A team of scientists developed a new process for gluing two metals together at room temperature rather than with a high degree of heat.
According to Gizmodo, the new process is proposed an alternative to soldering, which is common in everyday electronics. But soldering requires heat and can therefore be potentially dangerous for a device's more delicate parts.
Published in the journal Advanced Materials and Processes, the new study detailed the process and the product that makes it possible: MesoGlue.
"It's like welding or soldering but without the heat," Hanchen Huang, a professor and chair in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University, said in a press release. "Both 'metal' and 'glue' are familiar terms to most people, but their combination is new and made possible by unique properties of metallic nanorods - infinitesimally small rods with metal cores that we have coated with the element indium on one side and galium on the other."
MesoGlue faces some obstacles to become widely accepted and used, particularly its cost, but Huang and his team have at least taken the first steps.
"The metallic glue has multiple applications, many of them in the electronics industry," Huang said. "As a heat conductor, it may replace the thermal grease currently being used, and as an electrical conductor, it may replace today's solders. Particular products include solar cells, pipe fittings, and components for computers and mobile devices."
