Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘chemistry’ category: Page 197

Mar 3, 2022

Clues to better batteries emerge from tracking lithium

Posted by in categories: chemistry, sustainability, transportation

Pure lithium metal is a promising replacement for the graphite-based anodes currently used in electric vehicle batteries. It could tremendously reduce battery weights and dramatically extend the driving range of electric vehicles relative to existing technologies. But before lithium metal batteries can be used in cars, scientists must first figure out how to extend their lifetimes.

A new study led by Peter Khalifah—a chemist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University—tracked lithium deposition and removal from a while it was cycling to find clues as to how failure occurs. The work is published in a special issue of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society honoring the contributions of Nobel Prize-winning battery researcher John Goodenough, who like Khalifah is a member of the Battery 500 Consortium research team.

“In a good battery, the rate of lithium plating (deposition) and stripping (removal) will be the same at all positions on the surface of electrodes,” Khalifah said. “Our results show that it’s harder to remove lithium at certain places, which means there are problems there. By identifying the cause of the problems, we can figure out how to get rid of them and make better batteries with higher capacities and longer lifetimes.”

Mar 3, 2022

Study reveals chemical link between wildfire smoke and ozone depletion

Posted by in categories: chemistry, particle physics

The Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 were historic for how far and fast they spread, and for how long and powerfully they burned. All told, the devastating “Black Summer” fires blazed across more than 43 million acres of land, and extinguished or displaced nearly 3 billion animals. The fires also injected over 1 million tons of smoke particles into the atmosphere, reaching up to 35 kilometers above Earth’s surface — a mass and reach comparable to that of an erupting volcano.

Now, atmospheric chemists at MIT have found that the smoke from those fires set off chemical reactions in the stratosphere that contributed to the destruction of ozone, which shields the Earth from incoming ultraviolet radiation. The team’s study, appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to establish a chemical link between wildfire smoke and ozone depletion.

In March 2020, shortly after the fires subsided, the team observed a sharp drop in nitrogen dioxide in the stratosphere, which is the first step in a chemical cascade that is known to end in ozone depletion. The researchers found that this drop in nitrogen dioxide directly correlates with the amount of smoke that the fires released into the stratosphere. They estimate that this smoke-induced chemistry depleted the column of ozone by 1 percent.

Mar 3, 2022

What might explain Huntington’s Disease?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, health, neuroscience

Could 2 B vitamins help those suffering with Huntington’s Disease?


T he Huntington’s disease (HD) community has recently experienced setbacks, but a new research report may reignite hope, from an unexpected source: the vitamin thiamine (B1), with help from biotin (B7). The investigators, from several institutions in Spain and UCLA, write in Science Translational Medicine, “Together, these results demonstrate a thiamine deficiency in HD brain and suggest that individuals with HD might benefit from thiamine and/or biotin supplementation therapy.”

Health care providers may suggest certain supplements for HD patients, based perhaps on a deficiency (vitamins C, B12, E) in the blood, or for general health. But the new findings are different. The researchers didn’t set out to detect a vitamin deficiency, but instead probed the messaging within cells in the HD brain, which led them to a biochemical juncture that revealed the thiamine/biotin connection.

Continue reading “What might explain Huntington’s Disease?” »

Mar 3, 2022

Reading the mind of a worm

Posted by in categories: chemistry, neuroscience

Circa 2021


It sounds like a party trick: scientists can now look at the brain activity of a tiny worm and tell you which chemical the animal smelled a few seconds before. But the findings of a new study, led by Salk Associate Professor Sreekanth Chalasani, are more than just a novelty; they help the scientists better understand how the brain functions and integrates information.

Mar 2, 2022

Discovered: An easier way to create ‘flexible diamonds’

Posted by in categories: chemistry, materials

As hard as diamond and as flexible as plastic, highly sought-after diamond nanothreads would be poised to revolutionize our world—if they weren’t so difficult to make.

Recently, a team of scientists led by Carnegie’s Samuel Dunning and Timothy Strobel developed an original technique that predicts and guides the ordered creation of strong, yet flexible, , surmounting several existing challenges. The innovation will make it easier for scientists to synthesize the nanothreads—an important step toward applying the material to practical problems in the future. The work was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Diamond nanothreads are ultra-thin, one-dimensional carbon chains, tens of thousands of times thinner than a human hair. They are often created by compressing smaller carbon-based rings together to form the same type of bond that makes the hardest mineral on our planet.

Feb 28, 2022

Entirely New, Inexpensive Catalyst Speeds the Production of Oxygen From Water

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, transportation

The material could replace rare metals and lead to more economical production of carbon-neutral fuels.

An electrochemical reaction that splits apart water molecules to produce oxygen is at the heart of multiple approaches aiming to produce alternative fuels for transportation. But this reaction has to be facilitated by a catalyst material, and today’s versions require the use of rare and expensive elements such as iridium, limiting the potential of such fuel production.

Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed an entirely new type of catalyst material, called a metal hydroxide-organic framework (MHOF), which is made of inexpensive and abundant components. The family of materials allows engineers to precisely tune the catalyst’s structure and composition to the needs of a particular chemical process, and it can then match or exceed the performance of conventional, more expensive catalysts.

Feb 27, 2022

AeroSHARK thin film reduces drag on airplanes

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, transportation

A collaboration between engineers at Lufthansa Technik and chemicals and coatings manufacturer BASF has resulted in the creation of AeroSHARK—a thin film coating that can be applied to an aircraft’s outer skin to reduce drag and thus fuel consumption and carbon emissions. Swiss International Airlines has posted a blog entry on their website describing the film and the benefits the company expects to get from it. Lufthansa Technik has also posted a blog entry detailing the development of AeroSHARK.

The thin film was developed as part of an effort kicked off by engineers at Lufthansa looking for ways to reduce the cost of fuel for their planes. To that end, they looked to nature, and more specifically, sharks—creatures who have been streamlined over millions of years of evolution. The researchers found that shark skin is covered with millions of “riblets,” which are protrusions that run the length of their bodies. The engineers then teamed up with a group at BASF to create a similar type of skin for aircraft. The result was the creation of AeroSHARK, a clear, thin skin with millions of riblets, each just 50 micrometers high. Testing showed that the material reduces drag.

Continue reading “AeroSHARK thin film reduces drag on airplanes” »

Feb 26, 2022

How Mars lost its magnetic field — and then its oceans

Posted by in categories: chemistry, space

Chemical changes inside Mars’ core caused it to lose its magnetic field. This, in turn, caused it to lose its oceans. But how?

Feb 25, 2022

New model may improve Bay Area seismic hazard maps

Posted by in categories: chemistry, mapping

The Santa Cruz Mountains define the geography of the Bay Area south of San Francisco, protecting the peninsula from the Pacific Ocean’s cold marine layer and forming the region’s notorious microclimates. The range also represents the perils of living in Silicon Valley: earthquakes along the San Andreas fault.

In bursts that last seconds to minutes, earthquakes have moved the region’s surface meters at a time. But researchers have never been able to reconcile the quick release of the Earth’s stress and the bending of the Earth’s crust over years with the formation of mountain ranges over millions of years. Now, by combining geological, geophysical, geochemical and , geologists have created a 3D tectonic model that resolves these timescales.

The research, which appears in Science Advances Feb. 25, reveals that more mountain building happens in the period between along the San Andreas Fault, rather than during the quakes themselves. The findings may be used to improve local seismic hazard maps.

Feb 25, 2022

A new, inexpensive catalyst speeds the production of oxygen from water

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, transportation

An electrochemical reaction that splits apart water molecules to produce oxygen is at the heart of multiple approaches aiming to produce alternative fuels for transportation. But this reaction has to be facilitated by a catalyst material, and today’s versions require the use of rare and expensive elements such as iridium, limiting the potential of such fuel production.

Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed an entirely new type of catalyst material, called a metal hydroxide-organic framework (MHOF), which is made of inexpensive and abundant components. The family of materials allows engineers to precisely tune the ’s structure and composition to the needs of a particular chemical process, and it can then match or exceed the performance of conventional, more expensive catalysts.

The findings are described today in the journal Nature Materials, in a paper by MIT postdoc Shuai Yuan, graduate student Jiayu Peng, Professor Yang Shao-Horn, Professor Yuriy Román-Leshkov, and nine others.