Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: chemistry – Page 197

Chemists Develop New Way To Split Water

Hydrogen is often touted as a future energy solution, especially when generated through environmentally friendly methods. Beyond its energy potential, hydrogen plays a crucial role in producing active ingredients and various essential compounds. To generate hydrogen, water (H2O) can be transformed into hydrogen gas (H2) through a sequence of chemical reactions.

However, as water molecules are very stable, splitting them into hydrogen and oxygen presents a big challenge to chemists. For it to succeed at all, the water first has to be activated using a catalyst – then it reacts more easily.

A team of researchers led by Prof. Armido Studer at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Münster University (Germany) has developed a photocatalytic process in which water, under mild reaction conditions, is activated through triaryl phosphines and not, as in most other processes, through transition metal complexes.

InnovationRx: New Insight Into How The Brain Works

To understand why this is a big deal, for a long time its been understood that (to vastly oversimplify things) the brain is primarily composed to two kinds of cells: glial cells, which are basically the brain’s infrastructure; and neurons, which communicate with each other with chemicals called neurotransmitters at special sites called synapses.

InnovationRx is your weekly digest of healthcare news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.

Add another layer of complexity to our understanding of the brain. Researchers at University of Lausanne have discovered that a heretofore unknown class of cell is also involved in the complicated internal communications of the brain. The research was published Wednesday in Nature.

Tattoo technique transfers gold nanopatterns onto live cells

For now, cyborgs exist only in fiction, but the concept is becoming more plausible as science progresses. And now, researchers are reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters that they have developed a proof-of-concept technique to “tattoo” living cells and tissues with flexible arrays of gold nanodots and nanowires. With further refinement, this method could eventually be used to integrate smart devices with living tissue for biomedical applications, such as bionics and biosensing.

Advances in electronics have enabled manufacturers to make integrated circuits and sensors with nanoscale resolution. More recently, laser printing and other techniques have made it possible to assemble flexible devices that can mold to curved surfaces. But these processes often use harsh chemicals, high temperatures or pressure extremes that are incompatible with living cells. Other methods are too slow or have poor spatial resolution. To avoid these drawbacks, David Gracias, Luo Gu and colleagues wanted to develop a nontoxic, high-resolution, lithographic method to attach nanomaterials to living tissue and cells.

The team used nanoimprint lithography to print a pattern of nanoscale gold lines or dots on a polymer-coated silicon wafer. The polymer was then dissolved to free the gold nanoarray so it could be transferred to a thin piece of glass. Next, the gold was functionalized with cysteamine and covered with a hydrogel layer, which, when peeled away, removed the array from the glass. The patterned side of this flexible array/hydrogel layer was coated with gelatin and attached to individual live fibroblast cells. In the final step, the hydrogel was degraded to expose the gold pattern on the surface of the cells. The researchers used similar techniques to apply gold nanoarrays to sheets of fibroblasts or to rat brains. Experiments showed that the arrays were biocompatible and could guide cell orientation and migration.

New 3D-printed ‘living material’ could purify water

Researchers have created a new 3D-printed substance dubbed “engineered living material.”

Removing pollutants from water is a crucial and arduous process to ensure that it is free from harmful contaminants. In recent years, several approaches and technologies for water pollution remediation have been developed and employed, including filtration, nano-materials, and chemical treatment, to mention a few.

Now, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a new environmentally friendly method for removing chemical contaminants from water bodies.

University of California.

In recent years, several approaches and technologies for water pollution remediation have been developed and employed, including filtration, nano-materials, and chemical treatment, to mention a few.

Continue reading “New 3D-printed ‘living material’ could purify water” | >

Researchers use AI to find new magnetic materials without critical elements

A team of scientists from Ames National Laboratory has developed a new machine learning model for discovering critical-element-free permanent magnet materials. The model predicts the Curie temperature of new material combinations. It is an important first step in using artificial intelligence to predict new permanent magnet materials. This model adds to the team’s recently developed capability for discovering thermodynamically stable rare earth materials. The work is published in Chemistry of Materials.

High performance magnets are essential for technologies such as , , electric vehicles, and magnetic refrigeration. These magnets contain critical materials such as cobalt and rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium. These materials are in high demand but have limited availability. This situation is motivating researchers to find ways to design new magnetic materials with reduced critical materials.

Machine learning (ML) is a form of . It is driven by computer algorithms that use data and trial-and-error algorithms to continually improve its predictions. The team used experimental data on Curie temperatures and theoretical modeling to train the ML algorithm. Curie temperature is the maximum temperature at which a material maintains its magnetism.

Unlocking The Secrets of Social Behaviors

Summary: New findings challenge our understanding of fruit fly social behaviors. While traditionally thought to rely primarily on chemical receptors for social interactions, the fruit fly’s visual system plays a pivotal role too.

By manipulating the visual feedback neurons in male fruit flies, researchers discovered that their social inhibitions were altered, leading males to court other males. This novel insight can potentially enlighten our comprehension of social behaviors in humans, including those with bipolar disorder and autism.

New research sheds light on the origins of social behaviors

Male fruit flies don’t usually like each other. Socially, they reject their fellow males and zero in on the females they discern via chemical receptors—or so scientists thought.

New research from Cornell University biologists suggests the fly’s , not just chemical receptors, are deeply involved with their social behaviors. The work sheds light on the possible origin of differences in human social behaviors, such as those seen in people with and autism.

The paper is published in Current Biology.

Scientists synthesize new organometallic ‘sandwich’ compound capable of holding more electrons

Organometallic compounds, molecules made up of metal atoms and organic molecules, are often used to accelerate chemical reactions and have played a significant role in advancing the field of chemistry.

Metallocenes, a type of organometallic compound, are known for their versatility and special “sandwich” structure. Their discovery was a significant contribution to the field of organometallic chemistry and led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1973 to the scientists who discovered and explained their sandwich structure.

The versatility of metallocenes is due to their ability to “sandwich” many different elements to form a variety of compounds. They can be used in various applications, including the production of polymers, glucometers—used to measure the amount of glucose in the blood, perovskite , and as a catalyst, a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed or changed by the reaction itself.

/* */