Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

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.”

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To fend off damage and heat from the sun’s harsh rays, scientists have developed a new, environmentally friendly paint out of glass that bounces sunlight off metal surfaces – keeping them cool and durable. “Most paints you use on your car or house are based on polymers, which degrade in the ultraviolet light rays of the sun,” says Jason J. Benkoski, Ph.D. “So over time you’ll have chalking and yellowing. Polymers also tend to give off volatile organic compounds, which can harm the environment. That’s why I wanted to move away from traditional polymer coatings to inorganic glass ones.”
Glass, which is made out of silica, would be an ideal coating. It’s hard, durable and has the right optical properties. But it’s very brittle.

Benkoski, at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, modif...

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Tungsten is exceptionally rare in biological systems. Thus, it came as a huge surprise to researchers when they discovered this novel enzyme in hot spring-inhabiting bacterium, Caldicellulosiruptor bescii. This tungstoenzyme plays a key role in C. bescii’s primary metabolism, and its ability to convert plant biomass to simple fermentable sugars which could lead to commercially viable conversion of cellulosic (woody) biomass to fuels and chemical feedstocks, which could substantially reduce greenhouse emissions.

Cellulosic biomass’ advantage as a feedstock for fuel and chemical production is that it need not compete with food production for land. Its big challenge is that cellulose is highly resistant to enzymatic degradation...

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When commercialized, this advance could help make polymer solar cells an economically attractive alternative to those made with much more expensive silicon-crystal wafers. In experiments, solar cells made with the tiny rake double the efficiency of cells made without it and are 18% better than cells made using a microscopic straightedge blade.

Polymer-based photovoltaic cells are much cheaper than silicon because they’re made of inexpensive materials that can be simply painted or printed in...

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