Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

The crystal structure of magnesium peroxide, MgO2, courtesy of Sergey Lobanov, created using K. Momma’s program for drawing crystal structures. Credit: Sergey Lobanov 

New Carnegie research demonstrates different magnesium compounds could be abundant inside other planets as compared to Earth. O and Mg are the two most-abundant elements in Earth’s mantle. However, when predicting the chemical compositions of rocky, terrestrial planets outside of our own Solar System, they shouldn’t assume that other rocky planets would have Earth-like mantle mineralogy, according to Carnegie’s Sergey Lobanov, Nicholas Holtgrewe, and Alexander Goncharov.

Eg. elevated oxygen contents have been observed in stars that host rocky planets...

Conceptual model shows how porphyrin COFs embedded in a cathode could be used to split carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen for making renewable fuels and other valuable chemical products. Credit: Courtesy of Omar Yaghi, Berkeley Lab/UC Berkeley

Porphyrin CO2 catalysts have been incorporated into the sponge-like crystals of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) to create a molecular system that not only absorbs carbon dioxide, but also selectively reduces it to CO, a primary building block for a wide range of chemical products including fuels, pharmaceuticals and plastics.

With the reduction of atmospheric CO2 emissions in mind, Yaghi and his MIU group designed and developed the first COFs as a means of separating CO2 from flue gases...

Concept of electrocuring adhesive.

Inspired by limitations of biomimetic glues in wet environments Voltaglue has many apps incl:
– gluing metal panels under water eg underwater pipe repairs;
– Replacing sutures when there is a need to join body tissues together during surgery;
– Tailoring the properties of the adhesive to be more gel-like or rubber-like which would work well in vibrating or damp environments

In future, surgeons could use biocompatible glue patches to join 2 pieces of internal body tissue together in 1-2 minutes, instead of sutures which often require 15 to 20 minutes of careful stitching. Assistant Professor Terry Steele said it took them over a year to develop an adhesive that could work under wet conditions such as in the human body or underwater.

Diazirine electrochemis...

Artificial photosynthesis used to produce renewable molecular hydrogen for synthesizing carbon dioxide into methane. Credit: Berkeley Lab

Researchers using a bioinorganic hybrid approach to artificial photosynthesis have combined semiconducting nanowires with select microbes to create a system that produces renewable H2 and uses it to synthesize CO2 into methane, the primary constituent of natural gas.

“By generating renewable hydrogen and feeding it to microbes for the production of methane, we can now expect an electrical-to-chemical efficiency of better than 50% and a solar-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency of 10% if our system is coupled with state-of-art solar panel and electrolyzer.”

The concept in the 2 studies is essentially the same – a membrane of semiconductor nanowires t...