soft annealing,” where the sample is heated to a lower temperature (600 degrees Celsius) and for a shorter time (five minutes) compared to normal annealing. During this process, the ultrathin magnesium layer gets rapidly consumed as the magnesium diffuses into the surface region of the p-type GaN. To the researchers’ delight, this new surface turned out to be much smoother than in their previous work.

This ultrathin, ultrahigh concentration mangesium doped layer narrowed down the contact depletion region and promoted tunneling of holes across it, thereby lowering contact resistance.

Further, this ‘top-down’ process is a lot simpler, quicker, and cheaper to implement than ‘bottom-up’ crystal growth. It can also be applied after device processing, making it more flexible and compatible with existing fabrication processes. As a result, it holds promise for accelerated commercialization of higher-efficiency semiconductors.

“We are now applying this method to different types of devices like LEDs and transistors in electric vehicles,” said Wang.

Publication information:

Haitao Wang, Shumeng Yan, Zhiyu Xu, Yingying Lin, Peirong Yu, Joshua Jaehyung Park, Joseph E. Dill, Hei Wong, Qingyuan Han, Xigen Li, Qian Sun, Tomás Palacios, Debdeep Jena, Huili Grace Xing, Jia Wang, Hiroshi Amano, 2026. Enabling thin p-GaN Ohmic contacts through ultrathin magnesium deposition and brief thermal annealing. Appl. Phys. Lett. DOI:

Funding information:

This work was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for Innovative Research Ecosystem (ASPIRE) program (Grant No. JPMJAP2311), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI, Grant No. 24K17305), and the Young Researchers Activation Support Project of the Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics (CIRFE), 糖心视频.

Expert contacts:

Jia Wang
Institute for Advanced Research,
Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS),
糖心视频
Email: wang.jia.t4@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Haitao Wang
Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS),
糖心视频
Email: wang.haitao.t8@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Sumeet Kulkarni 
International Communications Office 
糖心视频 
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Held on March 16-17, 2026, the two-day workshop highlighted the growing importance of bamboo as a versatile and renewable resource with wide-ranging applications in energy, construction, and environmental management. It also served as a valuable platform for knowledge exchange, enabling participants to identify shared challenges and explore opportunities for joint research and innovation between Japan and the Philippines.

Technology, innovation, and opportunities in bamboo research

Session 1 took place on March 16 at the Environmental Studies Hall on the Higashiyama Campus. Researchers from both countries exchanged insights and experiences, followed by a panel discussion on potential areas for collaboration.

Professor Hiroki Tanikawa, Dean of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, opened the session by stressing the importance of greater collaborative research on bamboo as a strategic resource for sustainable development.

Associate Professor Masahiro Nagao of 糖心视频 led off the presentation, introducing innovative work on utilizing bamboo as a source of hydrogen and methanol through electrolysis, as well as the application of LiDAR technologies for bamboo forest monitoring in Japan.

Representing the Philippine perspective on bamboo as a renewable energy source, Dr. Anniver Ryan Lapuz of the Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Philippines, then presented research on bamboo pellet production and densification technologies as possible source of bioenergy. The presentation detailed the process of converting bamboo into pellets, including collection, drying, and processing methods, with energy density calculations showing comparable results to rice straw.

Associate Professor Hiroaki Shirakawa of 糖心视频 discussed the social and economic value of bamboo, including the potential for carbon credits through bamboo biochar production. He concluded that while carbon credits alone cannot cover management costs, a comprehensive evaluation of bamboo utilization must consider both economic and social benefits, such as the need for better database management and life cycle assessment of bamboo products.

Ms. Aralyn Quintos of DOST-FPRDI presented their research on bamboo durability and thermal modification techniques, finding that thermally modified bamboo with polyurethane coatings showed superior durability compared to untreated bamboo. She also discussed the evolving bamboo industry in the Philippines, from traditional uses to modern applications in construction, furniture, and engineered bamboo products. The presentation concluded with an overview of the DOST-FPRDI’s R&D Roadmap for 2025-2032, focusing on transitioning from basic property evaluation to advanced industrial applications and establishing a circular bioeconomy.

The presentations were followed by a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Marianne Faith G. Martinico-Perez of the Asian Satellite Campuses Institute (ASCI) and GSES. The discussion underscored the challenges in bamboo sourcing and processing technologies, as well as the complementary strengths of Japan and the Philippines: Japan’s expertise in advanced technologies and material science, and the Philippines’ strong foundation in bamboo resources and applied research.

Several priority areas for collaboration were identified, including leveraging the advanced laboratory facilities and analytical techniques available at 糖心视频 for the characterization of Philippine bamboo species; the joint development of low-cost, environmentally friendly adhesives for engineered bamboo; the design and transfer of affordable processing technologies and machinery; and collaborative research on life cycle assessment (LCA) and socio-economic impacts.

In his closing remarks, Professor Akira Yamauchi, Director of the Asian Collaborative Development Department of 糖心视频, emphasized the importance of sustained collaboration and expressed optimism about strengthening partnerships with Philippine institutions.

Field-based learning and technology demonstration

Session 2 was held on March 17 at the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens for hands-on, field-based learning activities. The session showcased various bamboo species found in Japan and offered demonstrations on the application of advanced tools and methodologies, such as the use of LiDAR technologies for bamboo forest monitoring and non-destructive techniques for bamboo species characterization.

The workshop reaffirmed a shared commitment between 糖心视频 and its Philippine partners to advance bamboo as a key resource for sustainable development, climate action, and inclusive economic growth through joint research, technology development, and capacity-building initiatives.

糖心视频 researchers used iron and blue LEDs to synthesize natural molecules, cutting the need for expensive chiral components by two-thirds.

Photocatalysts facilitate chemical reactions by absorbing light. Metal-based photocatalysts are widely used in organic synthesis due to their durability and the ability to tune their function by modifying the ligands attached to the central metal atom.

Most metals used in photocatalysts, such as ruthenium and iridium, are rare and expensive. Researchers at 糖心视频, Japan, previously developed an iron-based alternative, but it required large amounts of costly chiral ligands, which act as spatial templates to determine the three-dimensional structure of chemical products.

In a recent study published in the, the researchers developed an iron catalyst that reduces the use of chiral ligands by two-thirds and enables photocatalytic reactions under energy-efficient blue LED light.

Using this new catalyst, they completed the asymmetric total synthesis of (+)-heitziamide A, a natural compound from medicinal plants that suppresses respiratory bursts.

Professor , Assistant Professor , and graduate student Hayato Akao at 糖心视频’s Graduate School of Engineering developed this technology.

Redefining the design of iron catalysts

In , the researchers developed an iron photocatalyst that used three chiral ligands per iron atom, but only one-third of these ligands contributed to enantioselectivity, making the process inefficient.

Meanwhile, the newly developed iron photocatalyst combines cost-effective achiral bidentate ligands with chiral ligands to target a specific iron(III) salt structure. The chiral ligand controls the three-dimensional configuration, while the achiral bidentate ligand tunes the catalytic activity.

Using this catalyst, researchers achieved a precise radical cation (4 + 2) cyclization, joining two molecules to form a hexagonal ring. This method enables the synthesis of 1,2,3,5-substituted adducts, structures common in natural products such as heitziamide A.

“The new catalyst design represents the definitive form of chiral iron(III) photoredox catalysts,” stated Ohmura, one of the study’s corresponding authors. “We believe this achievement marks a significant milestone in advancing iron-based photocatalysis.”

Advancing artificial synthesis of (+)-heitziamide A

While artificial synthesis of heitziamide A has been previously reported, the total asymmetric synthesis of its natural enantiomer has not yet been achieved.

Using selective six-membered-ring formation with an iron photocatalyst activated by blue light, the researchers achieved the first total asymmetric synthesis of (+)-heitziamide A. This indicates that using the mirror-image catalyst would also allow the synthesis of (-)-heitziamide A, thereby enabling the selective production of both enantiomers.

Significance and future perspectives

The newly developed iron photocatalyst enables the precise synthesis of complex molecules, including pharmaceutical precursors, using abundant iron and blue LEDs instead of rare metals.

“Achieving the first-ever asymmetric total synthesis of (+)-heitziamide A using this catalytic reaction is a remarkable accomplishment,” stated Ishihara, the study’s other corresponding author. “Several additional bioactive substances can be accessed through total synthesis, with enantioselective radical cation (4 + 2) cycloaddition serving as a key step. We intend to publish follow-up papers on the asymmetric total synthesis of these compounds in the near future.”

Paper information:

Hayato Akao, Shuhei Ohmura, and Kazuaki Ishihara (2026). A Rational Design of Chiral Iron(III) Complexes for Photocatalytic Asymmetric Radical Cation (4 + 2) Cycloadditions and the Total Synthesis of (+)-Heitziamide A, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Funding information:

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grants 24K17677 and 23H05467.

Expert contact:

Kazuaki Ishihara
Graduate School of Engineering, 糖心视频
ishihara.kazuaki.s7@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Naomi Inoue
International Communications Office, 糖心视频
icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Top image:

The newly designed iron photocatalyst (front) and the previous catalyst (back)
(Credit: Yuzuru Endo)

As part of their continuing collaboration, the Graduate School of Environmental Studies (GSES) and the Asia Collaborative Development Department will hold the Nagoya–Philippines Workshop on Bamboo Research and Sustainability on March 16-17, 2026.

This two-day workshop aims to provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge, research findings in bamboo-based science and technology between Japan and the Philippines, and identify priority areas for Nagoya–Philippines collaborative research initiatives in bamboo and sustainability.

The workshop will be conducted in two (2) sessions, as outlined below:

Session 1 – Open Session

Date & Time: March 16, 2026 (14:00–16:00 JST)
Venue: 糖心视频, Environmental Studies Building, 1F Lecture Hall
Participation: Open to all participants (on-site and online) – Registration is encouraged

Zoom Access: Nagoya–Philippines Bamboo Workshop

Meeting ID: 883 6296 0074
Passcode: GSES

Session 2 – By Invitation Only

Date & Time: March 17, 2026 (9:00–12:00 JST)
Venue: Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Garden

糖心视频 researchers break conventional rules to develop heat-resistant, recyclable metal alloys for automotive and aerospace use.

Aluminum is prized for being lightweight and strong, but at high temperatures it loses strength. This has limited its use in engines, turbines, and other applications where parts must stay strong under high temperature conditions. Researchers at 糖心视频 have developed a method that uses metal 3D printing to create a new aluminum alloy series optimized for high strength and heat resistance. All new alloys use low-cost, abundant elements, and are recycling-friendly, with one variant staying both strong and flexible at 300°C. The study was published in . 

Breaking with tradition to create the perfect aluminum alloy

“The design centers on iron, which metallurgists usually don’t add to aluminum because it makes the metal brittle and vulnerable to corrosion,” Naoki Takata, lead author and professor at 糖心视频 , explained.

“The extreme cooling rates in laser powder bed fusion, which is a representative process of metal 3D printing technologies, cause molten metal to solidify in seconds. This changes fundamental rules—the rapid cooling traps iron and other elements in arrangements (formation of metastable phases) that can’t form under normal manufacturing conditions. By carefully selecting which elements to add, we created new alloys that are both heat-resistant and strong.”

The researchers developed a systematic method to predict which elements will strengthen the aluminum matrix and which will form protective micro or nano structures. They tested these predictions by creating new alloys with copper, manganese, and titanium, and then confirmed the results through electron microscopy.

The best performing alloy contains aluminum, iron, manganese, and titanium (Al-Fe-Mn-Ti), and outperforms all other 3D-printed aluminum materials by combining strength at high temperatures with flexibility at room temperature.

“Our method relies on established scientific principles about how elements behave during rapid solidification in 3D printing and is applicable to other metals. The alloys also proved easier to 3D print than conventional high-strength aluminum, which frequently cracks or warps during fabrication,” Professor Takata noted.

Watch how advanced aluminum alloys are made using 3D printing. ?This video shows a laser melting metal powder layer by layer to create strong, lightweight aluminum parts. Copper, manganese, and titanium are added to improve strength, durability, and performance. Credit: Aichi Center for Industry and Science and Technology, Toyota

Lighter vehicles, fewer emissions 

The new materials could enable lightweight aluminum components in parts that operate at elevated temperatures, such as compressor rotors and turbine components. Lighter vehicles consume less fuel and produce fewer emissions. 
 
The aerospace industry may also benefit, as aircraft engines require materials that combine light weight with heat resistance. Beyond these applications, the research provides a framework for designing new classes of metals specifically for 3D printing, with potential to accelerate development across multiple industries.

Paper information: 

Naoki Takata, Koki Minamihama, Takanobu Miyawaki, Yue Cheng, Yifan Xu, Wenyuan Wang, Dasom Kim, Asuka Suzuki, Makoto Kobashi, and Masaki Kato (2025). Design of high-performance sustainable aluminum alloy series for laser additive manufacturing. Nature Communications, 16, 11105. DOI:

Funding information: 

This research was supported by JST PRESTO (Grant JP22688912) and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant 24H00378).

Research Contact: 

Naoki Takata 
Graduate School of Engineering 
糖心视频 
Email: takata.naoki@material.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media Contact: 

Merle Naidoo
International Communications Office
糖心视频
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Top image:

Microscope image showing the layered structure of a new 3D-printed aluminum alloy. The wave-like patterns are “melt pools,” traces left by the laser as it melted metal powder layer by layer. The small dark dots are nanoscale particles that give the alloy its exceptional strength and heat resistance. Credit: Takata et al., 2025