Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

“Imagine if someone were to fine-tune our system so that you could get 85 percent of the carbon and nitrogen back from waste into protein without having to use hydroponics or artificial light,” said House. “That would be a fantastic development for deep-space travel.” Image: Space Toilet © iStock Photo ALJ1

A Penn State team has shown that it is possible to rapidly break down solid and liquid waste to grow food with a series of microbial reactors, while simultaneously minimizing pathogen growth. “We envisioned and tested the concept of simultaneously treating astronauts’ waste with microbes while producing a biomass that is edible either directly or indirectly depending on safety concerns,” said Christopher House, professor of geosciences, Penn State...

Engineered carbon fibers embedded with active nanoparticles (top) can be fabricated into structural materials that are lightweight and flexible (bottom). Credit: UC Riverside

New material creates fuel cell catalysts at a hundredth of the cost. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, describe the development of an inexpensive, efficient catalyst material for a type of fuel cell called a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), which turns the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity and is among the most promising fuel cell types to power cars and electronics.

The catalyst developed at UCR is made of porous carbon nanofibers embedded with a compound made from a relatively abundant metal such as cobalt, which is more than 100X less expensive than platinum...

Photocatalytic overall pure-water splitting using the 2D heterostructures of BP/BiVO4 without any sacrificial agents under visible light irradiation.

Researchers combined 2 2D materials – black phosphorus and bismuth vanadate – to form a biologically inspired water-splitting catalyst. Normal sunlight could drive the reactions and careful design of the catalyst enabled the expected ratio of hydrogen and oxygen production. Burning hydrogen produces harmless water with the potential to eliminate CO2 emissions and their environmental burden. In pursuit of technologies that could lead to a breakthrough in achieving a hydrogen economy, a key issue is making hydrogen cheaply...

Gecko-Inspired Dry Adhesive Based on Micro–Nanoscale Hierarchical Arrays for Application in Climbing Devices

Some animals, such as geckos, can easily climb up walls and across ceilings. But currently, no material exists that allows everyday people to scale walls or transverse ceilings as effortlessly. Now, scientists report in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces a dry adhesive that could someday make it easier to defy gravity. Geckos can scale walls because of their unique toe pads that help them quickly attach and detach from surfaces. Interestingly, gecko toe pads are covered with bristle-like layers of keratin, which helps it to stick – each pad is covered with microscopic pillars, which then branch out at the tips into even smaller structures.

Scientists have manufactured dry adhesi...