Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

The research team, left to right: Brookhaven Lab research collaborator David Szalda, Baruch College; David Shaffer, Yan Xie, and Javier Concepcion, Brookhaven Lab. Not pictured: Anna Lewandowska-Andralojc, Adam Mickiewicz University. Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory

For artificial photosynthesis to become a viable alternative to fossil fuels, the efficiency and speed of water oxidation ie into O2, H ions, and electrons–is one of the processes that must be improved. By accelerating formation of O-O bond in water oxidation, newly developed ruthenium catalysts could drive the reaction needed to efficiently store solar energy in the chemical bonds of clean fuels.

The 2 catalysts–complexes of ruthenium surrounded by binding molecules (ligands) containing phosphonate ...

This is a computer graphic of an RNA molecule. Credit: Richard Feldmann/Wikipedia

A team of chemists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich has shown how the purines adenine and guanine can be synthesized easily and in reasonable yields, offering more evidence that RNA could have served as the origin of life on Earth. The team describes the process they took in looking for evidence that RNA could have been the first self-replicating molecule that eventually led to all life on our planet and what they found.

Four Nitrogenous Bases in RNA: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine

For several years many scientists have supported the idea that life got its start on our planet due to a series of events that led to the creation of RNA molecules—it seems like a strong candidate because it is able to both st...

Using a layer of molybdenum disulfide less than one nanometer thick, researchers in Rice University’s Thomann lab were able to design a system that absorbed more than 35 percent of incident light in the 400- to 700-nanometer wavelength range. Credit: Thomann Group/Rice University

Mechanics know molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) as a useful lubricant in aircraft and motorcycle engines and in the CV and universal joints of trucks and automobiles. Rice University researcher Isabell Thomann knows it as a remarkably light-absorbent substance that holds promise for the development of energy-efficient optoelectronic and photocatalytic devices.

“Basically, we want to understand how much light can be confined in an atomically thin semiconductor monolayer of MoS2,” said Assitant/Prof Thomann...

Schematic to display the mesoporous structures in wood where the cell walls are aligned vertically. After lignin is removed and the index-matching polymer is filled in, the thick (up to centimeter) piece of wood becomes a highly transparent structural material. b) Pictures to show that wood becomes highly transparent after the two steps.

Materials scientist Liangbing Hu and his team at the University of Maryland, College Park, have removed the molecule in wood, lignin, that makes it rigid and dark in color. They left behind the colorless cellulose cell structures, filled them with epoxy, and came up with a version of the wood that is mostly see-thru. “It can be used in automobiles when the wood is made both transparent and high strength.” said Dr. Mingwei Zhu...