Adopting a nanoscale approach to developing materials and designing experiments benefits research on batteries, supercapacitors and hybrid devices at all technology readiness levels.
Category: chemistry – Page 133
‘Could the theory be wrong? Possibly. That is the point and the case for all theories,’ says Cronin. ‘But perhaps it is less wrong than our current understanding and it will help us understand the link between physics and biology through chemistry. We have to try and we think we are onto something.’
A Sharma et al, Nature., 2023, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023–06600-9.
For his work on techniques to generate quantum dots of uniform size and color, Bawendi is honored along with Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov.
Moungi Bawendi, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry at MIT and a leader in the development of tiny particles known as quantum dots, has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2023. He will share the prize with Louis Brus of Columbia University and Alexei Ekimov of Nanocrystals Technology, Inc.
The researchers were honored for their work in discovering and synthesizing quantum dots — tiny particles of matter that emit exceptionally pure light. In its announcement this morning, the Nobel Foundation cited Bawendi for work that “revolutionized the chemical production of quantum dots, resulting in almost perfect particles.”
Whether in the brain or in the muscles, wherever there are nerve cells, there are synapses. These contact points between neurons form the basis for the transmission of excitation, the communication between neurons. As in any communication process, there is a sender and a receiver: Nerve cell processes called axons generate and transmit electrical signals thereby acting as signal senders.
Synapses are points of contact between axonal nerve terminals (the pre-synapse) and post-synaptic neurons. At these synapses, the electrical impulse is converted into chemical messengers that are received and sensed by the post-synapses of the neighboring neuron. The messengers are released from special membrane sacs called synaptic vesicles.
As well as transmitting information, synapses can also store information. While the structure and function of synapses are comparably well understood, little is known about how they are formed.
Each October, the Nobel Prizes celebrate a handful of groundbreaking scientific achievements. And while many of the awarded discoveries revolutionize the field of science, some originate in unconventional places. For George de Hevesy, the 1943 Nobel Laureate in chemistry who discovered radioactive tracers, that place was a boarding house cafeteria in Manchester, U.K., in 1911.
De Hevesey had the sneaking suspicion that the staff of the boarding house cafeteria where he ate at every day was reusing leftovers from the dinner plates – each day’s soup seemed to contain all of the prior day’s ingredients. So he came up with a plan to test his theory.
Innovation thrives when we pause to observe, question, and reimagine the world around us, turning challenges into opportunities for progress. Nature, in particular, serves as a rich source of inspiration. By observing it, studying its daily challenges, and contemplating its processes, we can discover valuable insights that inspire innovative solutions.
One of these current challenges is the production of concrete, an ancient and extremely popular material that is now accountable for a significant portion of global CO₂ emissions, due to the energy-intensive process of cement production and the chemical reactions involved. It is estimated to be responsible for approximately 8% of the world’s… More.
Explore the impressive properties of Prometheus Materials’ zero-carbon bio-concrete, a sustainable alternative to traditional concrete.
Life on Earth began from a single-celled microbe, while the rise to the multicellular world in which we live arose due a vital chemical process known as biomineralization, during which living organisms produce hardened mineralized tissue, such as skeletons. Not only did this phenomenon give rise to the plethora of body plans we see today, but it also had a major impact on the planet’s carbon cycle.
Fossil skeletons of cloudinids (Cloudina), tubular structures comprised of carbonate cones up to ~1.5cm in length, have been found in Tsau Khaeb National Park, Namibia, dating back to 551–550 million years ago in the Ediacaran (~635–538 million years ago). Dr. Fred Bowyer, from the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues aimed to use these fossils to define the location, timing and reason for why biomineralization initiated on Earth and the magnitude of its impact.
New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters combines sediment analysis with geochemical data in the form of carbon and oxygen isotopes (the same element with different atomic masses) from limestones in the Kliphoek Member, Nama Group. The research team suggest this rock was once deposited in a shallow sea during a lowstand before a period of transition to open marine conditions.
Separating molecules is critical to producing many essential products. For example, in petroleum refining, the hydrocarbons—chemical compounds composed of hydrogens and carbons—in crude oil are separated into gasoline, diesel and lubricants by sorting them based on their molecular size, shape and weight. In the pharmaceutical industry, the active ingredients in medications are purified by separating drug molecules from the enzymes, solutions and other components used to make them.
These separation processes take a substantial amount of energy, accounting for roughly half of U.S. industrial energy use. Traditionally, molecular separations have relied on methods that require intensive heating and cooling that make them very energy inefficient.
We are chemical and biological engineers. In our newly published research in Science, we designed a new type of membrane with nanopores that can quickly and precisely separate a diverse range of molecules under harsh industrial conditions.
In a surprising new study, researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have found that the electron beam radiation that they previously thought degraded crystals can actually repair cracks in these nanostructures.
The groundbreaking discovery provides a new pathway to create more perfect crystal nanostructures, a process that is critical to improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of materials that are used in virtually all electronic devices we use every day.
“For a long time, researchers studying nanostructures were thinking that when we put the crystals under electron beam radiation to study them that they would degrade,” said Andre Mkhoyan, a University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science professor and lead researcher in the study. “What we showed in this study is that when we took a crystal of titanium dioxide and irradiate it with an electron beam, the naturally occurring narrow cracks actually filled in and healed themselves.”
“The surprising thing we found is that in a particular kind of crystal lattice, where electrons become stuck, the strongly coupled behavior of electrons in d atomic orbitals actually act like the f orbital systems of some heavy fermions,” said Qimiao Si, co-author of a study about the research in Science Advances
<em> Science Advances </em> is a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal that is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It was launched in 2015 and covers a wide range of topics in the natural sciences, including biology, chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, materials science, and physics.