Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Professor Fernando Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal-organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of it as an artificial photosynthesis process similar to the way plants convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into food. But instead of producing food, Uribe-Romo’s method produces solar fuel. Credit: Bernard Wilchusky

Scanning Electron Microscope Images of architectured carbon nanotube (CNT) textile made at Illinois. Colored schematic shows the architecture of self-weaved CNTs, and the inset shows a high resolution SEM of the inter-diffusion of CNT among the different patches due to capillary splicing. Credit: University of Illinois

Thermal measurement of nanopolyethylene (nanoPE) and various textile samples. (A) experimental setup of textile thermal measurement. The heating element that generates constant heating power is used to simulate human skin, and the “skin temperature” is measured with the thermocouple. Lower skin temperature means a better cooling effect. (B) Thermal measurement of bare skin, nanoPE, cotton, and Tyvek. NanoPE has a much better cooling effect than that of cotton and Tyvek because of its infrared (IR)-transparency. (C) Thermal imaging of bare skin and the three samples. Only nanoPE can reveal the H-shape metallic pattern because of its IR-transparency. Photo by Stanford University.

(Left to right): Postdoc Kyusang Lee, Professor Jeehwan Kim (sitting), and graduate students Samuel Cruz and Yunjo Kim. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT