Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Researchers are generating carbon nanofibers (above) from CO2 , removing a greenhouse gas from the air to make products. Credit: Stuart Licht, Ph.D.

Finding a technology to shift carbon dioxide, the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, from a climate change problem to a valuable commodity has long been a dream. Now, a team of chemists have developed a technology to economically convert CO2 directly into carbon nanofibers for industrial and consumer products. “Such nanofibers are used to make strong carbon composites, such as those used in the Boeing Dreamliner, as well as in high-end sports equipment, wind turbine blades and a host of other products.”

Previously, the researchers had made fertilizer and cement without emitting CO2. Licht calls his approach “diamonds from the sky...

C/2006 P1 Comet McNaught, the ‘Great Comet of 2007′, as seen from Swift’s Creek, Victoria, Australia on 23 January 2007. Image credit: Fir0002 / Flagstaffotos / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0.

Substantial synthesis of peptides – the first building blocks of life may have been driven by comet impacts. Dr Sugahara from JAMSTEC in Yokahama, and Dr Koichi Mimura, from Nagoya University performed a series of experiments to mimic the conditions of comet impacts on the Early Earth at the time when life first appeared, around 4 billion years ago.

They took frozen mixtures of amino acid, water ice and silicate (forsterite) at cryogenic condition (77 K), and used a propellant gun to simulate the shock of a comet impact...

A. This image shows methyl phosphate. B. Methyl phosphonate. Phosphonate compounds are characterized by a direct link between carbon (C) and phosphorus (P), marked with red. C. The molecular structure of the C-P lyase complex. Credit: Ditlev E. Brodersen, Aarhus University

Bacteria exhibit extreme adaptability, which makes them capable of surviving in the most inhospitable conditions. New research results produced by Danish and British researchers now reveal the molecular details behind one of the secret weapons used by bacteria in their battle to survive under very nutrient-poor and even toxic conditions.

All living things need phosphate to grow, which is why several hundred million tons of phosphate fertilisers are used every year in agriculture throughout the world...

The discovery may aid Water Purification and Oil Refining. Researchers have observed droplets spontaneously fling themselves from thin fibers. As long as the strands are moderately hydrophobic and relatively thin, small droplets combining into one are apt to dance themselves right off of the tightrope.

“We were studying how insect wings with a hairy structure clean themselves, and an undergrad Adam Williams saw two droplets merge and suddenly leave a strand of hair,” said Chuan-Hua Chen, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke. “Since we couldn’t easily reproduce the effect, we thought it was just an artifact, perhaps due to the slight breeze created by the humidifier in the experiment.”

IMAGES: self-propelled removal of drops from a hydrophobic fiber, ...