Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Decorating Graphene Oxide with Ionic Liquid Nanodroplets: An Approach Leading to Energy-Dense, High-Voltage Supercapacitors

The ability to charge cellphones in seconds is one step closer after researchers at the University of Waterloo used nanotechnology to significantly improve supercapacitors. Their novel design roughly doubles the amount of electrical energy the rapid-charging devices can hold, helping pave the way for eventual use in everything from smartphones and laptop computers, to electric vehicles and high-powered lasers.

“We’re showing record numbers for the energy-storage capacity of supercapacitors,” said Michael Pope, a professor of chemical engineering who led the Waterloo research. “And the more energy-dense we can make them, the more batteries we can start displacing...

A single crystal of CaFe2As2 (scale bar 1 mm). Right: a micropillar of CaFe2As2, used to test its elasticity (scale bar 1 ?m). Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Ames Laboratory

Scientists have discovered super-elastic shape-memory properties in a material that could be applied for use as an actuator in the harshest of conditions, such as outer space, and might be the first in a whole new class of shape memory materials. These materials “remember” their original shape and return to it after they are deformed. They are commonly metallic alloys that make possible “unbreakable” eyeglass frames and quieter jet engines.

But the material in this research, CaFe2As2, is not a metallic alloy but an intermetallic more well-known for its novel superconducting properties...

Contrary to classical bits, quantum bits can assume two states at the same time: Right and left, yellow and blue, zero and one.
Credit: KIT

Hurricanes, traffic jams, demographic development – to predict the effect of such events, computer simulations are required. Many processes in nature, however, are so complicated that conventional computers fail. Quantum simulators may solve this problem. One of the basic phenomena in nature is the interaction between light and matter in photosynthesis. Physicists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now made a big step towards quantum mechanics understanding of plant metabolism. This is reported in Nature Communications.

“A quantum simulator is the preliminary stage of a quantum computer...

This shows the synthetic purple membrane assembly developed by Elena Rozhkova and fellow Argonne researchers. The assembly, which includes nanodiscs, titanium dioxide and platinum nanoparticles, can transform sunlight into hydrogen fuel. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

A new way has been found to produce solar fuels by developing “synthetic purple membranes.” These membranes involve an assembly of lipid nanodiscs, man-made proteins, and semiconducting nanoparticles that, when taken together, can transform sunlight into hydrogen fuel...