Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Gurpreet Singh, Kansas State University associate professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team have developed a paperlike battery electrode using silicon oxycarbide glass and graphene. Credit: Kansas State University

It may improve tools for space exploration or unmanned aerial vehicles. A/Prof Gurpreet Singh of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team created the battery electrode using silicon oxycarbide-glass and graphene.

The battery electrode has all the right characteristics. It is >10% lighter than other battery electrodes. It has close to 100% cycling efficiency for >1000 charge discharge cycles. It is made of low-cost materials that are byproducts of the silicone industry...

A close-up look at the transparent wood created at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Credit: KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Windows and solar panels in the future could be made from one of the best – and cheapest – construction materials known: wood. Researchers at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have developed a new transparent wood material that’s suitable for mass production. Prof. Berglund says transparent wood panels can also be used for windows, and semitransparent facades, when the idea is to let light in but maintain privacy.

The optically transparent wood is a type of wood veneer in which the lignin, a component of the cell walls, is removed chemically. “When the lignin is removed, the wood becomes beautifully white...

This is a schematic illustration of the lattice and magnetic structures for EuMnBi2 at zero field, together with the formal valence of each ion. The arrangement of the Mn sublattice is assumed to be the same as in SrMnBi2. Credit: Hideaki Sakai

This achievement will lead to a new field of study, strong correlated quantum transport of Dirac electrons, and become an innovation in realizing super high speed spintronics, the foundation of high-speed and energy-saving electronics.

A/Prof Hideaki Sakai at Osaka University and A/Prof Shintaro Ishiwata, Hidetoshi MASUDA (Grad Student) at Uni of Tokyo succeeded in the synthesis of high-quality single crystals of EuMnBi2, a layered compound which is thought to have both properties of Dirac fermions and magnets, using flux growth in a high vacuum...

Crystal structures of the competing phases.

The quantum behaviour of hydrogen affects the structural properties of hydrogen-rich compounds, which are possible candidates for the elusive room temperature superconductor. New theoretical results suggest that the quantum nature of hydrogen – meaning that it can behave like a particle or a wave — strongly affects the recently discovered hydrogen sulphur superconductor, a compound that when subjected to extremely high pressure, is the highest-temperature superconductor yet identified...