Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Scientists have harnessed the natural ability of wood to faintly glow to develop a new sustainable phosphorescent material that could potentially be used in a wide number of applications, from medical imaging and optical sensing to ‘glow in the dark’ dyes and paints.

An international team of researchers led by North East Forestry University (China) and the University of Bath (UK) investigated the natural phosphorescent properties of lignin, a major component of wood.

Room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) is when a material absorbs energy with a short wavelength (such as UV light) and then emits it as visible light...

The sale of electric vehicles (EVs) has grown exponentially in the past few years as has the need for renewable energy sources to power them, such as solar and wind. There were nearly 1.8 million registered electric vehicles in the U.S. as of 2020, which is more than three times as many in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Electric vehicles require power to be available anywhere and anytime, without delays in recharging, but solar and wind are intermittent energy sources that are not available on demand. And the electricity they do generate needs to be stored for later use and not go to waste. That’s where Dr...

Flexible thermoelectric generators could be useful way to make carbon ‘green’. Invisibly small carbon nanotubes aligned as fibers and sewn into fabrics become a thermoelectric generator that can turn heat from the sun or other sources into other forms of energy.

The Rice University lab of physicist Junichiro Kono led an effort with scientists at Tokyo Metropolitan University and the Rice-based Carbon Hub to make custom nanotube fibers and test their potential for large-scale applications.

Their small-scale experiments led to a fiber-enhanced, flexible cotton fabric that turned heat energy into...

Stress and strain, applied in just the right manner, can sometimes produce amazing results. That is what researchers, led by a team at UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, discovered about an emerging semiconductor material—black phosphorous (BP)—used to make two types of optoelectronic devices: light emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodetectors.

Under mechanical strain, BP can be induced to emit or detect infrared (IR) light in a range of desirable wavelengths—2.3 to 5...