Britt Faulstick

A recent paper from Drexel University researchers reports that a current collector made of MXene film could reduce the battery’s weight and thickness while improving its available capacity.

A group of Drexel University students and faculty, in collaboration with Opera Philadelphia, have come up with a new way to capture the beauty of a song. They created a device that translates the pitch and volume of a singer’s performance into a work of visual art. The device will take center stage at Vox Ex Machina, Opera Philadelphia’s 50th Anniversary Gala, on Sept. 13, creating a one-of-a-kind concert experience for the audience.

Since their discovery at Drexel University in 2011, MXenes — a family of nanomaterials with unique properties of durability, conductivity and filtration, among many others — has become the largest known and fastest growing family of two-dimensional nanomaterials, with more than 50 unique MXene materials discovered to date. Experimentally synthesizing them and testing the physical properties of each material has been the labor of tens of thousands of scientists from more than 100 countries. But a recent discovery by a multi-university collaboration of researchers, led by Drexel University researcher Yury Gogotsi, PhD, and Drexel alumnus Babak Anasori, PhD, who is now an associate professor at Purdue University, that sheds light on the thermodynamics undergirding the materials’ unique structure and behavior, could be the key to supercharging this endeavor with artificial intelligence technology. The discovery was recently reported in the journal Science.

Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery will host a pair of exhibitions that showcase the digital design talents of students, faculty and local artists whose work transforms human experience through digital rendering and explores the effects of technology on humanity. The exhibitions — Digital Twin and Heavy Merge — will be open to the public from Aug. 19 to Oct. 4, 2025, at the Pearlstein Gallery at 3401 Filbert St.