Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

The new perovskite solar cells have achieved an efficiency of 20.1 per cent and can be manufactured at low temperatures, which reduces the cost and expands the number of possible applications. (Photo: Kevin Soobrian)

Research removes a key barrier to large-scale manufacture of low-cost, printable perovskite solar cells. A U of T Engineering innovation could make printing solar cells as easy and inexpensive as printing a newspaper. “Economies of scale have greatly reduced the cost of silicon manufacturing,” said Professor Ted Sargent, Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. “Perovskite solar cells can enable us to use techniques already established in the printing industry to produce solar cells at very low cost...

Schematic shows the components of a CHAMP cylinder-piston assembly used to create hydrogen from methane and steam via variable volume catalytic reaction. The process also concentrates carbon dioxide emissions from the process. (Credit: David Anderson, Georgia Tech) DOW

When is an internal combustion engine not an internal combustion engine? When it’s been transformed into a modular reforming reactor that could make hydrogen available to power fuel cells wherever there’s a natural gas supply available...

A new bilayer material, with each layer measuring less than one nanometer in thickness, someday could lead to more efficient and versatile light emission, such as bendy LED screens. Credit: Matthew Bellus

A new bilayer material, with each layer measuring < 1nm in thickness could lead to more efficient and versatile light emission. Researchers working at the Ultrafast Laser Lab at the University of Kansas successfully created the material by combining atomically thin layers of molybdenum disulfide and rhenium disulfide. “Both absorb light very well as semiconductors, and they’re both very flexible can be stretched or compressed,” said Hui Zhao, associate professor of physics and astronomy at KU...

A schematic diagram illustrating the preparation of Ru@C₂N is shown in the figure above. (Ruthenium: shown in gold, Carbon: shown in grey , Nitrogen: shown in sky-blue)

UNIST scientists have developed an exiting new catalyst that can split water into hydrogen almost as well as platinum can, but less costly and found frequently on Earth. As described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, this ruthenium (Ru)-based material works almost as efficient as platinum and likely shows the highest catalytic performance not affected by the pH of the water.

The research team, led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek of the Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST has synthesized Ru and C2N, a 2D organic structure, to verify its performance as a water-splitting catalyst...