Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Sodium-potassium alloy is a room-temperature liquid metal that could unlock a high-voltage flow battery. (Image credit: Antonio Baclig)

A new type of flow battery that involves a liquid metal more than doubled the maximum voltage of conventional flow batteries and could lead to affordable storage of renewable power. A new combination of materials developed by Stanford researchers may aid in developing a rechargeable battery able to store the large amounts of renewable power created through wind or solar sources. With further development, the new technology could deliver energy to the electric grid quickly, cost effectively and at normal ambient temperatures.

The technology – a type of battery known as a flow battery – has long been considered as a likely candidate for storing intermittent ...

A newly identified insulating material using the symmetry principles behind wallpaper patterns may provide a basis for quantum computing, according to an international team of researchers. This strontium-lead sample (Sr2Pb3) has a fourfold Dirac cone surface state, a set of four, two-dimensional electronic surface states that go away from a point in momentum space in straight lines. Credit: Image courtesy of Benjamin Wieder, Princeton University Department of Physics

An international team of scientists has discovered a new, exotic form of insulating material with a metallic surface that could enable more efficient electronics or even quantum computing...

When exposed to sunlight, star-shaped gold nanoparticles coated with a semiconductor allow efficient production of hydrogen from water. Credit: Ashley Pennington/Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Rutgers study opens door to broader use of sunlight and advanced materials to combat climate change. Star-shaped gold nanoparticles, coated with a semiconductor, can produce hydrogen from water over 4X more efficiently than other methods – opening the door to improved storage of solar energy and other advances that could boost renewable energy use and combat climate change, according to Rutgers University-New Brunswick researchers.

“Instead of using ultraviolet light, which is the standard practice, we leveraged the energy of visible and infrared light to excite electrons in gold nanoparticles,” sa...

Chemical engineering student Ka Fung Wong looks at the data log, which is used to gather data from sensors buried under the concrete test plot. Credit: WSU

New coal concrete reduces energy demand, greenhouse emissions. Washington State University researchers have created a sustainable alternative to traditional concrete using coal fly ash, a waste product of coal-based electricity generation. The advance tackles two major environmental problems at once by making use of coal production waste and by significantly reducing the environmental impact of concrete production.

Xianming Shi, associate professor in WSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and graduate student Gang Xu, have developed a strong, durable concrete that uses fly ash as a binder and eliminates the use of env...