Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

This is associate professor Larry (Yuerui) Lu (left) and PhD researcher Ankur Sharma from the ANU Research School of Engineering.
Credit: Jack Fox, ANU

Engineers at The Australian National University (ANU) have invented a semiconductor with organic and inorganic materials that can convert electricity into light very efficiently, and it is thin and flexible enough to help make devices such as mobile phones bendable.

The invention also opens the door to a new generation of high-performance electronic devices made with organic materials that will be biodegradable or that can be easily recycled, promising to help substantially reduce e-waste.

The huge volumes of e-waste generated by discarded electronic devices around the world is causing irreversible damage to the environment...

From the left, a mixture of gases, including CO2 (red and gray), N2 (blue), and H2 (white) are exposed to the nanoporous metal-organic framework designed by the Johnson group. Only the CO2 and H2 enter the MOF, which rejects the N2. The catalytic sites within the framework convert the CO2 to formic acid (red, gray and white), a chemical precursor to methanol. Credit: Swanson School of Engineering/Johnson Group

Technology that takes CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into valuable chemicals and fuels. Burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas releases carbon into the atmosphere as CO2 while the production of methanol and other valuable fuels and chemicals requires a supply of carbon...

The energy output of the new fuel cell design produces about 20 percent of what is possible in hydrogen fuel cells currently on the market, but the system is about 100 times more effective than biofuel cells that use related organic shuttles.
Credit: Matt Wisniewski

Fuel cells have long been viewed as a promising power source. These devices, invented in the 1830s, generate electricity directly from chemicals, such as hydrogen and oxygen, and produce only water vapor as emissions. But most fuel cells are too expensive, inefficient, or both. In a new approach, inspired by biology, a University of Wisconsin-Madison team has designed a fuel cell using cheaper materials and an organic compound that shuttles electrons and protons.

In a traditional fuel cell, the electrons and protons from hydroge...

This is a schematic representation of photocatalytic hydrogen production with InP/ZnS quantum dots in a typical assay.
Credit: Shan Yu

Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a nanoparticle type for novel use in artificial photosynthesis by adding zinc sulfide on the surface of indium-based quantum dots. These quantum dots produce clean hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight – a sustainable source of energy. They introduce new eco-friendly and powerful materials to solar photocatalysis.

Quantum dots are true all-rounders. These material structures, which are only a few nanometers in size, display a similar behavior to that of molecules or atoms, and their form, size and number of electrons can be modulated systematically...